Two years ago, he was frozen out by his parent club and, by his own admission, enduring ‘one of my lower points’ en route to relegation out of the Premier League with Leeds United.
If anyone is proof of how quickly and how dramatically fortunes can change, then, it’s Weston McKennie.
Once the whipping boy of Elland Road, now the darling of the Allianz Stadium. From suffering the ignominy of relegation to the Championship to scoring [again] in the Champions League.
And what a goal it was. Maybe not quite as spectacular as the last one – McKennie whacked home a stunning acrobatic volley against Manchester City in the tournament’s first phase – but still pretty eye-catching.
As the ball dropped loose at the edge of the PSV Eindhoven penalty area, McKennie did not need to be asked twice. A thumping volley into the top corner setting Juventus on their way to a narrow 2-1 win over the Dutch champions in the first leg of their play-off tie.
Now, McKennie did not score a single goal in his oh-so forgettable stint with Leeds United. There wasn’t much he did do, in truth. Few players have proven more unpopular than Weston McKennie was with the home support in recent years.
Leeds United flop Weston McKennie shines in Champions League again
Yet, getting used to life in a new league is never easy.
Especially when you find yourself parachuted into a sinking ship mid-season. Especially when the manager who brought you in in the first place – Jesse Marsch – would be sacked only days later, Leeds going through another three coaches before finally being consigned to a place in the Premier League’s bottom three.
As McKennie would later explain, via The Athletic, all these circumstances hardly made for an easy period of adaptation.
“The way that it just turned out in general; four coaches in five months, just nothing going to plan or how I imagined it,” the USA international sighed.
“Football is a world where it’s sometimes unforgiving. People obviously don’t know what football players go through and the stress football players put on themselves to perform, because it’s not like we want to perform badly. It’s not like we want to lose games. It’s just sometimes you have ups and downs, so it hurts.
“It was probably the first time besides for the World Cup exit [in 2022] where I cried, after the last game of the season at Leeds, when we officially got relegated. I hate to lose and I felt like I really let down the expectations that people had of me going there.”
Thiago Motta backs ‘special’ McKennie as he makes the difference in Europe
McKennie returned to Juventus that summer to find that he had been stripped of his shirt number.
Few would have imagined, at the time, that the former Schalke ace would be the driving force behind the Bianconeri’s attempted run to the last-16 of Europe’s premiere club competition.
McKennie’s stunning finish against PSV was his third in the Champions League this term. Only Dusan Vlahovic has more with four. In fact, this is the most UCL goals scored in Juventus’ Allianz Stadium in a single campaign since the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo hit five back in 2019.
Arguably no one has benefitted more from the exit of Max Allegri and the subsequent arrival of Thiago Motta than a man who has now scored seven times on the Champions League stage.
“Weston is special. He is a great player, a great guy,” Motta smiles. “He has played full-back, defensive midfielder, attacker midfielder, winger… A high-level player.
“When I say high-level, he plays everywhere it is because I know what I am talking about. I have been in football for many years. When you ask where they play, these are all things that do not interest me. Weston plays everywhere and must be on the pitch. I struggle not to put him on!”
A man for the biggest occasions, McKennie’s seven Champions League strikes have come against Barcelona, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica, PSV Eindhoven [twice] and, to a lesser extent, Lokomotiv Moscow.
To borrow a line from McKennie’s post-Leeds interview back in 2023, one that feels even more pertinent today, ‘look at me now’.
Receive a digest of our best Leeds content each week direct to your mailbox
