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After everything that’s happened, Kenji Gorre would be forgiven for wondering about what could have been.

After all, not many of the young hopefuls that pass through the doors of Landore’s famous academy have worked under Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

Even fewer have passed up the chance to join a side competing in the Champions League to come to Swansea.

But as I soon discover, there are few regrets over how things have turned out.

“I actually went to Celtic for a couple of days,” he explains.

“Neil Lennon wanted to see me and wanted to see me play. He called me straightaway and that was actually a good experience.

“Then Swansea called and they offered me a two-year deal. They’d obviously heard of me and obviously done their research. They maybe saw me play when I was up at Celtic. I actually don’t know. But they were really intrigued and really happy.

“Celtic also wanted to sign me permanently and I had a couple of other offers, but Swansea were the only ones to really put their paper where their mouth was.”

It’s perhaps a testament to the reputation of Swansea’s academy that such an obvious talent would turn down what many others would consider a brilliant opportunity.

Leaving United can’t have been easy for a teenager raised in Manchester, but looking back Gorre admits that a move to South Wales seemed the perfect next step.

“The long story short. I went to Swansea to make a name for myself. I was thinking ‘I’m gonna get in the first team. I’m gonna grow here. I’m gonna then be back at United’. That was my mindset.”

Gorre eventually joined the Swans in 2013, and for much of his five-year spell he was heavily touted as a potential star of the future, ending the 2014-15 season as the club’s top scorer for the under-21s.

A couple of short stints out on loan followed, firstly at Dutch club Den Haag and then Northampton Town, but a first-team breakthrough at the Liberty remained elusive and, when he left the club in the summer of 2018, he did so having made just one senior appearance.

Now 24, he sits down to chat with me about his sunny new life on the Portuguese island of Madeira where he’s plying his trade for Nacional, a move that, given his obvious talent, perhaps took a few by surprise.

It’s been an eventful journey up until this point, one he admits has taken him to some very dark places at times, but it’s difficult not to see how content he seems to be with things.

Of course, there might always be a feeling of what might have been when he thinks back on his time at Landore, but it’s clear that there are no hard feelings. Swansea was a massive, massive time for learning in my life,” he explains.

“Not just for football, it was life. I experienced every emotion. I experienced leaving my family, living on my own. I went from being a boy to a man.

“I think it gets overlooked how tough it is for young players in those situations.

“You don’t really realise until you get put in those shoes.”

Gorre, whose father played for Ajax and Feyenoord, admits there has been something of a weight of expectation around his career, but he believes circumstances were a key factor in denying him the chance to spread his wings in South Wales.

“I think it’s difficult for managers. I actually made my debut when things were going really well under Garry Monk and I think we were seventh or eighth in the Premier League, which was the highest we had been.

“That was a really good year for us and with all the hard work I’d put in, it was kind of like a reward for me to make my debut, and I was so happy that I actually got to experience that and get a break.

“Then obviously the next year we were fighting relegation, and managers are not really going to play a young player in that situation.

“They’re going to go back to the more experienced players where you know that you’re going to get the best out of them.”

Then again, the youngster was having his fair share of problems off the pitch too. In a recent Instagram post, Gorre opened up on a gambling addiction he tells me very nearly cost him everything.

At the time he said: “Straight after training I would go to the casino, and not just two or three days a week. I’d go every day.

“I would win and I would lose, and then say ‘Oh, I won yesterday, so it’s all right’.

“I would make up stories in my mind that it was okay.”

Opening up on those demons is arguably a mark of the man’s maturity, as too is the hope that coming clean on his troubles will help others.

“It was a time in my life where if you knew me back then you probably wouldn’t have realised,” he said.

“I’m a really bubbly person, and it was a time in my life where I shared that kindness because I know how many people are going through that, and I know how many people are battling that.

“I wanted to be that leader to tell people that it’s okay. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

“That’s where I am with my life at the moment, and a lot of people reached out to me.

