“When I came to Newcastle, it was like a dream come true,” says Chancel Mbemba, who wasn’t even a year out of his teens when he joined Newcastle United from Anderlecht two summers ago. “Everyone dreams of playing the Premier League, but I was lucky enough to have that chance to come here, and thank God for that – and thanks to the owner and all the staff at this great club. They gave me this chance to see this dream come true.
“After that, for me, it’s all about hard work, and the willingness to put in that effort.”
And Mbemba is no stranger to hard work. Plenty of it has been required to haul himself back into the first team picture over the last month, having made only seven Championship appearances all season before returning to the backline for the 1-0 win over Burton Albion.
He attributes his comeback to his graft on the training pitch, which gave manager Rafa Benitez a choice to make.
“It all comes down to the training,” explains the Congolese international. “I go out there and train, work really hard, and then it’s up to the manager. He comes and watches us and leads us in every training session, and all I can do is go out there and give everything I’ve got. Then it’s down to the manager to decide who plays.
“For me, it’s totally understandable. I played 33 games in the Premier League and I gave everything I had, but the manager is the man who makes the calls. When he calls upon you, you’re there, and it’s important for me to have the strong mentality, the strong mental will, to say that when he needs me, I’m there for the team and ready to play.
“I’m here to add something to the team, to bring something to them. It’s been a long, difficult season but I’m here to fight until the end. I’ll give everything I can, and I want to help the team every time I’m in there.”
A month ago, Mbemba posted a message on his Twitter account. “Despite my minimal playing time this season, I am here and I am not giving up,” it read. “I continue to train ardently and seriously and I will not give up until I find my place in the team. My wish is to come back stronger than ever and satisfy you, my fans, as I was able to do last season in the Premier League.” The post finished with a bible quote, extolling the virtues of patience.
The time the 22-year-old spent trying to dislodge Jamaal Lascelles and Ciaran Clark as Benitez’s first choice centre half pairing both tested and developed his inner drive and mental toughness.
“It’s essential to be strong mentally. I’m someone who is really strong mentally, in life,” explains Mbemba, a quietly spoken yet assured character. “I think to become a really good player, a great player, you need to be strong mentally – it’s not so much about physical or technical ability, it’s about your mental strength.
“For me, I’m well aware of what I want and what I want to achieve, and that’s something I’ve worked on really hard. I feel mentally very strong.”
That quality certainly helped the young defender who, while not necessarily one to take his work home with him, knowingly shuns the limelight away from football. His job, as he puts it, has always been his primary focus since making that big move from Belgium.
“I’m living my normal life here. I came here for football, I came here to work,” he says. “I go to training and then I go home, to rest, to relax. I’m not someone who goes out a lot when I’m in Newcastle, and it’s the same when I’m in Belgium or Kinshasa, back in Congo. I’m someone who likes to stay home. I don’t go out much – I like to focus on my job.”
While it was a huge opportunity for him, becoming a Premier League player in the summer of 2015 came, inevitably, with a few necessary compromises.
“When I was at Anderlecht I knew three or four people there, and spoke with a lot of the Congolese players there, but coming here to Newcastle was completely different. I didn’t know anyone – I left my family behind, I left my son behind, and it was really tough,” explains Mbemba.
“I left a country I knew. Coming here was a difficult choice, but I came to work for the team. I wanted to make the club happy and I wanted to make the fans happy too. Now I’ve settled into the club it’s a lot easier – I’ve got my wife with me, and soon, hopefully my son will be coming to join me as well.
“I can speak a little bit of English now and I can understand a lot more, but for me it’s all about having the confidence to be able to speak. I’m not someone who likes to make mistakes – I’m a bit of a perfectionist – so if I make mistakes, you see people laugh and it doesn’t motivate me too much.
“When I’m at home with my wife I speak a little bit, I try things out, and I know the basic greetings and some of the football jargon. I’m getting the confidence to be able to speak more.”
That growing confidence manifested itself on the pitch, in his performances in the victory over Burton and the agonising home draw with Leeds United. The terrace song dedicated to him, lauding Mbemba as a “class defender”, received another airing at both of those games – something that wasn’t lost on the man himself.
“It’s great to hear the fans singing my name, but it’s not just about me,” he says, selflessly. “The fans come for the team, to watch a game, and it’s my duty and it’s our duty to go out there and perform well for them.
“The fact the fans do that is a great motivation for me. They do it for the team, and we have to perform for them. It makes me proud, but we know that we need to go out there as players and give them what they deserve.”
That onus to perform, to display his qualities, is keenly felt by Mbemba; indeed, he regards it as a prerequisite of his job.
“It’s not about thinking about whether I can bring something else (to the team). It’s a duty – it’s an obligation of mine,” he says.
“I work hard, I give everything, and when I go out there, it’s not about thinking about doing something, it’s about the action of doing something. I see it as an obligation, a duty, to give more.”
For tonight’s visit of Preston North End, Mbemba will again hope to make the starting 11 ahead of Grant Hanley, who partnered Lascelles in last Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Ipswich Town.
The need to fight in these final three matches of the campaign – a message relayed by a number of people in the United camp over the past few weeks – is one Mbemba repeats with conviction. There are two such tussles on his radar between now and 7th May; one for a place in the team, so he can play his part in the other – the fight to secure promotion to the Premier League.
“The season has been a pretty tough one for the team as a whole. We know that we need to go up, we’ve got a lot of pressure on our shoulders, but we know we don’t have a choice. Every time we have a game we feel that pressure, but we go out there we need to win,” he says. “We want to do that for the fans and we want to do that for ourselves. Every single game we go into it fighting, we’ve got three games left and we want to get back in the Premier League.
“It’s important for me, because when I came here we were a Premier League team, and I was proud of that. If we get back up, which is our goal, then I’ll be even more proud.
“I see it as something I want to be involved in. All I can do is be there in training and give everything I have. I want to bring something a little extra to the team, but it’s down to the manager to make the choice who plays in these games.
“All I can say is that I’m always here for the team, I always have been. I want to help the team go up. If we do that, and achieve our goal, I’ll be proud. We’re going into battle in these three matches, and I want to fight to the end. It’s all down to mental strength.”
