Nobody could know then what they would become, but Clement can still remember the moment he realised just how remarkable that generation was.
“I was in my garage last week and I saw an old photograph in a box,” Clement told Football Presse. “It was a 2008 Academy photo, I think it was 2008, and I pulled it out.”
As he looked through the picture, familiar names began to appear.
Then Clement noticed the players.
“I saw some of the really young ones, and I never coached these players, but they would have been eight years old, nine years old, 10 years old at the time.”
And then came three names that would eventually become synonymous with the success of Chelsea's academy.
“I saw in the bottom row, sitting down, arms folded, legs crossed, Reece James. And, oh God, that looks like Mason Mount. Mason Mount was in the picture. And then I looked across and there's Declan Rice.”
What happened afterwards is now part of Chelsea history. James became Chelsea captain and won the Champions League and Club World Cup; Rice, released by Chelsea as a teenager, went from West Ham to Arsenal and became a Premier League champion; Mount moved on to Manchester United.
But Clement believes what happened at Chelsea was about much more than luck.
“I don't think it was a fluke.”
The foundations, he says, were already being laid when he was working there.
“There was obviously a period where we thought there were some good young players coming through, but they were getting blocked. There were not those opportunities. The windows weren't open. The door wasn't open for them to then go to the first team because the first team was packed with talent.”
That was the paradox of Chelsea's academy at the time.
The club had outstanding young players, but the senior side was being built to win immediately.
“Two players in each position of a very, very high level. And when that's the case, it's hard to bring in the young players.
“Jack Cork would be a really good example of someone that left the club and has gone on and had a really good career. Between Championship and Premier League. Sam Hutchinson, Ryan Bertrand, they were all players around that time.”
He also remembered Jeffrey Bruma, Miroslav Stoch, Fabio Borini and Jacopo Sala as players who went on to build careers elsewhere.
The breakthrough for Chelsea's academy generation came when circumstances finally created the space that had previously been missing.
And when the opportunity arrived, the young players took it.
“Mason, Connor Gallagher, Tammy Abraham, Reece James, obviously Trevor Chalobah — there's a big list now of players that are playing at a really good level.”
Clement believes one of the most important figures in that development has often operated away from the spotlight.
“There'd be no one more influential in the academy and youth development of Chelsea over the last 25 years than Neil Bath.”
According to Clement, Bath's approach was to develop talent closer to home rather than constantly relying on large numbers of imported youngsters.
“It was really his idea, his strategy, to focus on local talent first, regional talent, and then national talent, rather than having big influxes of young foreign players.”
The timing eventually became perfect.
Young players were ready. Chelsea's first team had less room to hide behind its established stars. A transfer ban created further restrictions, while some senior players moved on.
“That space became available. And when they got their chance, they really, really took it. Good coaching program, innovative, good environment for the work to be done.”
The academy wasn't simply producing players. It was producing coaches too.
“Brendan Rodgers, myself, Steve Holland, Joe Edwards, Michael Beale — all coaches that came through the academy who are now managers in the game as well.
“It was a great place to develop, to learn, to flourish, a really elite environment at that time.”
One of Clement's most intriguing observations, however, concerns the difficulty of predicting which young players will actually make it.
He points to Gaël Kakuta, the French attacking midfielder who joined Chelsea from Lens at 16.
“Best young player I've ever seen.”
Kakuta had everything Clement associated with elite talent.
“Left-footed, quick, could play as a number 10, or he could play off the side as well as a winger coming inside. Incredible talent.”
Yet the career didn't develop in the way many expected.
“He played in the first team, not very many games, but I think he found that initial step quite hard of going from youth football into senior football.”
And that, Clement says, is why academies should never pretend that talent identification is an exact science.
“You don't always know. It's not always crystal clear.”
He remembers the players Chelsea let go who went on to flourish, while others who looked certain to reach the very top did not.
“There's lots of variables involved.”
Few examples make the point better than Rice. Chelsea released him as a teenager, and he subsequently established himself at the top level with West Ham United and Arsenal.
For Clement, it is a reminder that development is not a straight line.
“There's not one way of doing it.”
That makes the old photograph even more revealing now.
At the time it was simply a picture of children inside a football academy. Looking back, Clement can see something else.
Reece James was sitting there. Mason Mount was sitting there. Declan Rice was sitting there.
And none of them yet knew what was coming.
Today, Clement has another extraordinary chapter in his career. He joined Carlo Ancelotti's Brazil staff in May 2025 and was part of the coaching team at the 2026 World Cup. Brazil reached the last 16 before losing 2-1 to Norway, and Clement remains Ancelotti's assistant coach.
It means the former Chelsea academy coach who once studied the development of teenagers at Cobham is now working with Brazil's senior national team alongside the manager with whom he has shared Champions League, Premier League and other major successes.
And so Clement's career has come full circle in another way.
He once helped develop children who would become Premier League and international stars. Now he is helping coach Brazil's senior team alongside the manager who has been his closest professional colleague.
But perhaps the most telling image remains that old Chelsea photograph.
James, Mount and Rice were only boys. Clement was already looking at the game through the eyes of a coach.
He just didn't yet know how important those three children would become.