English football is not back yet, but some English footballers are. The last few years have seen a steady stream of young players leave the Premier League for the Bundesliga in pursuit of greater first-team opportunities.
It has not worked out for all of them. Some have flopped, some have come back. But when the Bundesliga restarts on Saturday, there will be an Englishman on both sides of the flagship match: Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho will be up against Jonjoe Kenny, on loan at Schalke from Everton, in the Ruhr derby.
They are just two of the new generation of British youngsters who are making their way in the German game right now, and who will be on our screens long before the Premier League gets back underway…
JADON SANCHO, BORUSSIA DORTMUND
The young man who made everything else possible.
Forward Sancho walking out of Manchester City three years ago, when he turned down more than £30,000 a week to try his luck at Dortmund, was one of the most influential decisions in the recent history of English football. It signalled to a new generation of English teenagers that they did not have to sit and wait for their chance at British clubs. They could go and seize it abroad.
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Sancho has been a phenomenon in Germany, impressing with his ingenuity, speed and the remarkable ball skills he learned growing up in south London. He has pushed his way into Gareth Southgate’s England team far quicker than anyone expected and was in the Bundesliga team of the season last year. Manchester United were hovering last summer, but he has decided to stay with Dortmund — for now.
This season has felt like his Dortmund swansong before a summer move, but there have been just as many moments when he has shown why he is considered one of the most exciting young players in the world. He has formed a natural pairing with Erling Haaland up front and won the Bundesliga’s most recent player of the month award (for February).
Jadon Sancho has been on absolute 🔥 this season…
• 35 games
• 17 goals
• 18 assistsSee AlsoRUDE Magazine - [PDF Document]Rodolfo Sancho y Silvia Bronchalo, dos formas muy distintas de afrontar el caso de su hijo Daniel SanchoOferta válida del 25 de noviembre al 9 de diciembre de ... · fresca Romana HiperDino, 200 g 0, 0 79 El kilo sale a 3,95a Pan de maíz y trigo, 0 ... Serra Mancha, lonchas 100 g - [PDF Document]When England's Euro 2024 squad is announced - with eight places up for grabsWhat a talent! Bring on the Bundesliga returning! 💛🖤 pic.twitter.com/GT1Xj5QxFu
— 🇩🇪 Ja! Watch the Bundesliga live on BT Sport🇩🇪 (@btsportfootball) May 6, 2020
JONJOE KENNY, SCHALKE
Perhaps the best of all the English players in this season’s Bundesliga.
The Everton right-back Kenny found opportunities limited last year so decided to temporarily move to Germany to play for former Huddersfield Town manager David Wagner.
And Kenny has flourished in Gelsenkirchen. He has impressed with his forward drive, his energy and his crossing, coming to terms quickly with German football as well as learning the language. He has started 23 of Schalke’s 25 Bundesliga games so far.
Kenny tackles Sancho in the last match between Schalke and Dortmund (Photo: TF-Images/Getty Images)
He is a lifelong Evertonian who has played for his hometown club, so pressure is nothing new to him. But at Schalke, he has been playing for an even bigger crowd. “To perform at a good level at a big club in front of 65,000 fans in an amazing stadium can be hard,” Wagner told The Athletic last year. “For some guys, the shirt can be a little too heavy. But Jonjoe took it and he’s done very well.” Wagner has even compared Kenny to former Schalke and Bayern Munich full-back Rafinha.
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Schalke want to keep Kenny beyond this season’s loan, but they have been one of the worst-affected teams by the coronavirus crisis, so raising the necessary funds might be difficult. To make things even trickier, Everton may see bringing back Kenny as a cheaper alternative to buying their own on-loan right-back Djibril Sidibe, who would cost them £12 million.
Jonjoe Kenny! What a hit! 🙌
The Everton loanee scored a belter as Schalke beat Hertha Berlin 3-0…
Young English players doing damage in the Bundesliga! pic.twitter.com/yaRFUWYGPr
— 🇩🇪 Ja! Watch the Bundesliga live on BT Sport🇩🇪 (@btsportfootball) August 31, 2019
ADEMOLA LOOKMAN, RB LEIPZIG
When Lookman returned to RB Leipzig last summer, it was a chance for the winger from south-east London to pick up where he’d left off. Lookman enjoyed a thrilling loan spell at Leipzig in the second half of the 2017-18 season, instantly fitting in with Ralph Hasenhuttl’s fast, aggressive style. No permanent deal was sorted in summer 2018, so he went back to Everton for a year, trying to impress Marco Silva, before finally moving back to Leipzig for £22 million in July.
But this season it has been harder for Lookman to make the same impression. Playing under Julian Nagelsmann in a team currently just five points behind leaders Bayern Munich, he has been limited to a role as an impact sub.
But when The Athletic spoke to Leipzig technical director Paul Mitchell in February, he said there was still a bright future for the 22-year-old at the club.
“Ademola has come into a really, really competitive and capable squad,” Mitchell said. “Julian has high demands, technically and tactically. We have great depth, great multi-functionality, and all of us believe Ademola can have a major impact here. It’s just a learning process with Ademola. He’s still a very young man. We’re all still big believers in his talent.”
RABBI MATONDO, SCHALKE
Matondo has followed a similar path to Sancho, swapping the Manchester City academy for the Ruhr valley, but without the same level of instant success. Matondo started off in Cardiff City’s academy before moving to the Etihad at age 16, where he impressed with his lightning pace and skill on the wing. Like Sancho, he felt he would get more opportunities in Germany, so in January last year he signed for Schalke, pocketing Manchester City a £10 million return on their investment.
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“When Schalke got in touch, I wanted to see how good I actually am and how good I can actually be (at senior level),” Matondo, now 19, explained to The Athletic earlier this year.
“I had watched some of the bigger games in the Bundesliga when I was in England, but I didn’t realise how aggressive and quick it was. I knew the league was good but not how good. People underestimate some of the teams here.”
Domenico Tedesco, the Schalke manager who signed him, was sacked soon after, but Matondo has started to get more chances again recently under Wagner. The Wales international even started the last two games before the stoppage, against Bayern Munich and Hoffenheim. He will be desperate to pick up where he left off.
ETHAN AMPADU, RB LEIPZIG
Not many 19-year-olds can say they’ve been playing first-team football for nearly four years. Ampadu, who played for Exeter City at the age of 15, is one of the most highly rated teenagers in British football. After one season in League Two, he moved to Chelsea, where he impressed enough in the under-23s and a handful of senior games to earn his first Wales cap.
This season, he joined RB Leipzig on loan and won more admirers with an immaculate display at centre-back in the 1-0 Champions League win away to Tottenham Hotspur in February. On the whole, however, it has been a difficult season and Ampadu has struggled for opportunities.
“There’s been a lot of frustration at times,” he told The Athletic in an interview last month. “However, I’ve learned a lot through those frustrations which will only help me later in my career. I’ve not played as many games as I’d have liked to, but in the games I’ve played in, I think I’ve done reasonably well. That’ll give me confidence, but I have things to learn from.”
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(Top photo: Jan Woitas via Getty Images)
Jack Pitt-Brooke is a football journalist for The Athletic based in London. He joined in 2019 after nine years at The Independent.
