Weston McKennie has opened up on his outcast status at Juventus last summer, revealing details on how the club ostracized him following his return from his loan at Leeds.
The U.S. national team midfielder had a rough spell at Elland Road in the second half of the 2022-23 campaign, returning to Turin last summer as an outcast.
Though Juventus initially wanted to offload McKennie, the midfielder instead worked his way back into now-former manager Max Allegri’s plans and became an ever-present for the Bianconeri in the 2023-24 campaign.
In an interview with The Athletic, McKennie said he couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the treatment from Juventus last summer.
“I knew it was going to be (challenging). I didn’t know it was going to be to that extent; where I didn’t have my locker, I didn’t have a room in the hotel, I didn’t have a parking space,” McKennie said, echoing comments from his USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter in March.
“I changed in the locker rooms with the academy kids, even when you had players in the main locker room who had never played a game for Juventus because they’d always been out on loan. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I’ve only been gone for six months. I come back and I am treated like this.’
“I couldn’t even get my shirt number (14), even though nobody else had taken the number. I was like, ‘OK you guys want to treat me like this? I’m just going to show you on the field.'”
Motta prepared to sell McKennie
Though McKennie proved to be one of Juve’s most effective players last season, it appears the club is once again prepared to offload him this summer.
The 25-year-old’s contract expires at the end of the upcoming season, with talks over an extension seemingly at a dead end. McKennie was rumored to be nearing a move to Aston Villa as part of a swap deal, but that transfer now appears to be off due to McKennie’s failure to reach an agreement with the Premier League side.
That leaves McKennie in a difficult spot at Juve, whose new manager Thiago Motta has reportedly decided the American isn’t in his plans.
Tuttosport claims Motta is entering his first season in charge without McKennie in mind, which could mean the midfielder will be heading for another new club — whether it’s Villa or not.
At least for McKennie, being forced to prove himself all over again would be nothing new.
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