Ben Chilwell has revealed that the prospect of playing for England at the 2026 World Cup drove him to continue training alone during his exile at Chelsea. The left-back, now on loan at Crystal Palace, was frozen out by Blues head coach Enzo Maresca and forced to train away from the first-team squad before his January move.
The 28-year-old, who joined Palace in the winter transfer window, made only two Carabao Cup matchday squads for Chelsea this season and failed to feature in a single Premier League matchday squad. Chilwell spent months training in isolation, waiting for an opportunity to leave.
“For however many months at Chelsea, between the start of the season and January, I was training by myself a lot of the days,” Chilwell told ITV Sport. “You’re not involved in the matchday squads and you kind of just wait for the opportunity for when you’re gonna go somewhere.”
The £45m defender, who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021, has seen his career disrupted by injuries that caused him to miss two major tournaments with England. Now, under former Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, who recently became England manager, Chilwell is targeting a place at the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“It’s a much longer term goal but the World Cup of course. I missed the last World Cup and Euros with an injury so this World Cup is definitely in my mind,” Chilwell said. “That was definitely something in the last four or five months at Chelsea that was another added motivation to keep on going.”
Chilwell made his first start of the season in Palace’s FA Cup win over Millwall and is set to face Fulham in the quarter-finals. “I want to get back to showing everyone that I'm a top world class left back, left wing back. Everyone has an ego in football and I'm not going to shy away from it,” he added.
