The Blues wing-back is finally having his
breakthrough at Stamford Bridge, but his
talent was unearthed in the most remarkable
circumstances by a youth-team manager


Victor Moses’s early years in England were
not easy, according to his first manager. At
13, he was attacked on the field by a woman
for humiliating her son and accused of
cheating while playing for “the worst team in
the league”. Despite his struggles, though,
Tony Loizi was convinced he had found a
special player when he welcomed him to
Cosmos 90.



Loizi met Moses when the youngster
approached the Tandridge Youth Football
League team looking for a game after he had
been resettled in England following the
religiously-motivated murder of his parents in
Nigeria.



The 25-year-old has enjoyed a fantastic rise
to become Antonio Conte’s first-choice right
wing-back at Chelsea. But it was Loizi who
introduced him to the English game after
getting the permission of his foster parents to
sign him up to play in the youth league just
outside of London. The manager was so
impressed by him that he still has the
documentation of his former player to prove
that he discovered the former Wigan winger.



"We were the worst team in the league and he
just walked up to us and asked to join the
team," Loizi told Goal . "We watched him play
and he was doing back flips and tricks. We all
just stood there with our mouths open. I
couldn’t believe it, he had a shot harder than
a rocket.


"I said, ‘what team do you play for?’ and he
said ‘I don’t play for a team', then I replied,
‘you have got to be in an academy?!’ and he
said ‘no'. I immediately went to his foster
parents' house to sign him up and they told
me his story.



"There is a one-in-a-million chance that sort
of player comes to an ordinary Sunday league
side, it is almost impossible. They are
normally snapped up so early, they are in
academies before you know it. He came up to
us, we didn’t find him, he found us!"
Moses arrived in England when he was 11-
years-old and attended a state school in
South Norwood before joining Cosmos 90 FC
as a 13-year-old for a seven-month period.


Cosmos 90 ultimately folded after Moses left
due to Loizi being unable to continue as the
club's manager but he remembers the
Nigerian's debut with huge clarity.


"His first game was against Chipstead FC and
they beat us 8-1 only a year earlier in the
cup," Loizi, who played in Arsenal's academy,
added. "My son was due to play in goal but
fractured his arm so I put his cousin in goal
who was only about two feet tall! I put Moses
at centre-half who went to my nephew 'don't
worry, I'll look after you'.


"We won 10-1 and Victor scored eight goals
from centre-half, Chipstead were one of the
best as well, as their first team was semi-
professional and all their parents and the
manager were calling us cheats.


"They said, 'he is not the right age' and I
said, 'look we have the documentation, he is
the right age, so tough'. I knew he would
dominate as, when I first met him, we put
some balls on the halfway line and he was
scoring from there - and at only 13-years-old!


"Another moment that I remember was when
Victor goes up to the goalkeeper, puts the ball
through his legs, turns around chips it back
over his head and then beats him again. The
kid was in tears as he absolutely humiliated
him.


"Then the mother of the child comes on with
her handbag and starts hitting him over his
head with her handbag as he humiliated him.


I said to him after that, it doesn’t matter how
good you are, you have got to be humble.


"He was like Gareth Bale when he plays for
Wales. Without Bale, Wales are an ordinary or
average side and without Moses, Cosmos 90
FC were worse than ordinary!"


At that age, Moses named Zinedine Zidane
and Frank Lampard as his footballing idols.


The softly spoken and polite Nigerian became
flamboyant and confident as he stepped onto
a football pitch. He was a naturally gifted
athlete who had the ability to perform the
same leaping somersaults that he can do as a
25-year-old and it wasn't long before he drew
the attention of London's biggest clubs.


"We weren't the best team so we used to
only draw crowds of two men and their dog,
but once we got the word out about Victor,
we had one hundred people come along, then
close to two hundred, including many of my
friends," said Loizi.


"Before the game, I would get called up and
asked 'is Victor playing?' If I said no, they
wouldn’t come down! They only came to
watch him as he was so amazing. So many
clubs were after him and then Crystal Palace
came in. I said to him, ‘look Victor there’s no
way I would hold you back' and I asked him
to come to Crystal Palace with me.


"I said, 'if you sign for Palace you will get to
the first team quicker than at any other clubs'
and in the end he chose to stay with them. I
remember his first game, which was against
Millwall youth and he nearly scored from the
halfway line.


"He is a nice kid, we had a great time with
him and as soon as he left, we lost a lot of
our next few games. Although we eventually
went on to win the cup which was, in part,
down to Victor giving us confidence.


"They say that one player doesn’t make a
difference on his own, but when they are as
good as Victor, they do in youth football. He
was very helpful to his fellow players, he
would always back them up and things like
that."


After Moses signed his schoolboy contracts
with Palace, he was set up with a place in one
of Croydon's best private schools, Whitgift.
There, he continued his success at youth level
by winning the FA Youth Cup for Whitgift.


Grimsby school were blown apart by Moses
as he scored all five goals in a 5-0 victory,
who were managed by ex-Chelsea star Colin
Pates, in the final back in 2005.


Moses went onto sign for Chelsea for £9
million from Wigan Athletic in 2012, but has
only now broken into the first team on a
regular basis after Conte switched to a 3-4-3
formation.


Conte's use of Moses as a wing-back has led
to a five-game winning streak in the league
with Chelsea yet to concede in their new
formation.


Loizi, who now works as a courier across
London, is a Chelsea fan and is delighted with
the impact of Moses after breaking through
into the Blues's starting XI under Conte.


"I think talent-wise and skill-wise he is up
there with Eden Hazard, perhaps he needs
further refining. Now, under Conte, he has a
role and he carries that out. He has become
more disciplined since the early days and
Conte's tough approach will be good for him.


"That skill he has, you don’t teach people
that, he was doing things that not even an
adult was doing. Someone either taught him
in Nigeria or he was a complete natural. A lot
of the stuff he does now for Chelsea wasn’t
much different to when he was with us.


"I am delighted with how he has come on and
you can see some of the tactical things he
has been taught to do, because when he was
a kid he wanted to take the whole team on
which I am sure he will still do for Chelsea,
from time to time."


http://m.goal.com/s/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2016/11/14/29515542/from-being-attacked-by-angry-mums-to-chelseas-first-team-the

more pics

wao! what a touching story...ur parents will be proud of u were they ate now.