How supportive friends pushed me to success - Eberechi Eze

Crystal Palace star player Eberechi Eze has hinged his soccer success on support from childhood friends, and family members. Raised in Greenwich, south London, Eze was able to form a cohort of friends with a unique shared career, as a pupil at the John Roan School.

Eze played alongside Middlesbrough’s Marc Bola and Worthing’s Dajon Golding, with Cardiff City’s Ebou Adams, and Fenerbahçe’s Bright Osayi-Samuel in the county team.

He remains close with his fellow south London professionals, explaining that as a group they push one another to success.

“My friends have been amazing. I have quite a few friends and close people I played football with and grew up with from young. Their support is the same as my family’s.

“Players that play elsewhere, people that play non-league; the mindset is still the same for all of us, regardless of what level we’re at. It’s still that you have to put in the work… if they see me doing something, resting or relaxing or not taking whatever, I’m doing seriously, they’ll be on me.

“It’s hard to find people like that. I have to be the same with them. I’m a bit more chilled than them but it’s all the same, it’s all out of love and wanting each other to be the best we can be.”

Eze says Bola and Golding are particularly close friends of his, with he and Bola, who has 160 career appearances, even attending the Arsenal Academy together. He remembers: “We’d both go to training together – my mum would drop us or his dad would drop us. So, it was the bond being formed from early.

“I put it down to faith in God. I then put it down to application and working every single day, because we played football every single day. And, I put it down to having the support system around you that believes in you almost as much as you believe in yourself.

“I think that’s hugely important: having parents, brothers and sisters willing to do anything to help you achieve that goal. That’s a big thing and, again, not many people are fortunate enough to have that.

“It motivates you and it stops you from relaxing and tuning out and getting into a rut. I have people around me that won’t allow that at all, and I’m hugely grateful to them.”

Be it Academy releases, injury, or even the danger of indifference, Eze insists on showing the positive side to life. He is the first to pass praise onto others, and it’s clear that supportive family, friends and club staff have each played their part so far.

“People are different,” Eze says. “They’ve gone through their own struggles and everyone has their own journey. Mine has helped me.” There no pausing now.

After 12 months in the limbo following an Achilles injury last season, he quips that he did not feel alone due to the support system around him. “I wasn’t prepared at all. I knew it would be tough. Being honest, it took a week or so of just being lost and not sure what to do; what I actually do with myself and trying to gather myself. It’s a traumatic experience, especially when it’s your first.”