Axel Tuanzebe was hailed as a rising Manchester United star before injuries set him back. Stuart Watson spoke to the Ipswich Town defender about his career to this point.
“I remember it well!” laughs Axel Tuanzebe, when asked about his first training session with Manchester United’s first team at the age of 17.
“There was Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Ashley Young, Juan Mata, Antonio Valencia... All big players who had done a lot in the game over a consistent period of time.
“Straight away you realise it’s a different level of football. You feel a massive jump in the speed and intensity. It was really, really sharp to the point where I was sprinting 100% of the time just to keep up. Before I knew it, I was absolutely blowing.
“Louis van Gaal, the manager at the time, was very strict. He wanted things to be precise and very organised. If you made a mistake he’d scream at you. You know you’re a level below these guys but you’re thinking ‘wow, I can’t afford to put a foot wrong here'.
“You soon see the side of it where players are fighting for the same position in the team. They don’t care that you’re a youngster. You either step up or you’re out. It was very much that environment. No-one's here to feel sorry for you. No-one's here to put an arm around your shoulder and say ‘it’s okay’. No, no, it’s not like that! It’s sink or swim. Especially when there’s a game. You have to hold your own.
“I remember my first session against Zlatan Ibrahimović. A ball came into the box and I got the better of him. The ball came in a second time and I got the better of him again. Then the ball came in a third time and – bang! - he full-on elbowed me in the face and cut my lip. The manager (Jose Mourinho) didn’t say nothing. It was just like, crack on.
“You have to learn very quickly. At times it can be overwhelming at a club like that, but you don’t have a choice. At big clubs there are big pressures and, no matter what your age, you have to deal with that. It’s part of the package. You get paid big money to deal with big pressure, intensity and demands. I think my upbringing helped me deal with all that.”
Tuanzebe was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 1997, just a few months before the Second Congo War – also known as the Great War of Africa – began. His birth city of Bunia was the scene of much fighting. The family subsequently moved to Rochdale, England when Axel – pronounced ‘Ax-ell’ - was just four years old.
“It’s a bit early for me to remember and I’ve not really spoken to my parents about it,” admits the 26-year-old. “I think they just wanted a better life for us. We’ve worked hard as a family and we’re still very close. The risk has paid off.”
Picked up by Manchester United at the age of eight, he was soon highlighted as a leader in the making. He was captain of the Milk Cup winning side of 2014 and received the club’s Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year award in 2015.
“Coming through the age groups players would come and go,” he recalls. “A lot of the staff looked towards me to make sure all the young lads knew what we were about. It was black boots, everybody the same, in a way, in terms of no-one being above anyone else. They didn’t want any egos. Yes, feel free to express yourself in how you play football, but always be respectful. Most of the time the opposition we were playing would be lesser than Manchester United. For them it would be a big game, but we would be mindful to treat them all the same.
“Going into the reserves and then the first team you have to try and hold onto those values. When you’re at a big club at Manchester United, getting paid huge wages etc, it’s easy to become flashy or arrogant. The whole world is always watching and people do lose their way. You see some people change. For me, I found it relatively easy to stay grounded. I think it’s been ingrained in me for so long it’s just who I am now. It’s hard for me to be any different.
“My dad, when I was younger, was very strict. It was, ‘get good grades in school, behave, don’t do drugs, don’t be smoking, don’t be drinking – if you want to be a professional footballer this is the life you’ve got to live’. He was a disciplinarian and wouldn’t let things slide. You mess about, there’s a punishment to follow. I wouldn’t have him any other way. It’s made me who I am. I appreciate him.”
Tuanzebe was an unused sub for a Premier League game against Crystal Palace at the age of 17. Injuries subsequently held him back (sadly, a theme of his career) before he eventually made his first team debut as a 68th minute sub in a 4-0 FA Cup home win against Wigan in January 2017.
“I was nice and steady, the manager (Mourinho) gave me simple instructions,” he recalls.
“Then my first Premier League game came against Arsenal. I was at right-back and marking Alexis Sanchez (in May 2017). Unfortunately we lost (2-0), but I felt I did a pretty decent job. Wayne Rooney came up to me afterwards and said, ‘congratulations, you’ve done good’. Getting a club legend say that was a nice moment.”
A first Champions League appearance, against CSKA Moscow, came not long after his 20th birthday. He then went away on loan to Aston Villa and helped the club win the Championship Play-Off Final at the age of 21.
