da prosport bet： In a GOAL exclusive, the 20-year-old Udinese wing-back opens up on ignoring his mentor's advice by swapping the Championship for Serie A

da roleta： When Wayne Rooney arrived at Championship outfit Derby County in January 2020, he was immediately made club captain – and none of his new team-mates complained. Why would they? He was a Manchester United and England legend – they had nothing but respect for him. But maybe too much, at least from his perspective. In training, his team-mates appeared almost afraid to tackle him too hard. Well, all but one.

Just like everyone else in the Derby dressing room, Festy Ebosele held Rooney in the highest esteem; he was overjoyed to have him at the club. But the Irishman was also curious to find out whether he could take the ball off one of the modern game's truly great forwards. So, he did his utmost to do exactly that: whenever they were pitted against one another in training, Ebosele got stuck in.

"I remember him saying to me after one session that he was happy that I wasn't scared to kick him," Ebosele tells GOAL, "and push him and lean into him. Because he felt the other players were holding back a bit. But that's not really me, to be honest. I train hard. It doesn't matter who's up against me, I give it my all. 'Train like you play' – that's always been my motto.

"But I wanted to also prove to myself that I could get the ball off him as well! I don't think I did in the end – he's still Wayne Rooney after all. He wasn't just skilful, he was so strong. But I wanted to try at least. And he obviously respected that."

The mix of hard work and fearlessness is the reason why Ebosele is now plying his trade in Italy at just 20 years of age.

Getty'Rooney really believed in me'

He had benefited more than most from Rooney's transition from captain to manager at Pride Park, featuring regularly in a side that launched a brave but ultimately futile bid to avoid relegation to League One in 2021-22. Indeed, had the club not been docked a total of 21 points for entering into administration and financial irregularities, they would have easily beat the drop.

Ebosele had enjoyed his time under Rooney's tutelage enormously. "I really liked him as a manager; I think he's going to have a great career in coaching," he says. "Because he helped me progress so much, particularly confidence-wise.

"He told me, 'Listen, you're a good player, go express yourself. If you lose the ball, just work hard to get it back.' He just really believed in me. He gave me a lot of appearances and a lot of starts, so I'm very grateful to him for everything he did for me."

AdvertisementGetty'I think Festy should stay in England'

Relegation, though, changed everything. Rooney resigned in June 2022, but, by that stage, Ebosele had already agreed to join Udinese, much to his mentor's dismay.

"Festy can be a superstar," Rooney told . "He just needs to keep his focus, his concentration, and keep learning to develop. But just by sheer pace and power alone, he has got something which every player wants. The next part of that is the details, the little aspects of his game, which I talk about after matches. If he gets them right, he can go right to the top.

"But if you are asking me if I think [Udinese] is the right move for him, then no, I don't. I think he should stay in England… It is always difficult for a young player to go abroad."

Certainly, attempting the jump from the Championship to Serie A represented a serious risk for the then-teenager. But Ebosele was excited by the prospect of testing himself in Italy's top flight.

GettyAlexis Sanchez key to Udinese move

There had been offers from other English clubs, but he felt Udinese were too good to turn down. And Alexis Sanchez played a part in his thinking.

"He was my favourite player at Arsenal growing up and I knew that he'd played over here," he reveals. "And Bruno Fernandes was here for a while, too. So, I knew that they were a great club for developing players and then selling them on. I just really thought it would be the best move for me. And, I have to say, I am happy with how it's gone. I'd like to think I've improved a lot as a player, particularly in terms of my decision-making and my defending."

It was far from straightforward, though. Ebosele spent the majority of the first half of the season warming the bench at the Dacia Arena. "I'd been playing in England for basically all of my professional career – I didn't know anything else," he explains. "I didn't know what it would be like to play on the continent and maybe I was half-thinking, 'Okay, I'll move there and it'll be the exact same. Football is football, at the end of the day.' I kind of presumed, maybe a bit naively, that it would take me a few weeks to get up to speed.

"So, to tell the truth, I didn't expect it to take so long. But, even at the start, I was thinking, 'Right, it's tough, but I've got a long contract here. No matter what happens I've got plenty of time to adapt.' I think that helped and, in the end, it probably took six months for me to settle, which is not too bad. But I never let it stress me too much."

Getty Images'Racism is total ignorance'

Ebosele wasn't dissuaded by those who warned him about the threat of racial abuse in Italy. "I never experienced any racism in Ireland while playing football," he says. "I was never the only black player on the team, and I think that in itself probably shows you how things have changed at home in recent years.

"I obviously got told before I came to Italy, though, that some parts of the country, or maybe some fans at certain clubs, could be racist. But I've been here a year now and I've not experienced anything, either on or off the field. And particularly in Udine, when we're out and about, the fans are fantastic. They love all the players, no matter their skin colour or the background.

"But when I see the racist abuse suffered by the likes of [Romelu] Lukaku here in Italy, or Vinicius Junior in Spain, I actually struggle to get my head around it, not having gone through it myself. I just don't understand the mentality of these fans. It just seems to be total ignorance, because I don't even think they fully get it either. It just seems to be the way they are, that when they're hurting, like when their team is not winning, they lash out at what they think is the easiest target. So, it's just sad and, honestly, I don't know how you solve racism in society as a whole. All I can do, really, is my job: playing football."

Which he's proving himself quite good at.