Gunnar Nielsen's Premier League career was short.
In fact, it was very short: it lasted for 17 minutes. The goalkeeper exacerbated a shoulder injury a week ago when Shay wasted a dive for Paul Shoals' late winner in the Manchester Derby, before Manchester City's late replacement against Arsenal in 2010 was introduced as
But that was a big deal when I got home. These 17 minutes represent the first and only time Faroe Islands players have played in the Premier League. It was a big deal, so the local radio station couldn't even wait until the game called to call his brother. Luckily, Nielsen held a clean sheet and avoided the obviously nasty prospect that his brother must provide live, on-air comments about his embarrassing blunder.
“He was so nervous that he couldn't speak,” Nielsen now says. “He handed my sister-in-law the phone.”
Nielsen is some of the rare small club players that New City recently joined, signing defender Abdukodil Kusanov from Uzbekistan. Premier League.
Nielsen made the only Premier League appearance in April 2010 (Neil Tingle – PA image via Getty Images)
As you can imagine, Nielsen appeared was pretty big news for Fallows. Television and radio coverage was given, but his almost literally 15 minutes of fame was a town story. “I spoke to security guards at nightclubs that I knew,” Nielsen says. “He said the only thing everyone talked about that Saturday evening was how I came to the Premier League.
“When it happened, it was a huge thing. I remember people sending me pictures and texting me and calling me. To this day, when I came they were I meet people who say they remember where they were.”
Kusanov is the second player to join the club this season after Ipswich town striker Ali Al Hamadi became the first Iraq to make his division when he came to the opening game of the season against Liverpool.
For completeness, others include Victor Wanyama (Kenya), Henrik Mkhitaryan (Armenia), Onel Hernandez (Cuba), Junior Farpo (Dominican Republic), Nathaniel Mendes Lewing (Guatemala), and Danny Higginbotham ( Gibraltar), Danny Higginbasdonk (Suriname), Ali Al Habsi (Oman), Yordi Amato (Indonesia), Hamza Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Dylan Kar (Malta), Mbwana Samatta (Tanzania), Frederick Nimani (Central African Republic), Nehru Ether (Philippines) Zesh Rehman (Pakistan).
By definition, the country on that list is not a traditional soccer powerhouse. Some of the players had slight leg ups given that they were born and raised in a larger or more recognizable football environment, but they played in another country due to family connections . Amat, Choudhury, Rehman, Etheridge, Hernandez, Firpo, Mendez-laing, Higginbotham and Donk fall into that category.
However, some others grew up in an environment where there was simply no role models to show the way to one of Europe's big leagues. They are pioneers.
“We need to see who's done it before,” Nielsen says. Athletic. “We're closely connected to Denmark, so we look up at players from there, but (without the example of Farrow) didn't make it easier. We don't have anyone in the Faroe Islands Premier League. And even if there were young players who had youth contracts at some Premier League clubs, no one would respect them in that sense.”
Wanyama had no compatriots to show his path to the Premier League, but at least he was able to create more direct role models, including his brother MacDonald Maliga, who joined Parma in Serie A, and his brother MacDonald Maliga. I was lucky in that I had it. When Wanyama was 16, Wanyama followed Maliga and then Sweden's Helsingborg, then briefly returned home when his brother went to Italy, before beginning his Belgium and his journey through Europe. It also didn't hurt that his father Noah played and coached for the Nairobi-based AFC Leopards.
Wanyama (Shaun Botteril/Getty Images) playing at Tottenham in 2019
“I grew up in a soccer family,” Wanyama says Athletic. “I was watching the Premier League, I grew up watching those games. When I was 11, I already dreamed that I would be there one day. Roy Keene and Paul Scholes were I loved it.
“My dad was a coach, my siblings played. It was very deep. It was in our blood. I wanted to play on the biggest stage. The Premier League is in the world. I knew it was the toughest league. I thought it would be difficult to get in, so I was motivated.”
The situation at Etheridge was slightly different. Born and raised in the UK, the goalkeeper was entitled to play for the Philippines through his mother. He traveled to the Philippines, where he is growing quite regularly, but for a variety of reasons he never returned for years. Later, at age 18, former teammates of the Chelsea Youth Team and the Philippine Internationals James and Phil Young Band also proposed him to the team's location. He made his debut in 2008, recorded over 80 caps and was named captain of the national team in 2022.
