The Stamford Bridge graduate is flowering with Vitesse and is eager to face his Chelsea teammates playing for England
“I don’t normally get nervous before games,” Armando Broja says. But this was different. Chelsea were beating Everton 4-0 at a packed Stamford Bridge and Broja, a raw academy player, was about to make his professional debut. There were four minutes left when Frank Lampard told the young forward to get ready to replace Olivier Giroud.
Twelve months on, Broja admits that he was shocked. It was 8 March 2020, a week before Covid-19 plunged English football into hibernation. Broja had trained with the first team since the end of January and made the bench for Chelsea’s victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup, but the teenager did not expect to come on against Everton. “When I was taking off my jumper and bottoms I was shaking a bit,” the Albania international says. “But as soon as I went on the pitch the nerves went away.”
