On a dark autumnal London morning, Eberechi Eze is going back to school. It is an early Thursday wake-up for the Arsenal forward as he prepares to return to his alma mater to give back to the place that helped make him.
At The John Roan School in Greenwich, south east London, hundreds of children have filtered into the gymnasium to listen to the England international. Such is the interest, three assemblies will be held this morning.
Despite being told to keep their eyes forward, excitable murmurs begin as soon as the first group spots Eze entering the room. He receives a hero’s welcome each time; teachers and students applaud the introduction of the former pupil.
Just days before Arsenal host his former club, Crystal Palace, at the Emirates on Sunday, the 27-year-old has come with supplies, specifically chess boards, pieces and clocks for the school’s chess club, and patience to answer tens of questions posed by smiling, wide-eyed teenagers with bright futures as hard-nosed journalists.
One student asks whether Arsenal’s £67.5million summer signing misses Palace, another wants to know why he did not join Tottenham Hotspur. The questions come thick and fast as if it were a press conference: Who is the best player you’ve played with? Are Arsenal going to win the league? Can you sign my school schedule?
For the record, Eze does believe Arsenal will win the Premier League, laughing off suggestions from the audience that Liverpool will contend as he answered an unwavering “yes.”
As for Arsenal’s north London rivals, “I was prepared to go to Tottenham, but from the moment Arsenal came, it was always going to be them,” he says, before winning the Spurs fans in the audience back by naming Harry Kane as the best he has played with. “He’s just great at what he does, scoring goals,” he says of his international captain.
So, what does he miss most about Palace, the club where he spent five seasons and is regarded as a great? “The people and relationships I made,” he says.
The purpose of Eze’s visit is to promote chess, another sport in which he excels. In partnership with chess.com, the Eze Foundation brought equipment for the school’s club, which meets weekly. Also in attendance this Thursday morning is the player’s older brother, Ikechi, who introduced him to chess and is the COO of the foundation, and Lorin D’Costa, a British chess coach and International Master (IM), who runs the chess charity She Plays to Win, which supports UK girls and young women in playing chess.
Ikechi and Lorin lead the assemblies, discussing the benefits of chess, of its ability to improve focus and resilience, and explaining the rules while encouraging students to attend the school’s club and to play online.
Through further questioning from students, Eze reveals his favourite chess piece is the knight, and his favourite chess player is GothamChess, an American IM, which is the second-highest chess rating, called Levy Rozman, who played Eze while he was at Crystal Palace in a YouTube video.
Though Eberechi has played chess for just a few years, in May, he won the sixth edition of chess.com’s PogChamps, a tournament between internet personalities, winning $20,000 for his foundation. He streamed the tournament on chess.com’s Twitch and YouTube and told students he is considering streaming his chess games in the future.
The Arsenal forward started playing chess after being persuaded to do so by his brother, also a footballer in the non-League, and former Crystal Palace forward, Michael Olise, telling The Athletic’s Matt Woosnam in 2023 that he began studying the sport by watching “YouTube videos of the best chess openings.”
The school pledges to create new inter-house chess tournaments, while Ikechi promises prizes and invites challengers to play him and his brother. They will, Ikechi says, attend the first tournament.
“Inside, I had something that was telling me just keep going, keep pushing until the end,” Eze tells students.
“This is what you want to do, this is your passion, this is where your heart is and no matter how many people say no, or how difficult the road looks, you have to keep it up.”
Fourteen years after being released from Arsenal, the road has led him back to the club where he started.
“My first (senior) Arsenal game was special. It almost didn’t feel real because it’s something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time,” Eze says in the assembly. “Playing for Arsenal from eight to 13, it’s been in the back of my mind wanting to go back. It felt like the realisation of a dream.”
Eze wrote himself into Palace folklore last season by scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup final to help the club win their first major honour.
He won his first England cap while at Palace too, against Malta in June 2023, scoring his first international goal, in a 3-0 win over Latvia at Wembley in March 2025. But this summer Arsenal came calling. It was a move he could not turn down.
After the sports hall has cleared, the students returning to their lessons with treasured photos and autographed postcards, Eze tells The Athletic how Palace will have a lasting impact on how he lives his life.
“(At Crystal Palace) I learnt that relationships and connecting with people are far more important than anything else,” he says. “What you can do for people, that feeling you can’t replicate in many other places, so that’s something that will live with me forever and something I will continue to live by for the rest of my career.”
Arsenal are top of the league table after eight games, while Crystal Palace are eighth, having beaten Liverpool at home this season. After a net spend of £245m over a busy summer, having finished runners-up for the last three league campaigns, Arsenal are looking strong, three points ahead of Manchester City in second.
“It will be a special day and game,” he says of Sunday. “It’s another game of football that I intend on winning, but the love that I have for Palace, the people, the fans will forever be there.”
Despite Arsenal’s good form since his arrival and an injury to captain Martin Odegaard creating an opening in the team, Eze has yet to hit his full stride. Primarily playing as a right-sided No 10, he has created two assists in seven league games (five of these starts). Over his 450 minutes, Eze has accumulated an xG of 1.33 (measuring the likelihood of a shot becoming a goal) — the fourth highest in the team. It is a good start but, he says, it could be better.
“It’s a bit different from when I was at Crystal Palace. Playing for Arsenal (matches) are more like a show or theatre,” Eze told students.
“There’s more pressure, playing for titles and in the Champions League, but it’s something I’ve dreamed of since being a kid. It’s not 100 per cent there at the minute, but I’m enjoying getting better.”