Charly Musonda: ‘People will doubt me, but I am 100% confident I will wear the Chelsea shirt again’

“The last year has been the toughest of my life,” he repeats, the pain clearly sticking in the back of his throat. Just for a fleeting moment, his irrepressible grin cracks and the sadness breaks through. “I’ve suffered a lot this year. Sometimes, it can get very lonely. Every morning I woke up with the same thought: to play. It’s only when it’s taken away that you understand how much you love football. I didn’t realise how much I could miss it.”

The rise of Charly Musonda Jr appeared unstoppable. Soon after arriving at Chelsea as a 15-year-old, the winger was hailed by the club’s academy coaches as a generational talent while technical directors across Europe jockeyed in a bid to poach him. By most measures, Musonda was supposed to be a superstar by now.

But football can be fickle. Sitting in an apartment in Arnhem, far-flung from the spotlight he spent his childhood under, Musonda is now nearing his 23rd birthday. The last 18 months have been struck by mishap and then misfortune after a failed loan spell at Celtic and an operation on his knee. On the surface, he still has the same streaking blonde Bowie-esque Mohawk, the familiarly mischievous twinkle in his eye and childish residue, but even absolute confidence cannot totally conceal his grief over time lost.

“I know people will doubt me because, after a year-and-a-half, they don’t know if I’m still the same player,” he acknowledges. “But deep down, I know how good I can be. I want to show the world what I can do and, if I prove I’m still the same Charly Musonda, I’m 100% confident I can break back into the Chelsea team. Maybe it’s me being a bit naive or overconfident or just believing I can do it, but that has been my dream since I was 15 years old and that’s never changed. I want to wear the Chelsea shirt one more time.”

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Three years before Musonda was born, a DHC-5 Buffalo military plane carrying Zambia’s national team crashed into the Atlantic Ocean 500 metres off the coast of Gabon. All 30 people on board the jet were killed on impact or lost at sea in the harrowing hours that followed. When Musonda’s father, Charly Sr, was informed of the news, the team’s talisman was sitting in a hospital bed in Belgium recovering from career-ending knee surgery that ultimately ended up saving his life.

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Raised in a cramped and unassuming alcove of Anderlecht with his parents and two older brothers, Musonda Jr inherited his father’s love of football and the fire that was stripped from him prematurely. In between working as the kitman at Anderlecht and running individual coaching sessions – at one stage training both Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku – the pair would train in the fescue-eaten park behind their apartment as soon as he turned three years old. From there, dawn and twilight sessions translated into lamp-lit nights playing against the older children in the neighbourhood.

“I am definitely a street footballer,” he says. “It’s where I learned to play. The pitches were mostly mud and the grass was very, very long so we learned on the concrete with my dad. There was a lot of tough times growing up. My mum and dad always did the best to give us everything but it wasn’t easy. It teaches you to be tough, not just about football, but life as well. You learn to take care of yourself.

“It goes one of two ways: you get out and become a professional footballer or you stay there in the streets. I know a lot of kids who had potential but didn’t have someone to tell them what was right and what was wrong. I owe my family everything because without their guidance, especially growing up where we grew up, I would never have gone to a big club.”

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Musonda peered out of the window as the plane broke through the puff of cloud and Barcelona glistened in the light. Since he was 10 years old, France and the Netherlands’ top clubs had attempted to lure him from Belgium. But as Europe’s elite placed blind bets for his signature, he had finally outgrown his hometown. Barcelona was a 15-year-old’s ecstasy, the city of his idols past and present, the beating heart of football. As Musonda was toured around La Masia, even Pep Guardiola made a choreographed introduction in an attempt to fend away the interest of Real Madrid, Manchester City and Arsenal.

“When you come from a small country like Belgium and a club like Barcelona wants to sign you,” he trails off. “It was hard for me even to imagine.”

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Yet, for all Spain’s allure, Chelsea appealed to an emotion other clubs had never untangled when they offered to sign Musonda’s brothers, meaning the family could move to west London as one. “I came to Chelsea at 15,” he says. “And I fell in love with this club.”

