Caicedo's Chelsea Love Traced to Childhood Shirt

Chelsea midfielder Moises Caicedo celebrates his 25th birthday, and the club has republished an interview he gave shortly after signing, in which he described a love for the Blues that began long before his move.

The interview was first published in the official Chelsea matchday programme in November 2023. When Caicedo was unveiled as a Chelsea player, the club's content team recreated a photograph of him sitting on the bumper of a car with his mother, Carmen, taken a few years earlier in Ecuador. In the original picture, he is in his late teens and wears the Chelsea home shirt from the 2020/21 season.

The club's announcement caption read: "It's only ever been Chelsea," a reference to the fact that Chelsea was not the only club interested in signing the midfielder from Brighton. Caicedo explained the origin of the shirt. "I spoke to my old agent and I asked him if I could get that shirt," he said. "I wanted N'Golo Kante's shirt, but it was a bit impossible to get it. But he said, 'I'm gonna buy one for you.'"

Caicedo said his admiration for Chelsea midfielders went back further than Kante. "I used to watch videos of [Claude] Makelele from when he was here," he said, "because when I started to play in midfield, I started to watch videos of Chelsea."

Makelele left Chelsea at the end of the 2007/08 season, when Caicedo was six years old. Caicedo has aspired to play at the highest level ever since.

As a boy in Santo Domingo, Ecuador, he played football in the streets, where his older brothers and their friends told him he had the talent to succeed. He said the early challenge was real. "They were really good, but my dedication and my hard work were everything," he said.

Caicedo grew up with nine siblings and had plenty of team-mates for informal games. A local coach, Ivan Guerra, helped prepare him for competitive football. He later joined Independiente del Valle, one of Ecuador's top clubs, after a trial arranged by one of his brothers.

Independiente's academy is about a two-hour drive from his hometown. Caicedo captained his age group to the Under-20 Copa Libertadores title there. He later signed for Brighton & Hove Albion the following winter, having played just over 30 first-team games for Independiente del Valle.