Back at Old Trafford, Tuanzebe became the youngest player to captain United since Norman Whiteside in 1985 during an EFL Cup victory against Rochdale. One year later, on his comeback from a long-term injury, he caught the nation’s attention when out-pacing and out-muscling Kylian Mbappe during a 2-1 Champions League away win against Paris Saint-Germain.
“Everywhere I go it’s always mentioned,” he says. “I went into that game backing myself. It doesn’t matter who I’m up against, I’m going to compete with you and give it 100%. What I’m not going to do is fear my opponent, no matter what level they are. I think when you start fearing a team is when you’ve lost before a ball is kicked.
“After that everyone was saying ‘well done!’ but for me it was very much like ‘cool, you had a good game, played against one of the best players in the world, but now I want more’.
“I’m not that big on social media. I don’t have Twitter. I’m not going there after a game to see peoples’ comments, regardless of whether I’ve played well or badly. The feedback I get is from my teammates and the manager. My dad is the person who will be completely honest about who I’ve played. For me that's enough.
“You hear about the labels people are putting on you second hand from family members, ‘Have you heard what he said?’ That never got to my head though because I was always thinking ‘you’re not there yet’. People might be saying that you could be this or that, but if you haven’t got there yet then why would you let that get to your head? That doesn’t make sense to me.
“When you achieve something, only then can you say ‘I did it’. But when you’ve played one game, five games, 10 games, or whatever, then you’ve achieved nothing. That’s very much my mentality. Never too high, never too low. Another game done, onto the next one. Never hold onto things for too long.”
Another big moment came at the end of the 2020/21 season when Tuanzebe stepped off the bench late on in the Europa League Final against Villarreal, in Gdańsk, with the score locked at 1-1.
“I’d played a few games building to the final, so I was a little bit upset I didn't start,” he says. “Actually, I wasn’t a little bit upset, I was upset.
“We’d been practicing penalties throughout the season and I think the manager (Ole Gunnar Solskjær) had been told I was good at them, so he put me on for the last 10 minutes or so with the shootout in mind, I think.
“Everyone just kept scoring. By the time it came to me it was 9-8. If I miss, we’re out. Walking up I felt really calm though. I was quite confident I was going to score and I did.”
United eventually lost the shootout 11-10 after goalkeeper David De Gea’s penalty was saved.
“It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised the magnitude of it,” says Tuanzebe.
“Michael Carrick came up to me on the plane home and said, ‘big respect for you to taking that penalty’. Then I got home and my missus said, ‘I couldn’t watch!’
“That’s the role of a footballer player though. I thought, ‘there have been bigger players on bigger stages who have taken pressure penalties, if they can do it, why can’t I?’”
Further high-pressure experience came during a loan spell at Italian giants Napoli in 2022.
“The fans there are football crazy,” he says, with a smile. “Winning is all that matters to them. Their biggest rivals are Juventus. If you lost against Juventus, don’t come back to Napoli!
“We were fighting for the title that season. I remember one game we went away to Empoli. In the 80th minute we were winning 2-0 and still ended up losing 3-2. The fans weren’t happy! In the next game we played Sassuolo at home and they wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. All the ultras were there and they were furious. The police had to come and escort the bus in. We won that game 6-1, so it obviously got us going!
“Training was different there. It wasn’t as intense as I thought it would be. A lot of it is very tactical. The culture’s different, there are a lot of evening games, the weather was obviously nice. It’s a beautiful language and I think if I’d done a full year there I’d be relatively fluent. I got to the stage where I could understand the team talks.
“It’s a shame, really, because I did want to play more football out there, but that was the start of this big injury.”
The injury being referred to is a back problem. It limited Tuanzebe to just two outings for Napoli and five during a subsequent spell at Stoke. He was released by Manchester United at the end of his contract as a result.
Now reunited with former United coaches Kieran McKenna and Lee Grant at Ipswich – more on that in part two of this interview – Tuanzebe is looking to rebuild his career.
The 26-year-old may have had some big tales to tell, but he doesn’t just want to be known as a moments man. It’s now all about adding to his 74 starts and 24 sub appearances in the senior game.
“If you look at the rankings of the best players in the world it’s generally considered to be Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at the top. Why? Because of how long they’ve done it for,” he says.
“Someone could argue that Ronaldinho or Ronaldo Nazario, for example, should be in that conversation, but it’s longevity that makes you a great.
“That’s how I'm looking at myself. It can’t just be one-time things I look back on. I want to do it consistently in my career now.”
- See part two of this interview for Tuanzebe talking about reuniting with Kieran McKenna at Ipswich Town, the club’s Premier League promotion chances, his road to recovery and hopes for the future.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here