THE MAKING OF ME: WILLIAN

Chelsea attacker Willian talks us through his footballing journey, from Brazil to the Bridge.
The forward recalls having to make a tough career decision at an early age, realising a dream by signing for Chelsea and the amazing experience of a World Cup on home soil…
I had a lot of idols growing up. Marcelinho Carioca was a very famous player at the time. He played for Corinthians. He’s an idol of the Corinthians fans and he played in a similar position to me. Ronaldo was phenomenal. I also looked up to Romario and Ronaldinho. For me, Ronaldinho was the number one. They were the guys I admired but I could mention a lot more names because in Brazil at that time there were a lot of good players.

When I joined Corinthians I was only nine years old. I used to play for a small football school and one day we went to play a friendly game against a young Corinthians side. We lost the game but I played well and afterwards somebody from Corinthians asked if I was there on my own. I told them my dad was waiting outside and they said they wanted to speak to him, because they wanted me to go there for a week, for a trial. They talked to my dad, told him the date they wanted me to go, I did the trial and I passed. So that’s how I began to play for Corinthians.
When I made my Corinthians debut it was incredible, but I was only there for around 10 months before I joined Shakhtar Donetsk. Moving to Ukraine was a very difficult decision because everything was going to change. I took the decision with my parents and my agent. Before I signed the contract I stayed in the city for three days to have a look around and go to see their training ground. That’s when I began to feel like it could be a good move for me. They had a plan for a new stadium so the club were on the way up, and they were playing regularly in the Champions League. I spoke to my dad and we agreed it would be a good experience, so I signed the contract.

I stayed there for a couple of months with my dad, he went back to Brazil and then my mum came out. That’s how it was for the first year, and then I started a relationship with the girl who is now my wife, so she came out to stay with me, so it was good. I won a lot of trophies there. We won the Europa League, which was the UEFA Cup at the time, plus seven Ukrainian league titles and cup competitions, so I began to get a taste of success.