Tom Hamilton
After Arsenal training sessions, reserve team players Jimi Gower, Lucas Martin Nygaard and Elián Quesada Thorn used to rush to make a 2 p.m. tee time at nearby Hertsmere Golf Club.
“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I won most of them,” Gower tells ESPN. Their last round was in early June. “All of our futures were up in the air and we knew it might be the last one for a while, but we didn’t know where we were going or what anyone was doing at the time.”
All three were at Arsenal together, dreaming of playing in the Premier League. Gower was on the bench for the first team three times, but never got on the pitch. With his contract up in June 2025, he was told the previous February that he wasn’t being offered a new deal.
He received interest from clubs in leagues below the Premier League, but he remembered one match for Arsenal’s under-21s against Leyton Orient where he stood in the middle of the pitch, feeling like he was the net in a game of pingpong. He’s a technical midfielder, the sort who wants the ball at his feet, not watching it fly over his head from one end of the pitch to the other.
For his next move, instead of dropping down in order to rise again, he wanted something different. He has the right support around him: his father, Mark Gower, is part of Liverpool’s recruitment team. His uncle, Simon Francis, is technical director at AFC Bournemouth. Francis’ Cherries are part of the same Black Knight ownership group as Portugal Primeira Liga side Moreirense, and Francis mentioned them to Jimi. After a successful trial, he was handed a three-year contract.
Meanwhile, the other two in their three-ball headed overseas. Quesada Thorn, who has Costa Rican dual-nationality, signed for Alajuelense. Martin, a Danish goalkeeper, went back on loan to Brabrand IF.
All three young lads dreamt of breaking through at Arsenal, had options in the UK, but decided to go elsewhere.
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“There’s a lack of opportunity in England for young players,” one agent said to ESPN. “Clubs would rather buy the finished article from abroad or foreign youth players. English youngsters are more expensive.”
Last summer, Gower was one of 26 homegrown British and Irish players who left clubs in the English and Scottish systems to head to one of the top leagues in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Portugal or the Netherlands. A previous trickle (on average, 3.05 players made such moves each year between 2000 and 2017) is increasingly becoming a stream of talent looking abroad (an average of 15.22 per year ever since), and for those already playing in leagues across Europe, they think it could soon become a flood.
The Chalobah and Sancho effect
Success stories of Brits heading abroad in the pre-Premier League era were few and far between, and moving into the 21st century, you could count the number of homegrown players leaving England or Scotland for a team abroad on one hand. We saw elite players join Real Madrid with David Beckham signing in 2003 and Gareth Bale a decade later, but those moves were the exceptions rather than the rule in an age when players tested the waters abroad but often came back within a season or two following mixed reviews.
If you wanted to play for England in a major tournament, unless your name was Beckham or Owen Hargreaves, you played in the Premier League.
But between 2015 and 2019, intrigue grew with options abroad, and from talking to agents, sporting directors, players, analysts, managers and family members, there are two names mentioned as trendsetters. The first was Nathaniel Chalobah and his loan move to Napoli from Chelsea in 2015. He played five times in Serie A and loved the experience.
“He’d been captain of the England under-17 team in 2010, and England under-19s, and that group all looked up to him. The players all spoke to him about the move, and heard how much it benefited him,” one source said. “He definitely matured as a result of that experience.”
The second lightning-bolt transfer was Jadon Sancho’s move to Borussia Dortmund in 2017, when the German side signed him from Manchester City. Sancho excelled at Dortmund, where he played 147 times across four seasons, made his England debut and then signed for Manchester United in a deal worth £73 million in 2021.
“[Sancho] felt he had the ability, and he backed himself,” Neil Roberts, former head of youth player acquisition at Manchester City, told ESPN. “It was a good fit for both as for Dortmund it was almost like a pilot scheme, a test of what it’d be like to take a talent from England, as opposed to us taking from them. It also opened the floodgates for agents to broaden their horizons in terms of what’s available for players.”
The following summer, 16-year-old Noni Madueke joined PSV Eindhoven from Tottenham Hotspur. Others walked the walk, too: Keanan Bennetts, 19, went from Tottenham to Borussia Mönchengladbach; Reo Griffiths, 18, swapped Tottenham for Lyon; Jonathan Panzo, 17, joined AS Monaco from Chelsea.
