Armando Broja still can’t smile.
Speaking to The Athletic while with the Albanian national team, the topic of representing his country at the European Championship this summer has just come up and, after 18 months of anguish, this is the opportunity Broja has been waiting for.
“If I get involved, it will be an opportunity to show other people who I am and what I am,” he says. “Every time I think about it, it makes me smile. All my life I’ve dreamed of being a component of something like this.
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Born to Albanian parents (mum Blerina and father Xhevahir) in 2001 in Slough, a suburb of the city an hour west of London, Broja was called up last week in the provisional 27-man squad for the tourcallnt and then scored the 3-0. win. on Liechtenstein on Monday. Another call-up will be removed from the organization through coach Sylvinho before kickoff, but it will be a backup goalkeeper.
For the 22-year-old Chelsea striker, being worried is a real feat, considering everything he’s been since December 2022, including:
Now the opportunity to play at one of the most important levels of football awaits him, unlike Italy, Spain and Croatia, all World Cup finalists, at the organizational level of Euro 2024.
“I have a lot to say to others and to myself,” Broja admits. “In football there is a lot of criticism. People doubt you. They just don’t forget your bad games and judge you in their games. “lower.
“The real thrill of football is to triumph over all this. I will use all the negativity as fuel to make others wrong. I’ve had to do this all my life and this European Championships gives me that opportunity: to show that. “I’ve come back from my injury and I can do it against some of the countries in the world, some of the defenders, some of the players.
“I just need to show everybody — my country, my family, myself, the other people who doubted me, the other people who supported me — that I can live up to my expectations and the player I know I can. “
It was Sylvinho, rather than former Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino or Fulham’s Marco Silva, who provided the support Broja needed.
Three months ago, he played for Albania for the first time since he was back in top form, in friendlies against Chile and Sweden. But the strength of his relationship with Arsenal’s former Brazilian defender was established much earlier.
“I spoke to him several times on the phone and in person,” Broja says of Sylvinho. “He came to see me in England when I was still on crutches and when I was at Fulham.
“He kept telling me how much he wanted to work with me and that I was an integral component of what the Albanian team is looking to do. It made me feel enjoyed and appreciated. It’s all the young players need. He basically gave me this arm around my shoulder when I needed it.
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“When I went to the camp in Albania in March, I felt love as soon as I arrived. It was also probably one of the most emotional moments when I was playing. All the enthusiasts were shouting my call and the stadium was full. But it’s a sad truth that I ended up playing more minutes for Albania on this overseas getaway than I did in four months for Fulham.
In fact, Broja is simply grateful to be able to step into the box after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee at the end of 2022. Everyone who heard his screams of agony when he fell in an extremely opposite place. Aston Villa that December will never come.
The match was played in Abu Dhabi as part of Chelsea’s preparations for the resumption of the Premier League season after a six-week World Cup break in neighbouring Qatar. Broja started up front alongside Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and with the latter out of the game. Although the favour of then-Chelsea manager Graham Potter and Kai Havertz allowed him to take a break after Germany’s surprise World Cup came out of the organisational stage, the invitation was there for him to have more openings.
Broja, who enjoyed impressive loan spells at Vitesse Arnhem in the Netherlands and Southampton after rising through Chelsea’s youth ranks, had scored his first senior goal for the club just two months earlier.
But any hope of adding to that final result ended when he challenged Ezri Konsa in the Villa area.
“It’s a real shame what happened because, in this break for the World Cup, I had a wonderful opportunity to get through with coach (Potter),” he said. “I was hoping to get ahead. I actually felt like I could just walk in. “.
“When the injury came, I was screaming on the ground, tears were streaming down my face because I wasn’t feeling well. The physiotherapists arrived and without delay they gave me oxygen. He may not have just moved his legs. I was scared. I don’t forget to get to the physio room and I may not be able to see due to tears. I was begging the physiotherapist to give me my phone number so I could call my mother and father.
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“I spoke to (Chelsea full-back) Ben Chilwell about some things because I was already injured and the club was supporting me. But going through rehab alone, watching his teammates exercise and play, is complicated. The intellectual aspect may be a little more complicated. more than physical pain. I struggled to stay out of the game for so long.
“It’s a smart thing to think about now, because it shows how much I’ve evolved and become stronger. I appreciate being able to play even more now. There are other people who do not recover from these types of injuries. You may simply have taken another direction, where you may not play football anymore. That’s scary. “
In a twist of fate, Broja made his return against Villa last September, but it was his first start, a home derby against Fulham on October 2, that most remained in his brain.
Just 82 seconds after Mykhailo Mudryk gave Chelsea the lead, Broja capped off his first start at the club in 11 months with his own goal: “It’s incredible. One of my most productive moments. It’s not the most productive goal of my career but probably the one that means the most to me. It’s huge. I smiled about it for a week or two.
