Meet Chelsea’s ‘unstoppable’ record-breaking 17-year-old who has scouts raving, idolises Cristiano Ronaldo and is getting ready to the primary workforce

There is a Prague-based company called Eyeball which Chelsea can use when researching the planet’s best prospects, a subscription allowing them access to a vast video database containing more than 100,000 youth players from Africa to Scandinavia and the Benelux to much closer to home.

If they wished to scout Belgian teenagers similar to Eden Hazard, for example, a few filters could be applied: born from 2008; based in Belgium; right-footed; left winger; inside the top 20 per cent for successful dribbles, assists and such. Et voila, your search has uncovered 79 candidates, all algorithmically ranked in order of suitability, and you haven’t even had to leave London.

Yet Chelsea did not need to lean on this talent identification tool to do their homework on Shumaira Mheuka, the newest player to sign professional terms with the club and who was named in Enzo Maresca‘s senior squad for the first time last month.

Instead, he simply turned up at their doorstep. On September 28, 2021 when he was only 13, the schoolboy striker starred for Brighton‘s Under 17s in a Premier League Cup clash at their Cobham training complex.

‘He was unstoppable,’ says one onlooker who was there to see Mheuka score twice as Chelsea were beaten 4-2. The Blues were already aware of the boy who goes by ‘Shim’ or ‘Shimmy’, but now he had tormented them, and they swooped at the end of that season when he was 14.

The competition for Britain’s best teenagers heated up when Brexit meant clubs in England could no longer sign overseas players until they have turned 18. Chelsea noted how Mheuka was a scorer of a variety of goals – his biggest strength being his finishing – but they liked that he could create them, too.

Chris Robinson is now Southampton’s head of academy recruitment but previously spent 12 years at Chelsea, and he was crucial in making sure Mheuka made it to Cobham.

‘I must have watched him 20 times from Under 9s to Under 14s,’ Robinson tells Mail Sport. ‘I continually tracked him.

‘You’re always being asked, ‘Who do you think we should sign?’ I would always push Shimmy. He was the best around. I championed him, if you like.

‘When we signed him, Jim Fraser (previously Chelsea’s head of youth development and recruitment) invited me to the signing day. It was great to see that through. You have to be patient sometimes. It was a big team effort. But it was one I took personally.’

Cobham will never lack budding footballers worth watching, but Robinson continues: ‘If you look across all of academy football, not just Chelsea, he would be the one.

‘I suppose partly because of my personal connection, but also from a professional point of view. He’s a great athlete, great build, great physical presence, and he can score all sorts of goals, a lot of goals.’

Brighton weren’t too happy with losing Mheuka, turning down Chelsea’s original compensatory offer after deeming it too low. The case went to a tribunal, where they were awarded £1million, rising to £4.25m, alongside a 20 per cent sell-on fee from any future transfer.

Mheuka’s 17th birthday last month saw him sign his first professional contract with Chelsea, but Mail Sport can reveal Brighton will need to wait until he pens his second pro deal, potentially once he turns 18, to trigger an add-on worth £250,000. Another of the same value is believed to depend on him making his debut for Maresca’s first team. More on that later.

The bottom line is Chelsea will happily wire Brighton their extra few million if it means their prospect, whose idol is Cristiano Ronaldo, goes on to fulfil the promise that has folks raving.

It is worth noting that nothing is guaranteed in this game. We can be happy to hype in the world of youth football and fast to forget when a starlet does not live up to said billing. Yet Mheuka has only continued to excel at Chelsea, enough to earn his place among higher age groups.

He appeared for the Under 18s after turning 15, scoring regularly. He represented the Under 21s at 16, grabbing his first goal for them in a 6-0 win over Fulham a few weeks back. October also saw him called up for England’s Under 19s, netting against both France and the Netherlands in victories. Adidas already sponsor him, and he is with Elite Project Group, who count Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho as their other clients.

Then he turned 17, a milestone he marked by putting pen to paper with Chelsea before being named in Maresca’s travelling squad for their Conference League clash with Panathinaikos.

Mheuka was an unused substitute in that 4-1 victory in Athens but it afforded him valuable experience of the senior environment, the teenager presumably one of those pleased with the post-match reward of Domino’s pizzas delivered to the visitors’ dressing room. Chelsea’s co-sporting director Paul Winstanley, who says he is ‘really excited’ by Mheuka, was there and so was Joe Shields, the club’s co-director of recruitment and talent. Mheuka talked afterwards of loving every second of it, even the lasers pointed at him by Panathinaikos fans in the warm-up.

It helped that he was joined in Greece by two other familiar faces in Samuel Rak-Sakyi, 19, and Tyrique George, the 18-year-old winger who was brought off the bench in the 62nd minute. The academy trio flew home to London immediately after the game, landing around 3.30am on Friday morning, then started for the Under 21s in a 3-1 victory over Leicester that very same evening. They took the lead when Mheuka produced a backheeled assist for Harvey Vale.

Chelsea face Armenian side Noah in the Conference League on Thursday, a game in which we could see some youngsters involved. Their trip to take on Astana in Kazakhstan in December smacks as another possibility for Mheuka’s first minutes under Maresca if he continues to impress, as well as a potential opportunity for the likes of Rak-Sakyi, George, Kiano Dyer and Josh Acheampong if his contract squabble can be settled by then.

The decision will ultimately come down to Maresca in conjunction with his academy counterparts. It helps that Chelsea’s Under 21 head coach Filipe Coelho deploys a similar playing style. Coelho arrived in the summer with the club’s owners craving a synergy between their development side and first team, as opposed to having them exist as two separate entities.

‘It isn’t about ability, they’re all good players,’ Robinson says of what graduates need to stand out. ‘It’s about character and desire. Conor Gallagher, Reece James, Mason Mount, they had character and desire as well as great ability. Shim has got that. I absolutely believe in him.’

While Brexit initiated a greater focus on finding British talents, Mheuka was also the appropriate age, another scout telling Mail Sport how ‘Under 14s are the target’ for clubs today. ‘That is the big trend,’ he says anonymously as Chelsea, as with other academies, offer these youngsters a full-time education alongside their footballing one.

Whatever physical advantages Mheuka may have held over those of a similar age will inevitably wane in time because once you get to the top, it is men versus men. Yet current insiders at Chelsea describe Mheuka as a forward focused on refining his technical game to remain ahead, hence why he has not looked out of place after he himself was pleasantly surprised to be promoted to the Under 21s for this season. The son of Malcolm, a former footballer in Zimbabwe, he hails from a nice family and carries a polite, reserved personality which makes you want him to do well.

He’s occasionally been used at No 10, never complaining when asked to do so by his academy coaches, but the striker’s position is where he prefers to be. Speaking to Chelsea’s website, Mheuka said his confidence in front of goal comes natural, that he aspires to achieve Ronaldo’s numbers, and he has already envisaged himself playing at Stamford Bridge.

Sooner or later, Brighton’s bank balance is bound to be boosted beyond that initial £1m via those add-ons. It will take some doing, but if the top whack of £4.25m is eventually acquired through Mheuka’s appearance milestones, it is believed that would represent a record for a 14-year-old, his age when he originally arrived at Cobham. Chelsea will consider it money spent well if that happens.