by Samuel Iling-Junior describes his decision to leave Chelsea and join Juventus in 2020, when he was still only 16, and during Covid, as “black and white”. Given the colors of his famous stripes, it’s a neat – if inadvertent – way to discuss playing for Old Lady in Italian football.
But it was far from a simple choice. Especially since Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Paris St-Germain also made it clear that they wanted to sign the exciting winger when he made his decision to leave Chelsea and leave the Premier League.
“It was all on the table and I felt like the conversations I had with everyone at Juventus gave me the best opportunity,” explains Iling-Junior, sitting inside the club’s futuristic training ground in near Allianz Stadium.
“They were very honest with me and I appreciated that. It was like ‘you do well and we’ll push you’ and that’s what happened. That’s what I wanted. I heard what I wanted to hear.
“I sat down with my family and we talked about it: do I stay at Chelsea? Or will I take a different path? We decided to take that different path and it worked out really well.”
However, it was a big moment. Not only to quit Chelsea – where he had been since the age of eight – but England too.
“He was going to learn a different way to play the game. I was young. It was just in my head,” explains Iling-Junior. “I felt that I could learn so many different things if I went to another country. It also shows your independence.
“It’s important to be fearless in everything you do. And especially on the field. When you go abroad it might just be the one dribble you make that makes the difference in a game, or the one pass you make. It may be the one thing that is different in your development from everyone else in that country. It’s important to have that fear.”
It helps that he is a naturally curious person – “I always want to figure things out” – and someone who was willing to immerse himself in Italian life and culture as well as football. He has a global outlook with parents from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an affinity for France and it shows.
“Oh, I’ve given him my own,” he says, boasting of how quickly he learned the language, being a “good cook” and, with a laugh, “maybe 25 percent Italian now”.
Iling-Junior speaks bravely, and with pride, of the routine he and his parents went through when he was scouted by Chelsea – and had to make the journey across London. “I’m a Highbury boy,” he says and hurried off with his mother, who had met him outside the primary school, to catch the 393 bus to Highbury and Islington station in north London, then down to Vauxhall and then the train to Cobham. and Stoke d’Abernon. He had to be in training by 5.15pm, until 8pm, and sometimes it took much longer to get home because there were fewer trains at night. He hoped to be in bed by 11.30pm.
“I did that on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday,” he says. On Saturdays his father would drive him. He worked night shifts and slept in the car while training Iling-Junior. At the age of 14 he joined ‘digs’ near Chelsea’s training ground which helped prepare him for his move abroad.
“My mother [a nurse] and daddy [a computer engineer] putting everything on the line to get into training, back home and ready for school the next day and that constant repetition made me have to give 100 percent,” says Iling-Junior.
“My biggest inspiration is my father. It still is now. He says ‘it’s not done, there’s still a lot to do. Don’t stop. I believe in yourself’. It always reminds me. My mother is the other side of ‘you did really well, don’t get down on it’. It’s a good balance.”
He mentions the names of the people he played with at Chelsea – and who remain friends. “Jamal Musiala, Tino Livramento, Levi Colwill,” he says. “And in my age group there was Harvey Vale, Charlie Webster, Jude Soonsup-Bell, Lewis Bate. It is very, very good. Baller. I am always in touch with everyone. Miles Peart-Harris. Charlie Wiggett, Bashir Humphreys – he’s with me in England and he’s on loan at Swansea. I’m just going through the whole team. Dion Rankine, he is now on loan from Chelsea [at Exeter City] and Silko Thomas, he is at Leicester. Xavi Simons – is at Hull City on loan. Ben Elliott, baller. Reading. He and Jamal were when we were coming up. Good memories. We won so many trophies. I’m in touch with them all, checking how they’re doing.”
There is always a debate about whether young players have had a chance at the big Premier League clubs – and Chelsea in particular over the years.
“I feel like there’s always a path everywhere,” insists Iling-Junior. “But sometimes players look at him and think ‘maybe this isn’t the right place for me’. It’s more how we feel. I have always loved Chelsea. Chelsea never had any bad blood… maybe it was time to move on. I could have stayed and I might have been successful.”
Musiala left the year before, joining Bayern Munich of course, and Iling-Junior is also close to Jude Bellingham who joined Borussia Dortmund the same summer he moved to Turin. Back then it felt unusual for English players to go overseas. There are now 43 in the European leagues and Iling-Sóisear, who won the Under-19 Euros with England in 2022, says there has been a positive response from the Football Association.
“If anything I think they encourage it,” he says. “They want you to play at a high level and get minutes and they won’t stop you. For me, the goal is to push on with the Under-21s and then try to get into the seniors. That’s the next step.”
At Juventus, he joined the Under-23 team – known as Juventus Next Generation – which joined Serie C following a rule change in Italy to try to encourage the development of young players after they failed to qualify for the World Cup 2018. From December 2022, Iling-Junior is with the first team.
“It will open your eyes even more,” he says. “Every game you bleed for the badge, you give your all to the badge. Every game. Maybe it’s against a bigger team or a smaller team but every team is coming at you 100 percent and you learn that as you go.
“You never want to be in a place where you’re being looked down upon. At Juventus everyone looks up to you. It gives you pride every time you wear the badge.
“That gave me a different perspective on how to approach things. When I first came here it was like ‘oh yeah, if I did this trick I played well and if I scored my goal I played well’. Now I understand that I can score, I can play well, I can help a teammate and still make fans jump out of their seats when they win.
“My goals are high. I want to be a great player, winning trophies, being an important part, remembering people, always making people happy. When they see my name I want them to have a smile on their face.”
Why is that so important?
“So just the way I’ve always been,” says Iling-Junior. “When I was younger and people would praise me and say ‘you played well today; you made me happy’ it made me feel good. It’s about winning but it’s about that too. I want to win games: I want to win trophies; I want to be a serial winner and being at this club has also helped me. He taught me the importance of winning.”
However, he admits it was not easy. After making his Champions League debut in October 2022 – when he provided an assist – he became only the third Englishman, after Johnny Jordan and David Platt, to score for Juventus in Serie A , Iling-Junior did not play as often as he would have. that they liked him which led to speculation that he could return to the Premier League.
“I think it was difficult, I’ll be honest. It’s not how I saw the trajectory going,” he says. “But if I look at it in retrospect it helped me understand and take a step back. ‘Okay, where can I go with this?’ It can go two ways. I can be upset or I can stay positive and continue to train at a level and take my level to another level to try to see myself getting more minutes.
“I think right now I’m focused on being here and giving you my all. In the summer we will see how it goes and we will see what is best for me and the club because obviously I have to play. The club trusts me and I trust the club.”
