Weston McKennie says Cristiano Ronaldo used to call him ‘Texas Boy’ and explains why he picked football over American football as a kid.
The 23-year-old talked about his life and career in an interview with DAZN.
Despite a slow start to the season, the former Schalke man is getting quite a regular playing time in Turin under Massimiliano Allegri. In his first campaign in Turin with Andrea Pirlo in the dug-out, McKennie shared the dressing room with some legends of the game such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Gigi Buffon.
“Cristiano called me ‘Texas Boy’, Gigi ‘Big Mac’ I had a couple of nicknames,” said McKennie.
“I think Pirlo was also calling me Texas Boy. It was a fun experience.”
McKennie went on explaining why he became a football player, picking it over American football, one of the most popular sports in the USA.
“I played ball for a while when I moved back from Germany and then came to the point that started getting rough on my knees. Doctors said I had the knees like a 30-year-old and I was like 11,” he revealed.
“So, I took my mum and said: ‘Look I don’t know which one to choose.’ She said: ‘Weston, you like soccer?’ I was like: ‘Yes 99.9%.’ ‘And football?’ ‘99.8.’ And she said: ‘Well, so you have your decision.’ That’s how it all started.
“It was a good decision so far, but I’ll never know what I’d be like had I chosen football, sometimes I wonder if I could have played as a pro. I think I could have because if I invest my time and effort in one thing, I give everything I have to accomplish.”
McKennie has scored ten goals in 70 appearances for the Old Lady so far and celebrated most of them by imitating Harry Potter’s wand. The USMNT international explained how he fell in love with it.
“It started in Germany. It’s a funny story looking back to it because it wasn’t a funny story at that moment,” McKennie said.
“My mum told me that my grandma got me some Harry Potter books, the whole collection. I loved the print on the front. That’s how I fell in love. Once my mum came to my room and said: ‘Wes…your grandma passed away.’ I was like, ‘no, no, no…’ I was crying. But she said: ‘No! Not the one you are thinking. Not the one that gave you the Harry Potter books.’ I was like: ‘What?’. That was a monumental moment and how I fell in love with Harry Potter. After that, I used to watch it all the time and read the books, some of them.”
Read the first part of McKennie’s interview about his future at Juventus here.
Texas Boy? Wasn’t much banter going on in that locker room.