Neil Atheridge (Oli Scarff/AFP) acts for Cardiff against Manchester City in 2019
“I just felt a connection between the country and the people,” Etheridge says from Thailand. “The Philippines is a country that I am extremely proud of. Culture and blood will pass through you. I was only 18 years old, but I had the opportunity to make a difference in a country that is not necessarily soccer-oriented. Basketball is No. 1 It's a sport. At the time, soccer wasn't really a recognized sport.”
He's no joke. They were ranked 195th in the world around the time Etheridge was first called, with little record in international competition. Their best rankings in the mid-year 111 may not be very good, but they first competed in the Asian Cup in 2019 and reached the qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup. That's all for that.
Etheridge did most of this before playing in the Premier League for the first time, and ultimately won a promotion with Cardiff before he did so in 2017. “It was a massive deal,” he says. “It wasn't as big as the Filipinos played in the NBA, but Manny Pacquiao is one of the domestic sportspersons in the country in a mile. I'm probably not the first Filipino, I play in the Premier League. He would have been more recognized as the first Southeast Asian player to become.
“I was able to do a lot in the beginning. In 2010, we first arrived at the semi-finals of the Southeast Asian Cup (AFF Cup), which was when football exploded in the Philippines. Even now Fifteen years later, it's still in the toddler stage, but that's what I'm proud to have to put football on the map of the country.”
It is worth providing several parameters as national identity can be slightly complicated, non-binary, and sometimes fluid. A player is defined as “born” from a particular country if he is born there and does not represent another country or does not represent another country. If they represent the country at a full international level.
There are some curiosity on the list. In the Premier League, I have seen several players born in Suriname and representing the Netherlands (Regi Blinker, Edgar David, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink), and are the only player to represent Suriname. One Donk was born in the Netherlands.
Some of the lists were not classified as coming from their respective countries while playing in the Premier League. Higginbotham played several games for Gibraltar, but those were long hours after his Southampton/Sunderland/Stoke City Pump. Guatemala's Mendes Leiling's debut came when he was in Derby and League One, a few years after his top flight day with Cardiff.
Danny Higginbotum returned to the day he performed in Stoke City in 2010 (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Next is the grey area such as former Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Mahmoud Dahod, who is relied on several lists as the sole representative of Syria. He was born in Syria and raised in Germany. He played two best friends in 2020, so he was considered German in the UK like this. However, in 2024 he switched to a country where he was born and was invited to a Syrian team. He may still represent them in the future, but we are not counting him for now.
Next is Equatorial Guinea. Born and raised in Spain and played in Middlesbrough four times in the Premier League, Emilio Nusue played 45 times for Equatorial Guinea from 2013 to 2024, winning the Golden Boots at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. However, he may not be counted because he decided in 2024 that FIFA was ineligible for a long time.
In 2013, the Equatoguinean Football Federation applied to be a Spanish counterpart for NSUE to switch nationalities (he had made several competitive appearances on various Spanish youth teams), but At least there was some irregularity in this process. They defaulted two 2014 World Cup qualifying games due to NSUE ineligibility, but kept picking up him anyway, doing it at various intervals over the next decade. It appears FIFA only noticed for his hero in AFCON.
So… will he count? Is the international appearance of NSUE in a strange metaphysical realm by acting as if it had never happened administratively, rather than literally? If so, Pedro Obian, the only other Equatorial Guinea International, will become the 19th individual on this list. But for now, we'll be using concrete reality and credit equatorial Guinea along with two Premier League players.
Of course, the Premier League is not the pinnacle for everyone. Not all players were sleeping on Barclays bed sheets and their only desire as a child was to play in the UK.
Take Wanyama, for example. “Playing for Celtic was a big deal,” he says. “That's because I was a team I grew up supporting, especially in the Glasgow Derby.”
For most of these players, playing in the Premier League was a source of personal pride, but the hope is that they can become inspiration and role models that they didn't have when they were younger.
“Not wanting to blow your trumpet away,” says Etheridge. Many people would have never known that there was a team in the Philippines, even if the Philippines wasn't like them. National Team. There are many people all over the world who have decided to play in the Philippines because they know what the Philippine national team is. ”
Wanyama adds: “I'm proud if I could dream of being a young player and make myself believe in myself that I can play in the Premier League. Everyone wants to be there right now, and they have a door open to them. I know they are being done, and I believe they can do that too.”
(Top photo: Getty Images)
