Chris Smalling’s vegan edge, from Mourinho doubts to Roma success

Chris Smalling’s next move is about more than where a veteran centre-back plays next. It is the latest turn in a career shaped by unusual choices, from veganism and public self-optimization to high-stakes relationships with Jose Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson. Born in Greenwich in 1989, he moved from Maidstone United to Fulham and then to Manchester United in 2010, where he built the résumé that later gave him room to reinvent himself in Italy.

From Greenwich to Old Trafford

Smalling’s Manchester United spell gave him the kind of platform that turns a good Premier League defender into a global football asset. He made more than 300 appearances for United and won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a League Cup and the UEFA Champions League, a trophy set that marked him out as a player who had already done the hard part at the top level. That history matters because the next stage of his career has not been a winding down so much as a controlled repositioning.

His route into elite football was also less conventional than the polished academy-to-superstar script. Starting at Maidstone United before moving to Fulham and then United, he crossed the English game’s ladder in a way that fits the modern football economy, where players are not only judged by medals but by how portable their value becomes across clubs, countries and styles of play. Smalling has already shown that his career can travel.

The vegan edge and the body as a work in progress

Smalling’s public discussion of veganism became part of that portability. In August 2018, he said becoming vegan had helped him stay injury-free and improve his physical performance, a claim that landed in a sport where availability is often as valuable as raw talent. By 2019, he was speaking openly about giving up meat, and his profile as a plant-based athlete was being highlighted beyond club football.

That detail matters because it shows the way elite athletes now manage their bodies like long-term investments. For a defender, the difference between being fit and being unavailable can shape contracts, minutes and market value, and Smalling framed diet as part of that equation. His vegan identity was not a side note, but part of a broader pattern in modern sport where players sell not just performance, but the discipline behind it.

Mourinho, Ferguson and the politics of belief

The relationship with Jose Mourinho gives the story its sharpest edge. While Mourinho was managing him at Manchester United, he questioned Smalling’s bravery and his commitment to fitness and to playing through pain. Smalling responded in 2017 by vowing to prove Mourinho wrong, turning criticism into motivation rather than confrontation.

That tension did not follow him into the same kind of permanent rupture that often defines football feuds. Smalling later said he had no issue playing under Mourinho again at Roma, and that alone says a lot about how elite careers are now built around adaptation. Mourinho’s own respect for Sir Alex Ferguson also feeds into the story’s longer lineage, especially after Mourinho invited Ferguson back to Manchester United training sessions in December 2016.

Smalling has also said Manchester United’s attitude reminded him of the Ferguson era, a remark that places his career inside two overlapping managerial cultures. Ferguson represented the old standard of authority and winning consistency, while Mourinho embodied a more combative modern version of elite management. Smalling has lived through both, and his ability to navigate each helps explain why his career has remained relevant well beyond one club or one system.

Roma as reinvention, not escape

The move to AS Roma in August 2019 became the clearest proof that Smalling could translate his game into another elite environment. United allowed him to join Roma on loan on 30 August 2019, and Roma made the move permanent in 2020 for a reported €15 million fee. For a player already in his thirties, that was not a retreat from top-level football, but a market test he passed.

Smalling has said the move exceeded expectations, and he later explained one reason for choosing Italy in personal terms: he wanted his son to be proud of him not just as a footballer. That detail captures the post-Premier League reinvention that increasingly defines late-career moves for elite players. The club badge still matters, but so does the life a player builds around it, and Roma gave Smalling a stage on which performance, family and identity all lined up.

That is why his next move carries a wider meaning than a routine transfer decision. Smalling is part of a generation of footballers whose careers are shaped by borders, branding and bodily management as much as by tackles and clearances. His route from Greenwich to Manchester and then Rome shows how a modern player can turn unusual choices into staying power, and how a career can keep expanding long after the first peak has passed.