Ben Chilwell was in his early teens when he first came to England’s attention as one of the most promising young players around. Footage posted on social media this week, showing him nonchalantly dispatching a full-toss from Marc Albrighton as Kasper Schmeichel kept wicket, suggests that the ability with the bat is still there.
“Maybe I was an even better cricketer than a footballer,” Chilwell says. “I was in the Northants academy set-up and went to Loughborough University for three days for an ECB young England Talents [event]. Then started playing men’s cricket when I was 15. That’s when I stopped enjoying it. It was long days, 50-over games with men 15 years older who you don’t really have anything in common with, all talking about going to the pub.”
Six years on and cricket’s loss was English football’s gain. In a whirlwind start to the season, Leicester’s Chilwell has emerged as one of Gareth Southgate’s brightest young talents, winning five caps since September and performing so consistently for club and country – he played every minute in that memorable 3-2 victory over Spain and set up the winning goal for Harry Kane against Croatia last month – that there is talk of the 21-year-old becoming England’s first-choice left-back for the next decade.
“That’s my long-term aim,” Chilwell says. “Obviously, I’m not thinking too much about that because it’s a long old career and I’m taking every week as it comes. And at the moment, if I can play well for Leicester for the next few months, then hopefully I can be involved in March and then be involved in the summer in the Nations League. That’s my short-term aim. Like you’ve said there, the long-term aim is obviously to be the first-choice left-back for 10 years to come and be one of the best left-backs that England has ever had. But that’s obviously in the back of my head.”
Although Chilwell instantly felt comfortable in the England set-up, whether playing, training or enjoying the movie nights that Dele Alli organised, he is certainly not getting ahead of himself. Chatting for an hour at Leicester’s training ground, Chilwell comes across as fiercely ambitious and driven but also level-headed and mature.
He talks movingly and eloquently about Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s late owner, whom he still expects to walk into the dressing room before every game, and it is hard to think of many young players who would be as comfortable as Chilwell when it comes to critiquing their own performances.
“I always knew that I had my ability. But last season I had games where I was not playing anywhere near as well as I knew I could,” he says. “Although I was playing every game in the second half of the season, I had a lot of games where I looked back and thought: ‘What was I doing there?’ I watched them back and it’s frustrating because you know that’s not the kind of stuff you do.
“The Everton game was the main one. I made a mistake which cost us the first goal, maybe it was even my mistake for the second as well. And that’s difficult to come back from when you’re responsible for probably two of the goals and all the crowd are getting on to you. But at the same time it taught me a lot. Now I know how to deal with it if it happens again.”
Listening to Chilwell reflecting on his journey, it is clear that his father has been a big influence on his career. Wayne, who was born in New Zealand and moved to England 25 years ago, gave up work as a builder because he was spending so much time ferrying his son back and forth to Leicester’s academy from their home in Milton Keynes. One of those journeys, at a time when Chilwell was struggling to get a game for Leicester’s Under-16s, prompted a frank conversation.
“Thursday was when we would find out the squad for Saturdays,” Chilwell says. “My dad would drive me all the way up here and I remember every Thursday getting back in the car and my dad would turn to me and say: ‘Are you in the squad this week?’ ‘Nope’. And we would argue the whole way home.
“But, to be fair, it was good. My dad was very hard on me, in terms of: ‘Your natural talent has got you this far but …’ He was kind of right. You probably rest on your laurels, you’re not doing anything away from football, you’re being a bit lazy. You’re just coming here training. You’re probably more bothered about hanging out with your mates when you’re at home. So he got into me about: ‘Well, if you do want to carry on playing football, then you are going to have to do stuff away from Leicester as well.’ That’s when I started going to the park, practising, going for runs, on my own.”
Over the next few years everything fell into place. Chilwell accepted he had more chance of making it as a left-back than a central midfielder, which is where he played when he joined Leicester, and by the age of 18 he was representing England’s Under-21s and attracting interest from Liverpool after a loan spell at Huddersfield Town. “I loved it there,” he says.
Although he was recalled by Leicester in the title-winning campaign, it was not until Boxing Day the following season that Chilwell made his Premier League debut. The major breakthrough came four months later, when he was outstanding as a second-half substitute against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final second leg. “I nearly scored – I still wish I had,” says Chilwell, smiling. “It was after that game when everyone said how well I did. It put me a bit more in the spotlight, which is what I wanted.”
Chilwell has not missed a minute of Premier League football this term and was recently rewarded with a new five-year contract, yet any personal success at club level is overshadowed by the tragic events at the end of October, when Vichai – the man everyone at Leicester referred to as “The Boss” – was one of five people killed in a helicopter accident. Chilwell was on his way home from the stadium when Harry Maguire broke the awful news to him. “Horrible,” he says. “It was the coldest, hardest thing to come into on the Monday.”
While everyone at Leicester has stories about Vichai’s generosity, tales have emerged from further afield too. “I went away with England last month and Harry Winks told me that he heard from Son [Heung-min] that Son was in a restaurant in London and Vichai was in there as well,” says Chilwell. “At the end of Son’s meal he’s gone to play his bill and Vichai had paid for everyone in the restaurant. Things like that, stuff that he doesn’t have to do, shows the person that he was.”
Chilwell will be up against Winks and Son on Saturday evening when Tottenham Hotspur visit the King Power Stadium. Some of Leicester’s players, Chilwell admits, are still coming to terms with Vichai’s loss, but their collective desire to bring success back to the club has never been stronger.
“It’s brought us together as a family; we’re not just teammates now,” he says. “We know what Vichai’s dreams were, so it’s up to us to make them happen. The investment being put in has given us the foundations to achieve what he would have wanted, which is to be playing in Europe and consistently be one of the best teams in the country over the next few years. That’s going to be our aim to try and do that.”
The Guardian Sport
