Not long ago the only British players to move to Europe were established first-team stars at the top of their game, attracted by the greater wages and prestige on offer in the major leagues of France, Spain, Italy and Germany. I grew up watching Serie A when it was the biggest league in the world and could attract England internationals at the peak of their careers. The Premier League has since become more prestigious and lucrative than any of them, but there are still good reasons for English players to look abroad, whatever their age.
I moved to Juventus when I was 31. For me it was about a new life experience in Italy, getting to know a different football culture and learning a new language, as well as preparation for my second career as a director of football. In my new job I can engage with players from around the world who might be thinking of joining Aston Villa and say that I can understand their life as an international player because I’ve been there and done it.
I know a bit about the struggles they will have with a different language, arranging accommodation, driving on the other side of the road and all the little things other people might not think about. I look back on my time in Turin with pride, a time when I gained so much. There will always be some older players who, such as me, decide to play abroad in the twilight of their careers as they look for a fresh challenge and new experience.
I proved something to myself by being successful abroad. It is rewarding to be able to say that during my career I finished top scorer in the US, England and Italy – that shows I could play different styles of football, work under different coaches, fit into different dressing rooms. I don’t think people will ever stop debating whether Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi is a greater player, but only Ronaldo can say he has won the league in three countries and won major international trophies as well. It doesn’t mean he’s better, but it is an incredible achievement that Messi can’t match.
Recently, another path to Europe has opened, as young players have realised they can accelerate their careers much quicker in the first team of a club in one of Europe’s major leagues than they could on the fringes at a big club in England, where they might earn big wages but they would be glimpsed only in the occasional Carabao Cup game. On Tuesday, the 18-year-old Billy Gilmour was outstanding in Chelsea’s FA Cup win over Liverpool, but he has nine minutes of Premier League action to his name this season and may not be seen again for months. If he was in Germany or France he could be playing every week, integral to his team, and ready to come back in a couple of years as an established first-team player.
In 2017, Jadon Sancho and Phil Foden, born within a couple of months of each other in 2000, were in the Manchester City team that reached the final of the FA Youth Cup. That summer Sancho moved to Borussia Dortmund while Foden stayed at City and since then Sancho has played 4,928 minutes of league football and Foden 634. After his man-of-the-match performance in the Carabao Cup final Foden’s first senior international call-up is probably imminent, but Sancho made his England debut a year and a half ago and has 11 caps. Sancho and Foden are excellent young players who were always likely to end up in the England squad and the first team of a big club, but one of them is still working on it while the other took a shortcut.
That is something that hasn’t come into the women’s game yet. Squads are smaller, money is tighter and if you’re a good player you will get first-team football. There are some English players abroad. At the time of last year’s World Cup, England had three players based in France, where the top teams pay well and compete for the big prizes; one who played in Spain, which has some great clubs though the league is a bit of a mess; and one in Germany – a tough, disciplined league.
Meanwhile, the professional WSL is attracting more and more players from overseas, which will perhaps create pressure on homegrown players down the line, but I think there is a false fear about how big an impact this has. England’s men’s and women’s teams got to the semi-finals of major championships in the past few years. England’s women’s team have been to three consecutive semi-finals in major events and are closer to winning a world trophy than they’ve ever been.
The idea that anyone would benefit from stopping the flow of international players into this country is wrong – the influx of foreign players and coaches continues to have a massively beneficial impact on the technical abilityque, tactical awareness and training intensity of homegrown players.
Even being exposed to a different football culture for 90 minutes can change you. Wolfsburg have been one of the benchmark teams in women’s football over the past decade: they won the Champions League in 2013 and 2014, and have reached the final twice since. At Chelsea we had the serious misfortune to be drawn against them three years in a row and those matches were fantastic occasions, opportunities for us to measure ourselves against the best, to judge how far we were from where we wanted to be. We would come away from those games talking about how we needed to improve training intensity, or recruit a certain type of player – they were games that really pushed us, and even though we lost them we gained a lot.
In sport you’re always looking to push yourself, to find ways to raise your game, and in the end you’re not going to do that by staying in your comfort zone. Putting yourself in a new situation can open your eyes to new methods and new possibilities, turning you into a better athlete and a better person – which is why playing abroad is a decision I will never regret.