“That high technical quality, high tactical quality, you look at the success they have at youth level now in England, they didn’t have that 10 years ago. So they’re developing a better product of player,” one source said. “But the elevation of the Premier League, the demands of the Premier League, the short-term nature and analysis of the Premier League, I think has created a glass ceiling for a better quality of talent they’re producing. And I think other leagues are looking at that and becoming more strategic and more business managed.”
When Jude Bellingham went from Birmingham City to Dortmund in 2020, the pathway was established. Jamie Gittens joined him there that summer, signing for the German club from Man City. Samuel Iling-Junior went from Chelsea to Juventus. Angel Gomes left Manchester United for Lille, Aaron Hickey joined Bologna. Since then, Bellingham has joined Real Madrid, Gomes is at Marseille (having made his England debut) while the others have returned to the Premier League on big transfers.
“Their stories all prove that you can go abroad, and not be ‘forgotten,'” said one recruiter. “All teams are scouting heavily through data and video scouting, especially since COVID, so you’re never far away from the eyes of the people who matter. You can go abroad, establish yourself as a first-team player and keep the door open on a return to a Premier League side. Your value stays high.”
Over the past two summers, the numbers of youngsters looking abroad have increased further. Those around the players say they have had their heads turned by proven success stories like Gomes, Madueke, Bellingham and Sancho.
“They’re looking at those guys and seeing how much they’re playing aged 17, 18, 19 or even 20 and thinking, ‘I don’t want to wait, to be honest,'” said one agent. But from speaking to the players who moved in the past couple of years, they all have concerns over the thinning pathway in the English system and have different reasons for looking abroad.
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A broken system
Every summer, there are players aged between 18 and 21 who are reaching the end of their time at their boyhood club. It’s around this age when a player is either integrated into the first team, handed a new contract and dispatched on loan, transferred or released with best wishes.
In August 2022, Robbie Ure scored 10 minutes into his debut for his boyhood club Rangers, but by the following summer, he found himself at a crossroads. He knew he had to leave the club to progress, and when Anderlecht came calling with their RSCA Futures team, he headed to Belgium.
“I just felt like that I couldn’t really develop more at Rangers,” Ure, 21, tells ESPN. “I didn’t really want to go on loan in Scotland to a lower league so I looked elsewhere, and Anderlecht came calling. I got to stay in a massive club and they are known throughout Europe for developing young talent as well. I really wanted to put myself in an uncomfortable situation where I could grow. I saw the track record of some players who made similar moves, so it was a no-brainer.”
Ure moved from Anderlecht to Swedish Allsvenskan side Sirius in March.
“I’d been playing with the under-21s at Anderlecht and training a bit with the first team, but it was the right time to take the next step,” he said. He finished the season with 11 goals and four assists in 30 matches, the club’s second top scorer. He’s in no rush to head back to Scotland.
“When Sirius came for me, I had options to go back home, but I wanted the pressure of being first-choice striker. I know that clubs elsewhere have all the data, every club knows of what every player is doing. But this experience has made me physically a lot better but also I think I’m better at dealing with the pressure of being a regular starter. It taught me to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I’m a lot stronger mentally now.”
In the summer of 2024, then-20-year-old Shola Shoretire was looking at his options. He’d made three substitute appearances for Man United and they had offered him a new deal, but he wanted a run of first-team football and took up an offer at PAOK Salonika in Greece.
“I had some good Championship clubs wanting to take me in on a permanent [transfer], but I just thought if I’m going to leave United, I might as well, like, go and take it a big step,” he says. “Not just for football, but for life and you know, that step into manhood. When PAOK in Greece sent over the proposal, it’s something that I liked and the next big step was then moving to Greece.”
He made 27 appearances in 2024-25 but wanted to play week in, week out. PAOK agreed, and Shoretire is currently on loan at PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie, but players are becoming increasingly wary of the kind of short-term switch that Shoretire is currently experiencing.
“It’s literally like if you have a couple of bad games, that’s you done, you’re on the bench and you’re fighting in a new team to try and get back into the team,” Shoretire said. “It’s even harder to break through at your parent club when you’re stuck in a cycle of loans, loans, loans.”
That’s why permanent moves are becoming more and more popular. And with U21s having played an average of 19,790 minutes in top-flight leagues in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Portugal and the Netherlands so far this season, compared with 16,117 in the Premier League, it’s not hard to understand why.
