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Norwich City’s former academy manager Gregg Broughton always believed Alex Matos had the ability to become a Premier League player, but even he is amazed about what the teenager has achieved in a short time at Chelsea.
Just over three months after moving from Norwich City’s youth setup to Stamford Bridge — and a day before he turned 19 — Matos made his Premier League debut as a substitute against Fulham. He has been a regular in Mauricio Pochettino’s squad ever since and picked up a second first-team appearance against Blackburn Rovers in the Carabao Cup last month.
“There are two things about this that is most extraordinary,” Broughton tells The Athletic. “First, look at the amount of talent Chelsea have signed in the last 18 months and what they have spent. Second, Chelsea have probably the best academy in the UK, even Europe. Alex has gone in there and jumped ahead of a lot of very, very good young players.
“It is not that he did not have the potential to become a Premier League player. But he has gone into probably the most competitive environment for young players in world football and held his own.”
Not much has been said or written about what Matos has done so far. Due to Chelsea’s injury struggles this season, perhaps his involvement is dismissed by fans and football experts as merely a consequence of that and Pochettino’s need to use academy talent to fill out the bench.
Yet this is a young man Chelsea had monitored for several years and he is getting opportunities on merit.
Put yourself in Matos’ position. Just four days after being an unused substitute in a Norwich City Under-21s fixture at West Bromwich Albion, the teenager finds himself playing next to N’Golo Kante knowing a dream move to Chelsea is at stake.
This is a club he has wanted to play for since he was a kid. Kante is also one of his idols, a midfielder who has won the World Cup and starred in the Premier League. But as Chelsea kick-off the behind-closed-doors friendly against Charlton at their training ground in Cobham, Matos shows no signs of nerves. He is one of the best players on the pitch and sets up two of the goals in a 3-0 victory.
A clip for one of the assists shows the youngster charging from deep, winning a 50-50 to flick the ball to Silko Thomas, who goes on to find the back of the net. It was a run worthy of Kante himself. The France international, playing as part of his bid to recover from a serious hamstring injury, goes over to shake Matos’ hand, clearly impressed by what he has just seen.
The fixture took place in late March this year. Matos’ contract at Norwich was in its final months and with no sign of an appearance for the first team in sight, he was not interested in signing an extension.
He had already built quite a reputation in youth football and other clubs spotted an opportunity. Matos was invited for a trial at Newcastle United first that week but, within an hour of it being organised, Chelsea’s head of youth football and recruitment Jim Fraser was on the phone to the player’s then-agent to set one up lasting two days with them instead.
Matos did not think twice. His father, Jorge de Matos, drove him from their Norwich home that night to a hotel near Chelsea’s training ground to ensure he would be fresh for the challenge. The first day involved training with the under-21s. Little did Matos know, he made such an impact in that session that the club made their minds up to offer him a contract there and then. The staff did not tell him, though, because they wanted him to remain focused for the match against Charlton the next day. Performing the way he did next to Kante merely confirmed they were making the right decision.
A three-year deal with the option of one more was agreed. Terms also had to be finalised with Norwich because he had been with the Championship club since the age of 11 and so, according to rules regarding players out of contract, they were due compensation for his training. As part of the deal, Norwich inserted a 20 per cent sell-on clause, giving them the possibility of receiving a healthy sum should Chelsea decide to cash in one day
The move could not be completed until his deal at Norwich ran out at the end of June, but he was already mentally preparing himself to make an instant impact. For example, he tuned into Chelsea’s penultimate game of the season — a 4-1 loss at Manchester United — and saw academy graduate Lewis Hall in the first XI. Hall was one of the only Chelsea players to impress at Old Trafford and Matos set himself the target that night to emulate Hall’s achievements, obviously not knowing Hall would end up joining Newcastle a few months later.
Matos came to Pochettino’s attention in September during the first international break of the season. As is customary, with so many senior players going away to be with their national teams, a group of academy players were asked to join in training sessions to fill out the numbers. Matos was one of them and he stood out so much that he was named on the bench for their next game against Bournemouth. It was some vote of confidence and the debut at Fulham followed a fortnight later.
Competition for places in midfield at Chelsea is tough. They spent more than £200million ($254m) this year on Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo alone, as well as bringing in Romeo Lavia and Lesley Ugochukwu. Yet Matos is not fazed in training, another attribute that has not gone unnoticed by Pochettino.
He told The Athletic: “In training he is so smart, always watching everything, always smiling. But when he goes to compete with the first team, he is tough. He is really competitive, really strong. He kicks you and smiles at you! It is nice to have this sort of profile through the academy.
