Birthday boy Willian had barely put a foot in the door at Stamford Bridge before the Chelsea supporters had thought up a song for him, telling the story of his near-miss with Tottenham and his decision to head to west London instead. Here our former Brazilian, who turns 37 today, recalls his exciting start to life in SW6.
Willian signed from Shakhtar Donetsk in August 2013 and was almost immediately serenaded by the Blues faithful. It is a chant still regularly sung to this day.
Although Willian doesn’t remember the exact moment when he ‘got the call’ and ‘saw the light’, he does recollect the first time he heard the fans singing about it.
‘It made me laugh,’ he grinned. ‘It’s a funny song. It’s about the history, although it did not happen exactly like that! But the affection was good.
‘I was very surprised when the fans made this song especially for me. It made me feel that they like me. But I also remember thinking I now had more pressure on me to do well on the pitch because I had just arrived and they already started to sing my name.
‘So the pressure was there, but in a good way, and since my first game I always tried to do my best for this club, for the fans and for my team-mates as well.’
The idea that he had turned down one of our city rivals to come to Chelsea wasn’t the only reason Willian was so warmly welcomed.
His performance at Stamford Bridge for Shakhtar Donetsk in a Champions League game the previous season had made many sit up and take notice, and then he bagged a Goal of the Month contender on his Premier League debut at Norwich City. As first and second impressions go, he couldn’t have done much better.
Willian grew into one of the senior players in the dressing room as his fantastic Chelsea career developed, but he recalled quietly watching the established stars going about their business when he first arrived at Chelsea.
‘On my first day of training, suddenly players that I had seen on TV were there in front of me, and that had an impact on me. People like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Michael Essien – players with a great history in football.
‘When you arrive in this dressing room, with these kinds of players, you stay a bit more quiet at first, you are a bit shy to speak with them, but they were very good with me.
‘When you arrive at a new club I think you need confidence. I think the most important thing is confidence to show your football, to play your best football. Confidence comes from your team-mates, the manager, the club and I think that’s what you want when you join a new club.’
Over seven years in blue, Willian lived up to his word, hitting top form when full of confidence, mixing that Brazilian flair and technique with the hard yards required in the Premier League.
He would later call his decision to choose Chelsea in 2013 the best of his career. And how grateful Blues supporters were it was the one he took.