Wonderkids who have caught the eye at Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Barcelona are among high-profile examples of players who switched academies as youngsters.
Sometimes ‘one of our own’ does some heavy lifting in football, with development not entirely organic and that exciting youth-teamer breaking through not all that different from a regular senior signing.
We’ve identified nine footballing wonderkids from the present and past who were poached from another club’s academy.
Rio Ngumoha
Liverpool’s latest rising star just became the youngest player to score a Premier League goal in 20 years.
…and Chelsea let him slip through their fingers.
Ngumoha was born and raised in Newham and spent eight years at Cobham, eventually establishing himself as one of their most promising academy starlets.
But last summer he accepted Liverpool’s offer of a scholarship after deciding to leave Chelsea’s academy. The England Under-16 international spent a year in Liverpool’s youth teams but is now breaking into Arne Slot’s senior set-up.
Omari Hutchinson
It’s swings and roundabouts for Chelsea, who have come out on the right side of the cut-throat world of youth player trading often enough.
We sat up and took notice of the winger when he was dazzling for Arsenal’s Under-21s in the Premier League 2.
Talked up as a Hale End superstar and potential successor to Bukayo Saka, Hutchinson instead went down a different path.
He reportedly rejected Arsenal’s senior contract offers and instead joined Chelsea for a nominal youth-teamer fee.
The winger went on to notch eight goals and 10 assists in just 25 appearances for the Blues Under-21s, where it became immediately apparent that he’d outgrown youth football.
After impressing on loan in Ipswich Town’s promotion season, they signed him for a £20million fee.
And Chelsea have earned a further windfall thanks to a sell-on clause after he was sold on to Nottingham Forest for £37.5million.
Alejandro Garnacho
Born and raised in Madrid to a Spanish father and an Argentine mother, Garnacho represented both nations at the youth level before opting for the latter.
After five years in Atletico Madrid’s academy, Manchester United nabbed the top prospect for a £420,000 fee in October 2020.
“After 5 years, I have decided to leave the club, I wanted to thank all my teammates, coaches and the people that I have met during this time for making me a better soccer player and a better person, and for everything they have done for my from the start,” Garnacho posted on Instagram at the time.
“The time has come to say goodbye to take another path, to take a new step towards my dream. Thank you from the heart, Atletico Madrid.”
In his first full season in rainy Manchester, the 2021-22 campaign, he played a starring role in the Red Devils’ FA Youth Cup victory and followed in the footsteps of the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Marcus Rashford to be named their Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year.
Rhian Brewster
“When he was at Chelsea, I didn’t see anybody get through right to the top level,” the forward’s dad Ian told the BBC following Rhian’s breakout performances in England’s Under-17 World Cup triumph in 2017.
“I asked Rhian: ‘If you got £10,000 at Chelsea or £5,000 at, let’s say, Watford but played in front of big crowds, which would you choose?’ He said ‘Watford’ straight away. That told me that he wanted to play football at the highest level, no matter where.”
That was long before the likes of Reece James and Mason Mount became first-team regulars at Chelsea.
The logic at the time was that Brewster would have a far better chance of breaking into Liverpool’s senior set-up under Jurgen Klopp.
Unfortunately, things never quite worked out that way for the once highly rated wonderkid.
He never made a Premier League appearance for the Reds, and only a few cameos in the cup competitions, before they cashed in and accepted a £23.5million bid from Sheffield United.
Rhian Brewster in action for Liverpool and Sheffield United
READ: 5 Liverpool academy graduates who have flopped after leaving Anfield
Raheem Sterling
Sterling led the path for Brewster and Ngumoha when it came to London-raised talent turning heads in Merseyside.
He left Jamaica at the age of five, moving to London and attending school in Wembley.
After a few years with local youth team Alpha & Omega, he joined QPR’s academy, where all the top Premier League clubs scouted him.
Arsenal, Chelsea and Fulham were among the suitors but Sterling’s mother was keen for him to avoid the influence of gang culture in London.
Liverpool won the race to sign the prodigiously talented 16-year-old for £450,000.
That proved a pretty sound investment. His eventual £44million transfer to Manchester City made him the most expensive English footballer in history at the time.
Nathan Ake
It’s become increasingly commonplace to see talented youngsters from across Europe bolster the youth ranks of elite Premier League academies. Ake is a shining example of the practice.
Born and raised in The Hague, the defender spent time with his hometown club before four years at Feyenoord, eventually leaving the Eredivisie giants to join Chelsea’s Cobham academy in 2011.
Soon enough, he was featuring alongside the likes of Nathaniel Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek as the Blues’ Under-18s won the 2012 FA Youth Cup.
Ake made a handful of first-team appearances as a fringe player before impressing in loans away to Reading, Watford and Bournemouth, who made the move permanent for a club-record £20million fee.
John Bostock
“I don’t know why Tottenham want to play silly buggers and put out such an antagonistic statement but that’s why we responded,” the ever-outspoken former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan said after Tottenham announced that the then 16-year-old prodigy had joined the club, back in 2008.
Crystal Palace were in the Championship at the time, but Jordan had no qualms about airing dirty laundry in public, fighting the club’s case for his registration.
Spurs got the youngster’s signature in the end, but after a legal back-and-forth they were forced to pay £700,000 in compensation.
There were reportedly further add-ons, but they never materialised after the teenager never quite lived up to his potential for Spurs.
Bostock has gone on to enjoy an eclectic career across Europe and up and down the Football League.
He was named the Player of the Year in both the Belgian and French second tiers and was a key player for Notts County when they won the National League play-offs in 2023.
Daniel Sturridge
Born into a footballing family and raised in Birmingham, Sturridge started at local amateur side Cadbury Athletic before six years in Aston Villa’s academy ranks and one year with Coventry City.
He joined Manchester City in 2003 and soon started to make a name for himself in scouting circles, having produced fine displays in their Nike Cup and FA Youth Cup runs.
It wouldn’t be long before he was breaking into the first team.
A Football League appeals committee later ruled that City pay Coventry £30,000 compensation for Sturridge, but that number rose significantly after the striker’s first-team breakthrough and senior caps for England.
Andres Iniesta
We’ve excluded Lionel Messi here, because everyone knows about his Newell’s Old Boys history and the story of Barcelona signing him on a napkin.
But did you know another of La Masia’s favourite sons was nabbed from another club?
You have to go back a fair old time for when Iniesta was considered a wonderkid, but the midfielder actually grew up playing futsal in the province of Albacete in central Spain.
He developed his skills in the local club’s academy and caught the eye of Barcelona’s scouts in a seven-a-side tournament as a 12-year-old.
His parents agreed to send him to Barca’s famous La Masia youth ranks, but as a shy youngster, he “cried rivers” at being away from home.
“You’re going to retire me,” Pep Guardiola famously told Xavi Hernandez in the late 1990s.
“This kid [Iniesta] is going to retire us all.”
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