Even now, eight years since Musonda first joined, he is regarded as one of the most naturally talented players to walk through the doors at Cobham. Working with Joe Edwards, he added brushes of grit and tenacity to his showmanship as impatience grew over how fast he would be fast-tracked.

“I don’t think pressure is something that ever fazed me,” he says. “You bring it on yourself when you play a certain type of way. If I was a more reserved player, or a little bit more nervous, the hype might have affected me a little bit more. But if you’re a skilful player and you want to be somebody who expresses yourself, you have to be willing to accept that there’s going to be hype and criticism. I wanted it to be in the situation where eyes were on me.”

During his three years in the academy, Musonda won two league titles, two FA Youth Cups and the Uefa Youth League. He had begun training with the first team but with opportunities limited he reluctantly looked elsewhere. “He must play for a first-team,” his father said. “He must absolutely leave Chelsea on loan.”

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Despite having not made his professional debut, Real Betis fought off Monaco to sign the teenager on an initial six-month loan in January 2016. Twelve days later, Musonda played the full 90 minutes against Valencia and won man of the match on his debut. “I had to test myself at that young age to see where I was and what I could become,” he says. “I wasn’t playing at Chelsea and I needed to have the experience. One day you’re training in the reserves, the next you’re on a plane to play in La Liga. It was fantastic.”

“I’ve always wanted to stay at Chelsea,” he stresses of the reports that emerged upon his return a year later. “It’s true, Roma were interested but I’ve never once asked the club to leave. All I have ever wanted to be is a Chelsea player.”

Musonda’s rise felt inexorable but suddenly, within the space of a month in Glasgow, everything changed. After scoring on his long-anticipated Chelsea debut in the League Cup against Nottingham Forest, Brendan Rodgers convinced Chelsea that Celtic was the best place for Musonda’s development. But, after playing in just the first three games, he plummeted out of the team and never regained his footing. A reversal from cloud nine to squad number that ultimately saw his 18-month loan deal cut short to six.

“It was very, very difficult,” he says. “It’s something you have to get over and try to not let it change you, but it was a very sad moment. It’s not like in six months I became a bad player. But when you’re a player who expresses yourself and has that bit of arrogance, criticism goes hand in hand. People say things like ‘he’s unprofessional’ but that’s football, people are always going to talk. It’s up to me to make things happen.

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“I have no regrets about my time at Celtic. I have no problems with Brendan Rodgers. He tried to develop me, he treated me well in training. You can’t dwell on it.”

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In truth, Musonda’s dim spell at Celtic already feels long ago. A brief haze before the real fog set in. After joining Vitesse on loan with the freedom to spend a season in the starting eleven, he ruptured the ligaments in his knee in his very first pre-season friendly. Days spent impatiently waiting bled into a monotony of physiotherapy and enduring spells where his bubbling personality fell flat. Every time he turned on the television to watch Chelsea play, he was tinged by an unshakable sadness.

“Even if you lose a normal match 5-0, you can start building towards the next game straight away,” he says. “But when you’re injured, it’s just you. You train separately, you feel alone. There’s no companionship. That’s the hardest part. You can’t even compare it to Celtic.”

After finally completing his rehabilitation over the summer, Musonda has returned to Vitesse for a second season. But in a sport that moves at such a relentless pace, there’s an uneasy anxiety that last year’s cruel twist of fatalism has left Musonda out of sight and out of mind as Chelsea transition into a new era. He is convincingly ambivalent to that train of thought though, blessed with a newfound maturity gathered over these past 18 months

“Now I’m at Vitesse, I don’t feel stuck or left behind because I know once I’m playing again, soon everybody will be watching,” he says. “I just want one more chance to play for Chelsea. Before my time had always been about progression. There’d never been any setbacks. I’ve changed a lot but that’s normal. I’m a better person now as well as a better player. If I can come back, it will be a testament to my talent but it will also show the type of person I have become.”