Weston McKennie is leaving Juventus. Nothing new, but this time the destination remains a puzzle, especially after the American himself refused to move to Aston Villa as part of the exchange that the Juventus club has set up in recent weeks for Douglas Luiz (read the latest here). “Future? I will decide after the Copa America”, underlines McKennie himself, who in the interview with The Athletic retraces the stages of his career.
The move to Leeds
“My time at Leeds was probably one of the lowest points, if not the lowest point of my professional career. I was at Juventus, playing week in week out, and maybe I had developed a bit of comfort or complacency. Then in the Premier League , where we changed four managers in five months, nothing went according to plan or as I had imagined. When I arrived in England, in my head I was repeating: ‘Ok, I have to put in good performances, numbers, help the team stay. top and hope that one of the top five in the league comes and sees how well I played and buys me. With all due respect to Leeds and their fans, I love Champions League football. I went there mostly to try something new.”
The problem with the fans
“I like to think of myself as someone who has a thick skin. When you get little comments here and there, it’s pretty easy to ignore them. But when you open your phone and the first thing you see on social media is always something negative, it’s hard not to I really like it when people can relate to me and I feel happy. Football is an unforgiving world. People obviously don’t know what players go through and the stress they put on themselves to achieve results. because we don’t want to have bad performances and we don’t want to lose games. It’s just that sometimes there are ups and downs, so it hurts. After the relegation with Leeds, it was probably the first time, apart from the cup exit World, in which I hated losing and felt like I had failed people’s expectations of me when they started saying “fat bastard”, “pig”, “asshole” and things like that. it was a little difficult. You don’t realize the effect that words have on people.”
McKennie then spoke about his return to Juventus, following his loan at Leeds: “When I have to prove my worth once again I benefit from it, because it makes me even more honest with myself in terms of commitment and concentration. Something clicks. It’s like a recipe. I know the ingredients to make it and then… ‘boom’. I know it will taste good. After returning to Turin, I knew it would be challenging, but I didn’t think so much: I didn’t have my locker, I didn’t have a hotel room, I didn’t have a parking space in the changing rooms with the academy boys, even when in the main changing room there were players who had never played a match for Juventus because they had always been on loan. And I thought to myself: “Wow, I’ve only been away for six months. I come back and get treated like that. I couldn’t even have my jersey number (14), even though no one else had taken it. I said to myself: ‘Ok, do you want to treat me like this? I’ll show you everything on the field.'”
“I’m not a problem person. I don’t like to cause problems. I don’t like uncomfortable situations. I don’t like drama. I just try to let my football, my actions and my work ethic show everything about me. After the Allegri summer tour took me into consideration. It punished me… what I do best and that I am most honest when I put my head down and work in those circumstances that I have had my greatest successes Schalke and I went to Juventus and nobody knew me. ‘It’s too big a club, you’ll never play,’ they said to the wall and everyone doubts me. That’s how I became the player I am.”
Now, as mentioned, it’s the Copa America’s turn, then McKennie will decide his future definitively.