JORGINHO is determined to shatter the myth he is Maurizio Sarri’s ‘special one’.
Even by Chelsea’s wildly unpredictable standards, the £57.4million ace has endured a turbulent introduction to the Premier League.
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Fresh in the mind is a wonderful goal at Fulham last Sunday for rejuvenated Chelsea with the fans singing his name.
The same ones who booed him in a Europa League match against Malmo just a couple of weeks ago and who blame him for pretty much everything that has gone wrong in an erratic season.
Italy midfielder Jorginho, 27, played for Sarri at their former club Napoli and they arrived on the same day last July — sealing his fate as the new manager’s blue-eyed-boy.
He has been made the scapegoat for teething problems with the elaborate ‘Sarri-ball’ philosophy being forced through on the pitch.
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Jorginho took the flak when Chelsea’s Player of the Year N’Golo Kante had to make way for him in midfield during Sarri’s bold tactical reshuffle in the run up to Christmas.
Dismissed as pedestrian, too frail and the symbol of Chelsea’s problems rather than the solution it has been tough even for a kid who left home in Brazil at 15 for Italy in a high-risk quest for success.
With the team starting to grasp the way forward under Sarri, Jorginho is happy to put his side of the story while sat in a cramped glass-walled cubby hole at Chelsea’s training ground.
Speaking mainly through an Italian interpreter, his eyes widen, he throws his arms into the air and breaks into English to proclaim: “I’m not special.
“No, I’m a normal player. I don’t want to be special, it’s not good. It’s perfect to be the same as everyone else. I don’t want to be the special one.”
Gathering breath, he goes on: “Even if they do think I am Sarri’s man, I want to show why Sarri likes me.
“So I want to show them I am a good player and they are wrong to have that attitude towards me.
“I have a normal relationship with him, a relationship between two professionals. I don’t go out for dinner with him, I don’t go round to his house.
“Our work is very professional and he speaks and explains what he wants me to do, I try to understand that and do my best for the team.
“I don’t consider myself to be his golden boy. I just think that I am a player who can help him to do the things he wants to do.
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“I am just a player like everyone else. He has certainly let me know what he thinks!
“He has shouted at me, told me I was getting some things wrong… and that is it, I am just a normal player like everyone else.
“I am very calm, because I know how hard I am working and how much effort I am putting in.
“So I accept their views but don’t share them. I respect their opinion and that gives me strength.
“So I listen, I stay calm and work hard and I try to pay them back for their support on the pitch, by trying to do better.
“The fans are entitled to have their opinion of course, to be supporters and to think whatever they like.
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“I respect that and it also gives me strength to work more to change their views on me.”
Jorginho was on a plane, uprooting more than 6,000 miles from home to a new life a year at an age before most kids in England are sitting their GCSEs.
From a small Brazilian coastal town to the youth team at Verona, from there to Napoli where he first started to work with Sarri.
It has led him ultimately to England where his background equipped him for a stern test of character.
Jorginho said: “It was tough moving to Italy so young.
“You don’t have much experience of life, you are leaving your family and everything behind to go to another country and another culture.
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“Coming here from Italy is difficult too, but you already have a few years’ more experience, you already have a family, you already have a different form of support around you, but it is still difficult.
“I think that it is more difficult to leave everything behind when you are just a small kid.
“You are away from home for a long time, you don’t have a lot of money so you can’t just jump on a plane to go back home if that is what you want.
“So we are talking about two different forms of pressure.
“In the first case you are still a kid, whereas in the second case you are dealing with the pressure as a man, so you are better prepared to deal with it.”
None of the issues surrounding Jorginho’s place in the pecking order will shake him or throw him from his ambition to become accepted by everybody at Chelsea.
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He says: “I have never had any doubts because I believe in myself.
“If there is ever a time when I don’t believe in myself then that will be a problem.
“Sarri’s football can work in England. But I also think that is normal that it is taking time for everyone to learn what they should be doing. It’s normal and it takes time.
“Pep Guardiola also had problems in his first year so why shouldn’t Sarri have problems as well?”
