Ruben Loftus-Cheek Talks International Champions Cup, Chelsea Hopes and More

It was 2005, and Chelsea were beating everyone. Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United—all of London’s big clubs were coming up against the Blues only to go home disappointed.

They couldn’t cope with the individual talent of the players Chelsea had at their disposal, nor the collective unit that was busy steamrolling through them. Chelsea were dominant, and the other clubs struggled to keep up.

It’s a story that sounds familiar, but we’re not talking about Jose Mourinho’s Premier League-winning team of the same season here; it’s the Chelsea under-8s from 2004/05 who were busy getting a reputation as London’s toughest and meanest side. They were the big boys, and at the very heart of it all was one Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Born in Lewisham, south London, Loftus-Cheek had moved with his family to Kent, but it wouldn’t be long before the capital was calling him back. Playing Sunday League football with his local side Springfield, the physically supreme midfielder stood out.

Loftus-Cheek was athletic, and playing in the middle of the park—where he would combine his physical edge with his ability on the ball to control games—he showed the Chelsea scouts that he had all the attributes to join their youth sides, where the plan was to nurture him into a Premier League footballer.

“I got scouted so came down to Chelsea and really enjoyed it,” Loftus-Cheek told Bleacher Report. “We had a good group of players and I made some good friends. We used to win every game at that age group. It was so much fun. We used to go play Arsenal and the other teams, but we were still winning every game.”

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Of that group who joined Chelsea with Loftus-Cheek over a decade ago, only Jordan Houghton remains at the club. Also a midfielder, the 20-year-old has been on loan with Gillingham and Plymouth Argyle this season.

Chelsea have bigger plans for Loftus-Cheek, though. He’s one of the few up-and-coming stars at the club who has been fast-tracked to the first team in the hope he will go on to emulate John Terry’s success at Stamford Bridge.

It’s the oft-quoted stat that not since Terry have Chelsea seen an academy graduate become established in west London. Terry’s story is a remarkable one, coming right through from the development teams to captain Chelsea to unprecedented levels of success.

Terry joined the club as a 14-year-old, though, meaning Loftus-Cheek’s story has the potential to weave an even more romantic narrative for the purists. In the words used by Chelsea fans in their banner dedicated to Terry during Sunday’s game with Leicester City, Loftus-Cheek is “proper Chels” to his core.

Congratulations to @rubey_lcheek, our Young Player of the Year! #CFCPOTY2016 pic.twitter.com/ff6NAb0BEu

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) May 13, 2016

Recently named as Chelsea Young Player of the Year, he doesn’t turn 21 until January, yet he boasts over a decade of service that pre-dates the lush lawns of the club’s state-of-the-art training complex in Cobham, Surrey.

Bleacher Report sat in one of the TV studios of the main building as we spoke with Loftus-Cheek. While we waited for the youngster to finish training, we had the opportunity to absorb what makes Cobham such a special environment. Everything there is built for success, from the pitches that are pruned to replicate the Stamford Bridge playing surface, to the medical department that keeps the players in prime condition, Chelsea have created a marvellous facility.

Just across the road from where we were seated is the academy building, where Loftus-Cheek has spent much of his time before coming under the spotlight as a first-team star.

“It was just Portacabins back when I first started coming here,” he told us, reinforcing just how long ago it was when he first arrived as a Chelsea player. “It’s changed a lot. We used to share it with Fulham at the old pavilion building, but then Chelsea took over the whole set-up and made it into this great place.”

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For young kids of Loftus-Cheek’s age back then, it wasn’t the science behind the new buildings that gets football nerds like this writer excited. His team-mates and he were more interested in stargazing whenever they could.

“We found out where the first-team building was so we would be excited every time we came to training just to see if we could catch a glimpse of the players—if we were lucky enough to get a glimpse,” he recalled.

Back then the big names would have been Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech and even the Special One, Jose Mourinho, who would eventually give Loftus-Cheek his senior Chelsea debut against Sporting Lisbon in December 2014.

If those youngsters were desperate just to see the players in the flesh, they saw more of John Terry than they bargained for.

“It was great for us young kids. From what I …

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