Weston McKennie Is Right Where He Belongs at Juventus

The conversation went well. Pirlo outlined why he wanted McKennie: There would be lots of games this season, plenty of chances for an energetic, dynamic, ball-hungry player to shine. McKennie did not need a hard sell. “It was more a case of me selling myself to him,” he said. “If that’s what he wanted, then that’s what I’d do.”

And so McKennie finds himself where he is now: still a 22-year-old from Little Elm, Texas, but one that has made such an impression in the midfield of the biggest club in Italy — one not battling relegation but competing to win Serie A and the Champions League — that last week it exercised its option to turn his initial one-season loan into a permanent deal, paying $21.5 million for the privilege.

It is the final seal of “approval” of his coach, Pirlo, who just so happens to be one of the finest exponents of the midfield art in recent history. “A legend,” McKennie calls him.

Sometimes, he said, he overhears one of his teammates expressing disbelief at finding themselves playing in such rarefied air, competing with the heroes of their childhood. “They can’t believe how far they’ve come, that they’re playing in the Champions League,” he said. “And I think that, when I was a kid, I had never even heard of the Champions League.” McKennie is not fulfilling his dreams: Somehow, it is bigger than that, as if he is stretching the bounds of reality.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/sports/soccer/juventus-champions-league-weston-mckennie.html