“Why is he involved? Because of his personality, his character. He is always so, so, so focused. Of course, he is a talent with potential, but he has impressed me with his focus on everything.
“There are massive talents in the academy — we have many young talented players who, with time and opportunities, can reach the level of Chelsea.”
This drive Matos has to make it at Chelsea is a quality he has demonstrated from an early age.
Perhaps it was just meant to be. Growing up in Bedfordshire and representing Kempston Colts at grassroots level, he was spotted by Ross O’Kane, a scout sent to watch games on behalf of Luton Town. Due to O’Kane’s feedback, Matos ended up joining their academy. His first official match for Luton (as an under-nine) was against Chelsea at Cobham. Just as he would go on to do in the trial game a decade later, Matos stood out, creating chance after chance.
From this moment on, Chelsea took a keen interest but one of the reasons a move did not happen sooner was that his older brother, Jeyda, had already enrolled at Norwich. It was not feasible for the family to drive their sons to training grounds 150 miles apart.
Norwich spotted an opportunity to unite the brothers, as Broughton explains: “I helped bring him to Norwich from Luton. I had left my job at Luton (as head of youth development) a few years before that and recruited a member of staff from Luton called Scott Smith, who is still at Norwich now.
“When Scott came in he identified two young players from Luton. Alex was one of the two, Kenneth Aboh who is still there, was the other. Scott said they were exceptional and that we should try to sign them.
“We sat down with David McNally, who was the chief executive at Norwich at the time. We had never signed players that young before, 11-year-olds from another club. David was like, ‘I will never see these young boys come through, I will be sitting in a retirement home in Great Yarmouth before they ever play for Norwich’.”
The family moved to Norwich, which helped him settle in. Matos also benefited from Norwich City having an arrangement with Langley School, where it normally costs thousands of pounds in tuition a year, to give their academy players a free education.
He was learning quickly on the football pitch too. Matos was used in a variety of positions, including as a winger and a striker, before going on to establish himself in midfield as a No 6/8, where his idol Kante played. “Alex had unbelievable athleticism, mental drive,” recalls Broughton, now sporting director at Blackburn. “He is just very, very, very hungry to improve, to better himself.
“I left Norwich in 2017 and he would have been 13 at the time. He had already been moved up a few age groups by then, playing with older boys. We had a coach called Chris Brazell. He was excellent with developing young boys. He played Alex as one of two attacking midfielders. The other was Kristian Hlynsson, who is now starting for Ajax and has already made a senior debut for Iceland.
“I am not exactly sure where that pathway broke down for him at Norwich, but he obviously felt he wasn’t getting the opportunities he deserved. He had been doing very well in the under-21 team for a long period and he was now available. I tried to sign him for Blackburn but we were unable to compete with the terms offered by Chelsea.
“It was great to see him come on against Blackburn when they knocked us out of the League Cup. We caught up afterwards and he kindly sent me a signed shirt after the game. It shows how humble he is.”
So what does the future hold? Matos is not naive. He will know about Chelsea’s options in midfield, the money spent on them and Chelsea’s ability to recruit further. Becoming a first-team regular is going to be a challenge.
With this in mind, the plan is to go on loan, get regular football elsewhere and make such an impression, he becomes more central to Chelsea’s long-term thinking. Multiple Championship clubs have already expressed an interest about a deal in January, but any decision has been put on hold until after the window opens. Pochettino will be consulted, which is understandable given the injury issues he has needed to manage. But a season-long loan for 2024-25 is being earmarked too.
It is not the only decision to be made. He has represented England at youth level but also qualifies for Ghana through his parents. Representatives of Ghana Under-21s have been in touch hoping to persuade Matos to play for them.
This year, he changed agents and was signed up by Pere Guardiola, brother of Manchester City coach Pep, for SEG. It is another indication of his growing reputation in the game.
Former Chelsea captain John Terry, who now has a mentor role with Chelsea’s academy, is a big admirer and regularly talks to him to provide encouragement. Current skipper Reece James and England international Raheem Sterling are two senior players offering words of advice and support, too.
Tough obstacles lie ahead but Pochettino keeps saying he is committed to bringing through academy players such as Matos. “We can see that the talent is there,” Pochettino added. “They need to believe that they can reach the first team. It is not only about signing young players (for the first team) but also for the academy players to have the possibility if they deserve to be involved.”
It speaks volumes, then, that whenever Matos is named on the team sheet, no one is surprised.
