Leeds United’s final Premier League game during the 2022/2023 season was against Tottenham Hotspur on the 28th of May.
The match kicked off at 16:30 and a little under two hours later, Leeds were relegated having lost 4-1 at home. Weston McKennie – despite having played in the match – was on a train to London from Leeds just before 20:00. The midfielder would board a plane shortly after that and fly back to Turin; bringing his loan from hell to an end.
The Nightmare in Leeds
McKennie would leave West Yorkshire without having made the impact that he or Leeds’ fans thought he would when he first signed on loan from Juventus in January. This loan would have become permanent if Leeds had preserved their Premier League status.
Instead, Leeds sunk like a stone, and the American was made the scapegoat. Indeed, McKennie was ruthlessly taunted by the furious Elland Road faithful when he was substituted by Sam Allardyce in the dying minutes of their doomed season.
It was, without question, the most humiliating moment of McKennie’s career and would have severely bruised his confidence. To a large extent, you can understand why the 25-year-old immediately went back to Italy even with his future at the Allianz Stadium far from certain.
Weston McKennie leaves Leeds having ended on the losing side in 13 of his 20 appearances, a 65% defeat percentage which is the worst of any outfield player to have played at least 20 times in the club’s history (all 458 of them). #lufc pic.twitter.com/IOmvbzcy50
— Jonny Cooper (@JRCooper26) May 29, 2023
Ultimately, it was better to be in a place where he was once respected than an environment where he was deemed not good enough.
McKennie answers the hard questions
Throughout the summer of 2023, McKennie would have had time to assess his disastrous spell in Leeds without the haze of emotion that can often cloud one’s judgment.
Having done so, McKennie arrived at the start of Juve’s preseason in no doubt about who was to blame for his career taking a dramatic nosedive in West Yorkshire – himself.
When asked about what had gone wrong, the American international stated in no uncertain terms that he had let ‘certain people down’ and that he aimed to restore his reputation in the world of football by becoming invaluable to his parent club in the coming season.
In the eyes of many, it was wishful thinking as Massimiliano Allegri had already told McKennie that he was not in his plans and backed up those words by initially leaving him out of the squad’s preseason trip to the United States.
The Italian eventually changed his mind at the eleventh hour and included McKennie in the club’s stateside preparation for the upcoming Serie A season. The door had become ajar and a determined McKennie began to kick it down with all the force he had.
McKennie’s unmatched work ethic in preseason caught the eye of Allegri and then fate did the rest when Nicolo Fagioli and Paul Pogba were suspended for the entire season. Luck had finally shone on McKennie who was given a second chance in Turin.
The recharged American dynamo in Juve’s midfield
Now, eight months after McKennie’s hasty exit from Leeds, the midfielder has been the driving force behind Juve’s bid to win the Serie A for the first time since the 2019/2020 season.
Wes wizardry 🧙♂️🪄 pic.twitter.com/IR4HepDvQA
— JuventusFC 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@juventusfcen) January 13, 2024
As things stand, the Old Lady is at just 11/4 to sit at the summit of Italian football in May.
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Should Juve win the title, McKennie will have been instrumental to the club’s success. So far this season, he has played in all but one of the club’s games and this missed match was tellingly due to a suspension.
Redemption in Turin
McKennie’s redemption in Italy this season might have flown under the footballing radar, but there can be little doubt that it is a remarkable tale. However, it would not have happened had the American not taken personal accountability for his time at Elland Road.
The temptation would have been for him to drop his head and look for comfort by only listening to the voices of support. Rather, McKennie confronted the cold hard facts and in doing so, spectacularly resurrected his career.