Breaking into Chelsea’s first team is no easy task but as he prepares to run out at Wembley for Albania on Friday evening, the signs are that Slough-born Armando Broja has what it takes to be a Stamford Bridge regular.
Broja is currently at Southampton, his second major loan spell away from Chelsea in two seasons.
He’s already scored twice, including the winner in Saints’ first win of the season against Leeds back in October and looks the part in the English top flight after impressing for Vitesse Arnhem in the Dutch equivalent in 2020-21.
He scored 11 goals in a season that saw Vitesse reach the KNVB Cup final for just the fifth time in their history, with the then teenager scoring the opening goal in the club’s semi-final against VVV Venlo to seal their place there.
It was clearly an experience that benefited Broja, despite his apparent reluctance to believe he was ready to make the step-up.
“The story of Armando is a great one for everybody,” says Johannes Spors, sporting director at Vitesse. “When I had him as my target, it needed some time to convince him that he was ready for Vitesse.
“In the beginning he thought it might be better to stay at Chelsea but I was sure that he was ready for first team football in Holland.
“I could convince him to come because I was pretty sure that he had the talent to make the next step, maybe sooner than he thought. We had a great time with him. He took great steps, he learned to work hard with a German coach (Thomas Letsch) and me – he had a major impact on our team last season.”
Broja is far from the only player to make the short hop across the North Sea from West London to Arnhem.
Mason Mount is just one of 28 players to have played for both clubs, with the England midfielder winning the club’s Player of the Year award in 2017-18 at the age of just 19.
Dominic Solanke and Josh McEachran also spent time in Holland before returning to Stamford Bridge. Unlike Mount, neither could ultimately force their way into Chelsea’s long-term thinking, but with Thomas Tuchel having proved himself as a manager who is prepared to give young talent an opportunity, who’s to say that Broja can’t buck the trend.
For the time being, Spors, who knows Ralph Hasenhuttl well from the time the pair spent together at RB Leipzig, believes that Broja has found himself at the right club at the right time of his development.
“I think he made a very good step to go to Southampton,” he says.
“With Ralph Hasenhuttl and the coaching staff there, they have the same philosophy that we have at Vitesse. I know Ralph very well from our time together at Leipzig. When I heard about it, I thought it was a good idea – I thought this could help him improve even more quickly.”
His record in World Cup qualifying certainly suggests that he has the temperament to make it too. He has scored three times for Albania in a qualification campaign that, until their defeat against Poland in Tirana, looked like earning them a play-off place in Group I.
Hungary are already sick of the sight of him, with Broja scoring the winner in successive 1-0 wins against the two-time World Cup finalists.
England will be wary of the threat he poses, not least because he could have played for them. For the son of two Albanian parents, though, there was only ever one choice.
“I remember when he was at Vitesse, he was nominated to play for Albania for the first time,” says Spors. “Then he played for the under-21s and then the first team. Now he’s a key player for them. I know how proud that makes him.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3wEBXeO
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