Chelsea have signed so many incredible young players that it can be hard to keep track of them at times.
One who is already always in the headlines however is Kendry Paez. As a true wonderkid, and especially one who comes from a smaller country and thus has even more media attention on him, he’s rarely out of the headlines.
He’s already getting a bit of a reputation for his precocious talent – but also something of an attitude which not everyone loves. Having broken into the team as a 15 year old, recent games have seen him back on the bench, a controversial decision among Independiente fans, as outlined by Ecuador sports blog “El Crack Deportes“:
“The footballer – still just 17 years old – has dropped his level, and for this reason manager Javier Gandolfini has decided to relegate him to the subs bench – although he always comes on.
“It’s a situation which is still full of unknowns, but what’s clear is the poor form of Paez. “The Jewel” is not influential in the play of his team, who need him at 100% to compete for the second phase of the league, which has been led to this point by LDU Quito.”
A natural part of the development of a young player
It’s inevitable that a young player who is phenomenally talented and ahead of everyone else in his country, let alone his age group, is going to have some ups and downs. It’s just unlucky for Kendry that he’s so in the spotlight at such a young age, when most people would still be an unknown in a youth team somewhere.
The “arrogance” which we hear about sometimes is surely due to the fact that he’s just such a big fish in a small pond. When he comes to Europe and starts training and playing with the big boys, we’re sure he will be seen as humble and studious.
