Ex-Leeds United loanee makes Champions League 'stepping stone' admission and reveals online abuse

The US Men's National Team midfielder joined Leeds to play alongside international team-mates Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson during Jesse Marsch's tenure as boss at Elland Road, in a loan from Juventus that included a permanent option. But by the time the loan was through, Marsch had been sacked, Leeds were relegated and there was no appetite on any side to prolong McKennie's stay in West Yorkshire.

Poor performances in a failing team and the social media abuse that subsequently followed was all a far cry from what McKennie envisaged when he agreed to the move. He told The Athletic his sights were set on the top end of the English top flight, rather than a lasting relationship with Leeds. "When I went there, my head was more, ‘OK, I want to go here, perform very well, put up numbers, help the team stay up and then hopefully another Premier League team, top five, comes in and sees how well I’ve played and then they would buy me’,” he said. “With all the respect to Leeds and their fans, I love Champions League football. I love playing at the highest level. Leeds was more of a place I wanted to go to experience something new, the Premier League. But there’s no better place to be seen by Premier League teams than if you’re playing in the Premier League."

But it turned out so differently. McKennie's good friend Adams missed the final 12 games of the campaign and the midfield never really clicked for Marsch, his replacement Javi Gracia or the third and final manager of the season Sam Allardyce. Adams told The Daily Mail this week that he felt like he had let McKennie down by getting injured after playing a key role in Leeds' recruitment of his compatriot.

"My time at Leeds was probably one of my lower points, if not the lowest in my professional career,” said McKennie. “By going to Leeds and having the performance that I had there and the way that it just turned out in general — four coaches in five months, just nothing going to plan or how I imagined it.”

McKennie also told The Athletic that relegation on the final day of the season left him in tears and feeling like he had let people down. The reaction he received online compounded his despair. “When people started attacking me — me as a person in general, not even with football — everyone knows that I’m more thick-boned than than some other players, in that my body shape is the way that it is. But when people started out saying, ‘You fat b******’ and ‘you pig’ and ‘you monkey’ and stuff like that, people don’t really realise the effect that it has on people. I like to be happy and to make people happy, to make people laugh. So that was a little bit hard.”

The USMNT man has since returned to Juventus and bounced back from his English nightmare, adding seven assists in34 Serie A performances. His future at Allianz Stadium remains up in the air, with links to Tottenham Hotspur emerging after his makeweight part in a deal to take Douglas Luiz from Aston Villa to Juventus hit a stumbling block.