If there’s one thing football fans relish it’s players turning down their rivals to join them.
Willian had his ups and downs at Chelsea, and by the end of his long stay a lot of fans had run out of patience with him – but they always relished singing the song about how he “saw the light” and abandoned Spurs to come to Stamford Bridge.
That’s always been the story anyway. In an interview on the Chelsea website, the winger – now at Fulham – tells his side of the story on how it really went down.
“I was in London for two weeks, waiting, waiting for Tottenham to decide because they were in a situation where Gareth Bale was in the process of leaving them to join Real Madrid,’ the 34-year-old explained this week.”
“Liverpool were also interested. I wasn’t sure about Chelsea. They’d shown interest but it wasn’t so firm at first. Chelsea came on the day I was going to sign the contract with Spurs. I was at Tottenham’s training ground to finalise the deal when the call came. My agent said to me, ‘Chelsea just called me and they want you’. I said, ‘OK, I want to go there!'”
“Then I left the training ground and went back to the hotel. It was a difficult situation because I’d agreed more or less to join Spurs, but in my mind was only Chelsea. Once the deal between Anzhi and Chelsea was agreed, I only wanted to go there. It was the best decision of my career.”
In a way, it’s even juicier than we had imagined. It also makes you realise how last minute and unplanned football can be, despite the vast amounts of money in the game.
We wonder if we will hear the song sung one last time when Fulham come to visit later this season? It would be the perfect chance.