“I could only play 60 minutes against Fulham, because my legs were finished (that night). It was amazing to be there. I had been out of the game for so long that it felt new to me again.
Broja has been named seven first-team names through Pochettino and has made 11 appearances in the dugout in total. With the head coach reluctant to send first-team players to the Under-21s to play, or to hold friendly matches behind closed doors, it was more difficult for those returning from injury to regain their sharpness in the game.
Instead of congratulating Broja after scoring the opening goal in the 4-0 FA Cup third-round win over Preston North End, Pochettino spoke about how to “change his frame language”.
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Asked now if those comments surprised him, Broja replied: “A little, because I endured a lot with the injury and he would say anything about how I needed to be happier. I felt like maybe I would have had more confidence and conviction (from him). .
“Basically, I joined the Premier League without delay, something that is complicated to manage anyway, but I had no preparation.
“I’ve been quite myself because I expected a lot, but I’ve had a very smart attitude when it comes to education and games. I try to do the best I can for the team; I try to win. “I’m not a player who sulks or complains.
“I thought that when Nicolas Jackson leaves with Senegal for the Africa Cup of Nations (early 2024), he would have the opportunity to play a lot of games. I started 3 times in January, but I think there were times when maybe they’ve just been used more. I had a feeling that other people were waiting for me to pass 3 or 4 players and put it in the back corner. But I was struggling to get back into shape and things came to mind: “What’s going to happen?for me in January?
“There were many hypotheses around me at the time, about whether I would go through to get advantages from a loan. I was only looking for answers from the club, a little comfort, and I didn’t get it. In the end, I decided to go on loan because I wanted to have more minutes. I thought it was the best time to be able to play football regularly for four months until the European Championship.
Unfortunately for Broja, this plan did not work.
Silva had made a big, if unsuccessful, effort to sign him last summer, when Fulham sold their veteran number one striker, Aleksandar Mitrovic. So when he reached out to ask for a short-term loan over the winter period, Broja said yes, as he felt he was actually being sought at Craven Cottage.
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No one could have predicted that his compatriot Rodrigo Muñiz, who had scored for Fulham in the Premier League all season, would score eight goals in as many games. Broja spent the rest of the season on the bench, making just eight appearances. as a substitute. Even when the Brazilian’s good run waned (Muñiz has scored one goal in his last 8 games), Broja was not chosen.
Their frustration is understandable.
“Marco Silva was desperately looking for me to sign for him,” says Broja. “He was telling me that I would play games, that I would have the opportunity to start and get as many minutes as possible.
“It didn’t help that Muñiz started scoring right away. I fully understand that you can’t disappoint a player who scores game after game. But I felt like in the meantime we had conversations where he (Silva) was like, ‘Don. ‘Don’t worry, keep doing what you’re doing, have opportunities. But I never had them.
“If you play with me and I have an amazing game, then this is my chance (to emulate Muñiz). I did everything I could to get involved. It had nothing to do with my injury. I trained like a pro. They were delivered along with all the players. The staff was amazing.
“All the thoughts go through your head: ‘I lost 4 months of my coaching career’, ‘I may have been at Chelsea for 4 months and played more (than that)’. It sucks, but that’s football. We have to. Moving forward and I see it as a lesson learned.
So what happens next?
Most likely, Broja will be sold this summer.
Among the interested clubs are Monaco of France’s Ligue 1, AC Milan of Italy and Premier League groups West Ham, Everton and Wolves, but Chelsea will not rush to the negotiating table. Like Broja, they will need him to have a smart European Championship. but even more so because it will generate higher rates for them when he goes ahead.
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The option of leaving the club he joined at the age of 8 does not scare him. He has seen Chelsea academy players Callum Hudson-Odoi and Dominic Solanke evolve and their careers at Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth respectively.
“Callum has a wonderful ability and had a major injury (in his case, to the Achilles tendon) at Chelsea, like me,” he said. “Things didn’t work out, so he joined Forest and now he’s scoring goals and being himself again. They believed in him and that’s what a player wants when he suffers an injury like this.
“Dominic hasn’t played any games at Chelsea or (his next club) Liverpool, but now he has five seasons under his belt at Bournemouth, where he was allowed to make mistakes, play bad games, do the right thing and the right thing. He finished this season as one of the most sensible goalscorers in the Premier League and if anyone needs to buy him, he will charge a lot of money.
“Nothing has been decided yet, but if I want to move to another place to get my rhythm back, of course I would like to do it. As a player, there is no greater feeling than being on the pitch and knowing that you have a club and a team that defends you; a club that allows you to make mistakes because it knows how to become something.
“But at the moment my only goal is to play my role with Albania in the European Championship.
“I’m as excited as any Albanian in the world. I can’t wait. “
(Top photo: Chris Lee – Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC Getty Images)