Eze's incredible journey of rejection and resilience

Following the completion of his move to Arsenal from Crystal Palace, football writer Ben Bloom explores Eberechi Eze's emotional journey of rejection and resilience as he finally gets to play for his boyhood club.

Eberechi Eze has come full circle. The boy with Arsenal in his heart is the man now tasked with propelling his childhood club to the Premier League title.

It has been some journey, but no shortage of rejections, heartache and injuries were enough to stop Eze fulfilling his abundant talent. And now, almost two decades after he first pulled on an Arsenal shirt, the 27-year-old is back at the club where it all began.

Learning in the cage

Like a remarkable number of Premier League players – Jadon Sancho, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Wilfried Zaha, Joe Gomez, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, to name just a few – Eze’s craft was initially honed in the football cages of south east London.

“There are the nice parts and the not so nice parts [of Greenwich],” he told the Independent in 2020. “I grew up in a not so nice part.

“It wasn’t the easiest life and you don’t have as much as other kids around you. The first place we’d go after school is to the cage. We’d stay there till our parents called us in, not eating, playing all day and night. There wasn’t really anything else to do. But that’s where the love comes from. You don’t realise it’s actually how you’re learning your trade.”

To those who grew up playing in them, the cage style is often still evident even when they reach the pinnacle of the sport. Eze is no exception; the confidence on the ball, impeccable close control, flair, proficiency in tight spaces, and a desire to take on opposition players.

“It’s literally doing what you can to be as effective as you can be in harsh circumstances,” he explained in a 2023 Crystal Palace matchday programme. “For sure, that’s built me and helped me become the player I am today.”

By the age of nine, he had caught the eye of scouts from Arsenal and was invited to join the academy. For a boy who supported the club and idolised Thierry Henry, it was a dream come true, which made things that much harder when he was released four years later.

Rejections and tears

“I loved football, I loved playing for Arsenal and that was probably built into my identity at that age as a child,” Eze later told englandfootball.com.

“It was like: ‘This is Ebere, he plays for Arsenal.’ So, the moment that I got released, a huge chunk of my identity was gone.

“That’s probably a part of growing up in football that people don’t really understand. They just see it as: ‘Oh, this is what he does.’ But no, that’s actually who he is as a child. That’s how he's thinking. He thinks this is who he is. So it is very difficult getting released.”

Eze would later reveal that he spent an entire week following the Arsenal rejection “crying in my room… my Mum telling me that it’s going to be ok, but not being able to get over it”.

A few months later, having joined Fulham’s academy, he came up against the Arsenal team he had recently been ditched from. It all felt so raw that his emotions came flooding back and he “had tears ready to pour down my face”.

Now in his teenage years, Eze found it frustratingly hard to make his way in the sport he so loved. Having turned down Southend United for Fulham, he spent two and a half “hugely important” years with the west London club, only to be let go again. A period at Reading ended without the offer of a contract, before he joined Millwall for two years, where he was again told that he was no longer needed.

A series of trials further afield – including Sunderland and Bristol City – failed to secure a deal, with his cage-honed skills struggling to convince academy directors of his value to the professional game.

“The reason was always that it didn’t look like my desire was there,” he told the Independent. “The same thing again and again.

“All I could think was: ‘If only you knew in my head how much I want this’. It’s probably a bad thing, but I didn’t think I needed to change. I probably should have tried to adapt, but I just wanted to get on the ball and enjoy myself.”

With confidence at an all-time low, he was making preparations to enrol in a local college and start working part-time in a supermarket when he was handed a lifeline at Queens Park Rangers.

The breakthrough move

There are various people from different points of his life that Eze credits with creating the player he is today. Paul Hall, Andrew Impey and Chris Ramsey are three of them. The trio were influential in QPR’s Under-23s set-up and quickly set about restoring his confidence.

“They saw potential in me. It was just about bringing it out,” Eze said in 2023. “I’m hugely grateful to them too because I believe God put them in that position and used them to bring that out of me and to help me along on my journey. So without them, I don’t know what this situation would look like.”

His work rate improved, his running statistics increased, and he began to feel “unstoppable” again, just as he had as a child at Arsenal.

Half a season on loan at League Two side Wycombe Wanderers in 2017/18 was transformative, scoring five goals in 20 appearances before returning to west London.

Eze was soon handed the No 10 shirt at QPR where he flourished under manager Mark Warburton, who styled their play around him, instructing his players to give Eze the ball, and encouraging him to express himself.

The outcome was a near ever-present 2018/19 season for QPR, but it was the following campaign that Eze really made his mark and his 14 Championship goals plus place in the PFA’s 2019/20 Championship Team of the Year saw him move to Crystal Palace.

Making of a star

The Premier League was where Eze felt he was always destined to be, and an impressive first campaign – including a brilliant free-kick against Leeds for his first Palace goal – led to a maiden call-up in May 2021 to the provisional England squad for that summer’s UEFA European Championships.

Eze's first goal for Palace v Leeds

By cruel fate – and unbeknown to England manager Gareth Southgate – Eze had suffered a major achilles rupture in training earlier that day, leaving him unable to take his place.

“It was a weird day,” he told the Palace matchday programme. “I had never experienced a big injury like that before.

“You see yourself get quite close [to England] and then dropping quite far away from it because of how long it takes to get back fit.

“Mentally, it’s probably the most challenging thing. Being able to play is something you miss so much when you’re injured. You don’t realise how big a part of your life it is.

“But again, I look back on it and I see that I have grown as a person, and not just as a football player – I know I have improved there – but more so as a person.

“I can see myself in a different light now and I know that I wouldn’t be this person if it wasn’t for that experience.”

Flourishing partnership with Olise

A lengthy spell in rehab and a period struggling for minutes under Patrick Vieira then gave way to steady growth. His lethal partnership with Michael Olise led to a belated England debut in 2023 and a newfound passion off the pitch, with a video emerging of him playing his French team-mate at chess. He would go on to win a celebrity chess tournament earlier this year.

“I didn’t start learning chess until Michael came in,” he told the Athletic in 2023. “It was him and my brother who nudged me to learn how to play and face them, so that’s when I started studying the game, watching YouTube videos of the best chess openings, things like that.”

Olise’s departure handed him an even more important role, scoring a career-high 15 goals across all competitions last season, including his first for England against Latvia and the FA Cup final winner against Manchester City that earned the club their first major trophy.

Eze's FA Cup winner v Man City

‘Don’t lose faith in the dream’

At Palace’s victory parade, Eze wore a replica of the shirt that Ian Wright and his team-mates had donned in the 1990 FA Cup final. In moving from Selhurst Park to Arsenal, Eze is following in the footsteps of Wright, who was exactly the same age when he trod that path and was part of Arsenal's announcement video.

Watch Wright welcome Eze to Arsenal

It is a romantic conclusion to a journey that required Eze to overcome numerous setbacks along the way.

Writing in 2023, he insisted he does not blame any of the multiple clubs for releasing him or deciding against offering him a contract.

“I feel like the journey I’ve been on has forced me to grow up, improve and be better,” Eze said. “I haven’t been given anything. 

“So the fact that I’m here, it’s not as if someone’s done me a favour. It’s because I’ve worked hard for it. That’s the mentality that all these difficult situations have given me.

“They’ve helped me to understand and know that. I’m grateful for all those struggles and the positions I was in.

“To any kid who finds themselves in a similar position, my message would be to force yourself to believe in yourself; to continue to apply yourself; and don’t lose faith in the dream you have or the goal you have because anything is possible and you’re capable of achieving your maximum.

“As long as you’re dedicated, you will. That’s the best advice I could give.”