'Legends': Returning Chelsea loanee names Terry and Drogba as his boyhood heroes
Malang Sarr listed several Chelsea icons as the players he looked up to growing up during his first official interview with the club.
Sarr has been pretty anonymous with the Blues since he was signed from Nice last summer on a free.
Before he could step foot inside Stamford Bridge, the 22-year-old was sent on loan to Porto for a term.
He only made 19 appearances across all competitions and was even demoted to the B-team at one stage.
The young defender did manage to shackle Cristiano Ronaldo in a Champions League knock-out match that helped Porto progress to the quarter-finals.
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Now back at Cobham for pre-season training, Sarr will be hoping to impress Thomas Tuchel and hopefully stick around in South West London.
Sarr star struck
Perhaps in an attempt to soften the Chelsea hierarchy, the Frenchman named a handful of ex-Blues stars as his footballing heroes.
“I was a striker until I was 13 or 14 so Didier Drogba was one, and then the guys at the back, John Terry and Ashley Cole, and then Frank Lampard, all these legends,” said Sarr.
“My father loved Marcel Desailly, too, and would tell me all about him.”
Interestingly, it was Lampard who was in charge when the centre-back was brought in.
Whether he was involved in the transfer is unknown, but it would have been poetic had the two worked together.
Chelsea new and old
Sarr is not the only new signing who has admired a Chelsea gem of the past.
“If I can try to replicate the career he’s had here, I will be pretty happy,” said Ben Chilwell earlier this year when speaking about Ashley Cole.
“Of course he had a big impact on my decision [to join] because I loved him as a player and watched him very often,” admitted Havertz about Lampard.
But it’s not always the current crop of talent who have to be approving of older idols.
John Terry raved about Thiago Silva after a game against Aston Villa last campaign.
It is just nice to see the all eras of Chelsea’s history intertwining to make one, big happy blue family.