“I’m coaching some people through that same experience right now.

“It’s just amazing to see how much it’s helping them through just sharing what I shared.”

Gorre’s gambling spiralled out of control, to the point where he brought himself to the brink of losing one of the most special things in his life.

"It was the day my now fiancee broke up with me,” he recalls.

“That was the turning point. That’s what made me turn things round.

“I started to lose the people around me, the close people around me.

“And I just had that realisation where I was asking ‘What do I really want from life? What really makes me happy?’

(Image: Instagram: @kenjigorre)

“They were the questions I started to ask myself, and I started to be really conscious of that and started to live my life by that.

“Every decision I made was from a higher place.”

Gorre’s religious faith is at the heart of almost everything he does and clearly played a big role in helping to lift him through such choppy personal waters.

Indeed, it was that faith that also played a big part in his decision to call time on his Swans career, although the chance to work under a Champions League-winning manager probably had a big say in it too.

“I was holding on to Swansea,” he explains.

“Swansea offered me a new contract before I left, but I was at an age where I thought ‘I have to play now. I can’t afford to be waiting my whole career to play’.

“It gets to a point when you’re just wondering when your chance is going to come. I couldn’t take the risk and have another year of not playing.

“Then you have someone like Costinha, who’s saying ‘Listen, come and play under me’.

“For someone of that calibre to say he’s going to look after you is hard to turn down.

“Then when I actually went to see it I got a really good feeling from it. I really felt I was guided to that situation.

“I need everything to tick the boxes. That’s how I am. I don’t just jump into an opportunity.

(Image: Instagram: @kenjigorre)

“I did my homework and some research and I’m in a place in my life where it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that I’m here. It’s all for a greater purpose and I really wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t come here.”

After initially struggling to nail down a first-team place, Gorre was sent on loan to Portuguese second-tier outfit Estoril, but with Nacional suffering relegation from the Primeira Liga last season, he’s now a first-team regular, and insists: “We’re going to get promotion.

“It’s a real beautiful island. I wake up every day and just think ‘Wow, I can’t believe I get to live like this’.

Of course, had Gorre been around during Swansea’s own painful relegation, there’s a strong chance that we’d be talking about him as a first-team star, with Championship football arguably fast-tracking the careers of several young stars in SA1.

That truth isn’t lost on him, but Gorre insists he has no regrets.

“I feel grateful for what I have now,” he says.

“At Swansea, looking back, I wasn’t really grateful for what I had. I had the amazing car and the amazing house, but I didn’t really appreciate it. I think if I was to change anything about it, I would have embraced the moment more and be more present. I was thinking too far into the future and thinking about how badly I needed to play rather than just being calm.

“You don’t know what would’ve happened if I’d stayed. Most of my team-mates in the under-23s are now playing, but then who’s to say I’d still be the person I am today?

“I’m not sure I’d give that up. I’m better to have gone through all that.”

But, as he explains, Swansea is just one of several ‘what if’ moments in his career.

“When I was at Man United I was called into Sir Alex’s office.

“He said ‘I can give you a new contract now, but I don’t feel it would be good for your future.

“I was impressed by that. It made me realise that he wasn’t just thinking about himself. He was thinking about me.

“But, as they say, when one door closes another one opens. That’s when Swansea came in, and everything he said to me that day came true.”

There’s still a long way to go, of course, and the man himself has refused to rule out giving English football another try, but for now he’s happy to enjoy the new adventure.

(Image: Instagram: @kenjigorre)

Besides, he has much more important things on the agenda right now.

After coming so close to losing her due to his gambling habit, Gorre is back together with his childhood sweetheart, Izabella.

“It was a long process,” he said.

“After a year we were working on it, working on it and working on it, we got back together.

“We’re actually getting married later this year in June — well hopefully we will with this whole coronavirus thing!

“Hopefully in God’s will we’ll get there.

“You never know what will happen in life.”