Chelsea forward Armando Broja has revealed the incredible story which saw him leave rivals Tottenham to join the Blues
The 21-year-old Albania international impressed last season on loan at Southampton in the Premier League, scoring six goals across 32 games.
That has seen Broja given a chance at Stamford Bridge this term and he has played in six games across all competitions in 2022-23 already.
Broja joined the west London club back in 2009 after a two-year stint in Spurs’ academy and went on to make his Blues debut in the 2019-20 season.
Speaking about his decision to join Chelsea from Tottenham, Broja told The Players’ Tribune:
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He said:
‘I remember going to a tournament. The Tottenham scout actually came to watch another boy.
‘I happened to obviously play well that tournament and I got top goalscorer and I got best player at the tournament so they approached my mum and dad before I even knew about it.
‘So, when I came back my mum and dad said, ‘Tottenham came over to us’ and I was thinking, ‘who’s Tottenham?’
‘Because I was quite young, I didn’t really know anything apart from my Sunday league team.
So in my head it was just Burnham Juniors – that’s all I knew!
‘So, they were like ‘Oh Tottenham is in the Premier League, this, this, this, this and I was like, ‘oh wow’. I said, ‘I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go’.
‘And they were like, ‘we’re obviously speaking to them’.
But I was so happy because I thought, ‘wow, I’m going to play for a big team’.
‘[But] my mum’s first cousin, he’s a massive Chelsea fan.
He would take me to every Chelsea game when I was like three or four so I always supported Chelsea.
‘He loves Chelsea so in my head I just supported Chelsea, but I didn’t know the rivalry between Tottenham [and] Chelsea so when I did join Tottenham I didn’t know what it was going to be like.
‘In my head when I was at Tottenham, I supported them [Chelsea], but I always wanted to beat them because I wanted to show the Chelsea staff and everyone there that I want to join Chelsea.
‘I was on the bench and then I was begging my manager to come on, ‘please let me, we’re losing 2-0’.
‘As soon as I came on, I got an assist and then I got a goal after that so we drew 2-2.
‘And then we moved over to the other side of the pitch and played the other team.
‘We won 12-0 I think, and I scored nine. Straight after that, the two Chelsea guys came over and said ‘wow, we want you’.
‘When they said that I didn’t think of anything else, I just wanted to join Chelsea.
‘So eventually that obviously did happen and joined Chelsea end of U9s, start of U10s so I’ve been there since then.’
