Chess fan Mbeumo on why Man Utd was right move for him

Bryan Mbeumo has no problem playing football in front of thousands of people – it’s when you sit him in front of a piano with a couple of mates that the nerves kick in.

“It’s funny, but it’s so different,” Manchester United’s £65m new signing explains.

“Even if I play in front of a couple of friends at home, I’m not exactly shaking but it’s ‘oh guys, this is kind of hard for me’.”

Sitting in front of Mbeumo at United’s team hotel in Chicago midway through their pre-season trip is to be presented with a different type of Premier League star.

Mbeumo is quiet, relaxed and respectful, completely at odds with the explosive manner in which he plays.

He scored 20 Premier League goals last season, which made him a primary target for United head coach Ruben Amorim as he tries to make his formation work.

The Cameroon international says he was sold on the United “project” – there were conversations with other clubs but he wanted to move to Old Trafford and, even as the drawn-out discussions continued, he never really felt the deal would collapse because he trusted the people around him to deliver the move he wanted.

It was the kind of standard question and answer session you expect from a new arrival.

Unlike Lionesses Euros hero Michelle Agyemang, who took her piano to Switzerland and played in her room every day, Mbeumo has no great desire to widen his audience.

“I’m self-taught,” he said. “And I’m not bad.

“The piano is nothing really linked to football. It just makes me take time for me and relax myself in my free time.”

It sounds like the perfect initiation performance in front of his new team-mates but Mbeumo is dubious.

Mbeumo says he has heard Dutch forward Joshua Zirkzee likes to play chess so he may take his board on United duty and challenge his team-mate to a game, but for now, most of his chess playing is done anonymously online.

Introducing himself as Bryan Mbeumo, Manchester United footballer, to his opponents probably wouldn’t deliver the outcome he is looking for.

“I have a user name,” he said. “You choose a nickname and just play against random people online. I use my own chess board against them.

“I’m not that crazy good. But if you know the rating, I’m like 800 on Chess.com.”

On the surface, it is hard to think of something more different to football, given the intensity of thought and strategy behind each move.

Mbeumo counters that. The similarities, he says, are more striking than you might think.

Others clearly think so too.

Crystal Palace and England forward Eberechi Eze won £15,000 in a four-day amateur PogChamps tournament, contested by 12 content creators and athletes.

The money is a side issue for players with the earning power of Eze and Mbeumo. The attraction comes from the challenge.

“Even if it’s not physical, there is a lot of thought in chess,” said Mbeumo.

“When you play football you have to think as well. Playing chess you can see some moves ahead because it is a strategy game. In football you have your strategy as well so you can link them together.

“There was one period where I was really into it.

“I was watching videos on YouTube and doing training on the app.

“It’s really good for the brain and you can develop new skills.

“Obviously, you’re doing football most of the time, every day, so you sometimes you don’t really have time to develop on other skills. But I really like the creativity.”

Mbeumo’s interest in chess expanded to watching the Golden Globe-winning mini series The Queen’s Gambit. But he has yet to see the Netflix documentary on multiple world champion and world number one Magnus Carlsen.

His former team Brentford were not scheduled to report back for training until a week after United’s players, and so the 25-year-old stayed mainly in the gym rather than get involved in his new club’s team sessions.

It explains why he is behind the rest of Ruben Amorim’s squad in fitness terms and was not involved in Saturday’s victory over West Ham at the MetLife Stadium.

Amorim has already said Mbeumo will also sit out Wednesday’s encounter with Bournemouth in Chicago.

However, the forward may be involved in the final match of the Premier League Summer Series against Everton in Atlanta on 3 August.

Mbeumo is unfazed by having to wait to make his United debut.

“My first aim is to make sure I’m ready for the start of the season, so I’ll keep working hard,” he said.

That opening-weekend encounter with Arsenal at Old Trafford is followed by a trip to Fulham.

While United do have a good record at Craven Cottage, it is the type of test that has repeatedly proved beyond them over the past few years.

And Mbeumo’s old side Brentford have proved particularly difficult opponents, winning two and drawing one of their last three meetings at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Mbeumo scored in the first of those games, setting the seal on a 4-0 victory in August 2022 that proved the trigger for United’s transfer window panic and resulted in them spending £155m to bring Casemiro and Antony to the club before that summer’s transfer window closed..

It is that profligacy United are trying to correct now, led by chief executive Omar Berrada and technical director Jason Wilcox.

Mbeumo and fellow big-name arrival Matheus Cunha at least fit into Amorim’s famed 3-5-2-1 system as the two number 10s.

He was convinced, as was Cunha, by a vision which goes beyond the current campaign, which features no European football at all, let alone the Champions League, which was on offer from his other suitors, which included Newcastle and Tottenham, now managed by his former boss at Brentford Thomas Frank.

“Of course, I spoke to some others because I wanted to hear their projects but the Manchester United one was very good for me,” he said.

“Ruben [Amorim] says ‘we are people who like winning, and we want to be the best team’, which is what we will try to do.