Eberechi Eze shows his chess skill by winning celebrity tournament after being introduced to the game by former teammate Olise.
Eberechi Eze is a man of many talents. But no one in their wildest dreams would imagine the Crystal Palace star to show his prowess in chess.
Eze has achieved another personal triumph after playing a key role in Crystal Palace’s FA Cup semi-final victory: winning an online celebrity chess tournament. The 26-year-old England international won Chess.com’s four-day amateur PogChamps competition, which features athletes and content creators, and scored as Palace defeated Villa 3-0 at Wembley last Saturday.
In the final, which was livestreamed on Twitch, Eze defeated American YouTuber Sapnap 2-0 to take home the $20,000 (£15,000) first prize. Because Sapnap “missed a key attacking idea, which led to an unfortunate brain fart and piece blunder,” Eze “showed that he’s as good at defending as he is at attacking,” according to Chess.com.
Michael Olise, a former Palace teammate, taught Eze how to play chess, therefore he is a relative novice. In 2023, he informed The Athletic that Olise, who is currently with Bayern Munich, had shown him and his brother the game at the team’s practice facility.
“That’s when I started studying it, watching YouTube videos of the best chess openings, things like that. We’re always playing something at the training ground.”
Eze is one of many well-known football players who have declared their passion for the game; in 2023, Mohamed Salah of Liverpool acknowledged that he was “addicted” to playing chess online.
“I play every day, literally every day,” Salah told Sky. “But I am not saying my username. I put my name and some other numbers so some people they ask ‘are you Mo Salah,’ I say ‘yes,’ they don’t believe it, and say ‘you are lying.’ I say ‘yes, I’m lying.’”
In contrast, Magnus Carlsen, the top-ranked player in the world, defeated Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a five-minute match in 2018 after 17 moves. There are “a lot of decent chess players” in professional football, according to Carlsen, a huge football enthusiast who topped the official Fantasy Football rankings in 2020, surpassing 7.3 million other players. “Martin Ødegaard performs a bit. Though he is somewhat discreet about it, he is not a poor player.
On May 17, Eze and Palace will play Manchester City in the FA Cup final with the goal of winning the team’s first major award. The game will start at 4.30 p.m. BST, according to a Saturday announcement from the Football Association.