Chelsea’s Fikayo Tomori opens up on his decision to represent England rather than his own country, Canada. The 22 years old defender left Canada to move to England with his family when he was very small and there he joined the Chelsea academy at just the age of eight.
However, he stills feels the connection to his home country, Canada courtesy to his annual family visits there and considers himself as a Canadian. But in football, he is happy to represent England.
In the previous season, he was trusted by Lampard and he emerged as a crucial player of Frank Lampard’s first-team squad where he featured in a total of 22 games for Chelsea. Earlier he spent loan spells at various clubs that includes Derby County, Hull City, and Brighton Hove & Albion,
In fact, his excellent performance in this newly appointed team impressed the head coach so much that it earned the young defender a call-up to England’s senior team. Tomori made his debut in November 2019 where he played just six minutes against Kosovo in a European Qualifier match.
“When it came to making a decision to switch when I was younger, it wasn’t something I took lightly, and it was something I really did think about,” said the Chelsea FC center-back in Chelsea Mike’d Up podcast.
“Even though I had got called up to Canada first and then England called me up, it wasn’t just a switch—like oh yeah, ‘okay I’m going to go to England.’ It was more very thought out, and I thought, you know, maybe this could be the pathway for me here (in Canada).”
“Obviously, England is such a top national team that the competition is what brings out the best in every single person,” said Tomori, who has committed his future to the European side. “And I think that having those kind of aspirations to get to that team where they’re always going to be expected to do well in World Cups, expected to do well in European Championships, having that pressure to do well is something that I think I thrive under.
“The bigger the challenge, the greater the reward I guess.”
Fikayo Tomori is yet to feature in another game for England since his debut last year but he still is on the radar of Gareth Southgate as he is indeed a talented defender who showed great maturity while playing for the senior team. In Chelsea, he is fighting for his spot with the new arrival, Thiago Silva.
While he’s very happy with his decision to go for representing England rather than his native land Canada, he does acknowledge that there is the opportunity to join Canada.
With the emergence of global stars, Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David, Canada is a new redeveloped team and looks way different now than it did when he made his choice.
