Leeds United youngster Wilfried Gnonto still harbours a dream of representing boyhood club Inter Milan. Gnonto is coming to the end of his first season with Leeds and over the next two weeks he will be trying desperately to help maintain the Whites Premier League status.
Despite Leeds’ lowly position, Gnonto has established himself as one of the best young prospects the Premier League has to offer this season and at the tender age of just 19, he clearly has a bright future ahead of him. United supporters will be keen to see the Italian stick around to fulfil his potential at Elland Road over the next few years.
Gnonto, though, seemingly still has ambitions of representing the club he started his career at as a schoolboy. The winger spent eight years on Inter's books at the San Siro, working his way through the club’s academy, but a first-team appearance never came.
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Instead, with a path to the senior side looking crowded, Gnonto made the difficult decision to leave Italy and join Swiss side FC Zurich as a 16-year-old in the pursuit of first-team football. That gamble paid off, paving the way for his move to Leeds last summer, but it seems he hasn’t given up hope on one day pulling on the blue and black of Inter, who reached the Champions League final on Tuesday night with a win over AC Milan.
“Like any kid, I have a favourite team,” Gnonto told Chronache Di Spogliatoio. “As a child it was stronger than now, now I follow Inter and the Italians with pleasure. But yes, I think that in the end it was and is a dream that I keep inside and I don’t know if I will be able to make it come true. Having reached these levels is already incredible.
“By committing myself I can do something more and maybe one day play for Inter or at that level. San Siro was beautiful. A few years earlier I was there in the grandstand and then I played there.”
“I grew up in Italy, I had been at Inter since I was eight, it had never crossed my mind. At some point I had to think about what was right for me. Going to Switzerland was not the most obvious choice, but the right one at that moment.
“I was lucky that my parents accompanied me, I didn’t go to another country by myself. The choice was difficult because it wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I’m happy with it.”
