For a long period of time, Chelsea have had some of the best young players in Europe playing for their club, as highlighted by their seven FA Youth Cup wins between 2010 and 2018.
Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic could have been another player to have made their final steps towards becoming a professional footballer at Chelsea, admitting to FourFourTwo that he nearly signed for the Blues as a youngster.
Ultimately he opted not to, instead preferring to continue his development at Basel before eventually moving to Schalke as a 19-year-old. When asked about how close he came to agreeing a deal, the 2018 World Cup finalist describes the situation.
"Very close," Rakitic exclusively tells FFT. "I was about 15 or 16 when I started to play for Switzerland in the junior age groups. We had really good games, then there was a time when Chelsea began to sign between 30 and 50 young players from everywhere, and there was this possibility to go there.
"People from Chelsea came to Switzerland, we spoke to them, and they put a proposal to my club, Basel, but we decided really quickly to stay in Switzerland and I think it was the right decision.
"It wasn’t to say no to Chelsea; it was just to stay at home and finish school in the right way, as there was still time for my football career after that. I was lucky that the people at Basel believed in me and gave me an opportunity very early – then everything went very fast for me."
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As the years have gone on, it's looked more and more like he made the right decision. Following his decision to join Schalke, Rakitic moved to Spain to ply his trade with Sevilla, winning the Europa League before heading to Barcelona, where he bagged the Champions League and four La Liga titles.
Now 35, he won the Europa League again with Sevilla last term - with a year remaining on his contract, he hopes to continue playing for as long as he feels able to.
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