Speaking to people in and around the game, they see two overarching reasons for this: football’s short-termism, and pressure. The teams in the Premier League have a reserve squad who play in an under-21 tournament called Premier League 2. It’s the last step of what they call “boys” football. Typically these promising youngsters would get an opportunity in “men’s” football either by making the uncommon breakthrough or going on loan to teams in the Championship and below, but promising young players have found these opportunities and minutes limited.
When a player goes on loan, usually the parent club puts in a series of clauses governing expectations over playing time. If these aren’t met, the club taking the player on loan can be hit with a financial penalty or the loan can be canceled. But for those who have dealt with Premier League clubs, they feel the loan market is becoming far less appealing than it used to be for Championship clubs. The spending power of England’s second division is greater than ever before, and the competitiveness means managers are less likely to take risks on young players.
“I think [managers] are reluctant to give young players a shot even in the Championship, because of the fear of getting sacked,” a sporting director said. “There’s no time to waste. If you’re a promotion hopeful, you’ve probably got 10 teams with financial capability of spending big on transfers and salaries. There’s reluctance to give a young player their first opportunity at the risk of their results.”
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A smaller world
In late August, England’s U16s played their Italian counterparts in a doubleheader in Rome. In the stands were agents and scouts, alongside family members and a handful of fans. Italy won 2-1 in the first meeting, and England returned the 2-1 favor a couple of days later.
After the matches, the players mingled.
“I was so surprised at how they all knew each other, talking to each other like old mates,” said one agent in attendance. “But then they explained they’d been chatting on social media, checking out each other’s profiles. So these moves a couple of years later are far less daunting than they used to be.”
Social media has made the world a lot smaller, but also claustrophobic for certain players.
“You’re being liked for what you can get people,” said one expert in player care. “And I think that’s a massive epidemic in loneliness in football because they might have millions of followers, but those millions of people want something from them.
“Also these millions tell you what they think of you. You used to buy the local paper to read what was being said [about you], but now, it’s like having thousands of people shouting at you on the street.”
When you’re living in a place where you don’t speak the language, it doesn’t matter how many column inches are devoted to your struggles or how many social-media followers are fawning over your match-winning performance. The energy that may have been devoted to filtering out that noise back home can now be put into developing — either on the field or personally.
There’s seen to be low risk for both clubs involved in these kinds of transactions. For those letting the player go, often, they’ll insert a clause allowing the player to return for a set fee, or another seeing them get a portion of profit from any future transfer. For the club signing the player, if they’re bringing in someone from the English or Scottish game, they know they’re getting an “intelligent player, brought up in a decent system,” according to one agent.
“I think a lot of the foreign teams see [young British and Irish players] as being a market opportunity. They can take a young player and develop them, and then transfer them at like 22, 23, 24,” a sporting director said. “There’s no way they could afford that type of player at that stage of their career if they’d been one of the few to develop in the Premier League, they just couldn’t afford his salary. Instead, they can give him three to four years of exposure, game time in European competition, in Champions League, heighten his market value and create a sustainable model.”
The future
Expect to see more players heading abroad in the coming transfer windows and in greater numbers. Agents and sporting directors find their players look to the Bundesliga as still the number one choice, with the Belgian Pro League, Ligue 1, the Danish Superliga and the Eredivisie also seen as desirable destinations.
There are plenty of examples of young, talented homegrown players excelling abroad this season. And they’ll be talking to their pals back home. As the January transfer window beckons and British clubs are looking to for a midseason injection of talent, you’ll see plenty of names cropping up who have left the British Isles behind — not to mention more homegrown talents looking abroad for greater opportunities.
“I think in the next coming years I think we’ll see more English players going abroad,” Shoretire says. He, Gower and others all know this, but for the time being, they’re loving being among the first to take the plunge.
“The boys have to mature so much quicker overseas than probably they do over in England,” one agent said. “The combination of minutes played, a different culture, a new environment and the challenge offered make it a no-brainer. Our advice is always, if it’s the right club at the right time, we take them abroad.”
Gower still chats to his old golf buddies. They hope to play another round in the summer once they’re back from all corners of the world. They’ll have some stories to tell of their careers abroad.
“It’s crazy where football can take you,” he says. “It does open your eyes that there’s a lot more places that you can play football than just in England. There are so many places and so many opportunities out there to play.”
