The 22-year-old used to attend PL Kicks at the Canterbury Road site as a teenager, where, with the help of the Crystal Palace Foundation, Zaha began his journey to the top flight of English football.
And Zaha returned to the place where it all started to watch the talent on display as well as to speak and offer advice to the participants hoping to one day follow in his footsteps.
"PL Kicks has done a lot for me," said Zaha, who used to live five minutes away from Canterbury Road and started attending PL Kicks as a 14-year-old. "After a while I couldn't use the back garden because I broke everything!
"I played football all the time. At school I would play football so my school shoes were a mess and when I'd get home I would go out and ask my family if they would play football with me.
"It was great to be able to come down to the park and actually have goals, cones and nets and use it for free. It gave me an opportunity to showcase my talent. The sessions were mainly passing drills and from that to games, which I thought were the best sessions ever as I just wanted to play. I used to take on everyone.
"Those times were hard but this gave me a big opportunity and the staff were all supportive. I went from that to where I am now. The whole dream was football from the beginning but I probably would have done something to do with football, if that meant helping out or coaching then I would have."
Coaches who worked with Zaha are still helping out at the Canterbury Road site and they remember the winger fondly. "He always stayed on the outside, he would never go in the centre of the pitch because they would kick him in there, he wouldn't pass!” said PL Kicks coach Michael Lacey. "He stood out a mile."
