Chelsea youngster Ian Maatsen’s desire to forge a successful football career is driven by childhood heartbreak.
The 20-year-old is enjoying a thoroughly productive season on loan at Championship side Burnley, providing plenty of goals and assists from left-back while proving a stern presence at the back in one of Europe’s toughest leagues.
He is now, arguably, at the front of the queue to make it at Stamford Bridge next season.
His time under Clarets boss Vincent Kompany is the latest step on Maatsen’s rise to prominence, after successful loan spells at Charlton and Coventry City.
However, it’s never an easy road to the top and it was almost over before it began for the young Dutchman.
“After Feyenoord released me (aged 11) I thought football was over,” Maatsen told Standard Sport. “I didn’t care anymore, I just wanted to be with my friends.
“I was small and they said I didn’t have the potential to make it professionally. I thought differently, obviously, but I took it in my chest and that I would prove people wrong.
“I didn’t say it with my mouth but I kept it in my mind. Stayed humble, put my head down, and worked hard.”
It’s a remarkable admission from a player who has already achieved so much despite barely being out of his teenage years.
He has won the Under-17s European Championships with Netherlands, played in the Chelsea Under-23s aged just 16 and made his senior debut under Frank Lampard a year later.
Beneath all that is a boy from the Dutch town of Vlaardingen who has been forced to grow up from a very young age.
“At Feyenoord, I was still just a kid who was happily playing with my friends,” he added. “If I lost a game I didn’t care. I was just playing around on the pitch to put my energy there.
“I became serious on the day I got released. It was a dark moment for me. I was thinking maybe football isn’t a happy life. I had been there for six years.
“My family were saying to me, ‘no, you have God-given talent. You are very good’. They said if you want to make it and realise your dream then keep going for it. If not, then give that dream to someone else.
Chelsea were my first opportunity [to go to England] and I didn’t know if I would get another.
“I was thinking about it and as soon as I asked myself the question I thought, ‘no I have always wanted to be a footballer from a young age.’
“I decided that day that any opportunity I get, I will take it 100 per cent and train even harder than most people do. If a player in my team shoots 10 balls after training, I will shoot 20. I was building myself with a hunger in my body. That’s what I have carried to this day.”
Maatsen has not been afraid to make big decisions. After Feyenoord, he joined Sparta Rotterdam and then another of the traditional ‘big three’ in PSV Eindhoven - a three-hour round trip from his family home.
Five years after being left without a club, Chelsea came calling. His mother did not want him to go and it was advice from his father which saw him take the leap.
“My brothers said about staying in my comfort zone or leaving,” Maatsen explains. “My mum wasn’t happy about it though and that was the most difficult part, seeing one of your parents is not behind it.
“My dad said, ‘Okay, if you go there then no more joking around, even if you are a kid you will be coming into a hard world where it doesn’t matter how old you are. You just have to survive.’ My dad is a tough guy, he was in the military and loves the challenges in life. He has been through a lot with work and all that.
“I said to myself, ‘wow, my dream is to play in the Premier League’, Chelsea came and it was my first opportunity [to go to England] and who knows if I would get another. Sometimes the bus only comes once and it is about whether you get on or let to drive by.
“I said from day one when Chelsea wanted me: ‘I wanted to take the opportunity with both hands and see where it goes’.”
Maatsen soon established himself in the Chelsea academy alongside players a few years older, and made his first-team debut a little over a year after joining. Fast-forward three years and the defender is a regular for Kompany’s promotion-chasing Burnley.
The loan route is a familiar tale for those looking to make the grade at Chelsea, and Maarsen sought advice from the likes of Mason Mount, Reece James and Conor Gallagher, who are all successful graduates from the programme: “You speak with them on the training grounds because they have been in my situation as well. They are like superstars now.
“It is good to have the experience from teammates who have been in the same situations. It shows that if you go on loan and show yourself you can be a top player.
“But, I always think realistically and don’t put too much pressure on myself. I don’t say, ‘I must be in the Chelsea squad at 21’. I do it my way to find my own way up so I don’t worry.”
Their advice is simple: play as much as possible. With 85 senior games under his belt already, Maatsen cannot be accused of failing to tick that box.
“I didn’t hesitate to wait in the transfer window, I said I wanted to go out on another loan,” he added. “I wanted to prove during my spell that I’m ready for the next step next season, that’s why I chose Burnley. I thought the quicker I move then I can apply myself to kick on this season. It was the perfect match.”
