Gunnar Nielsen’s Premier League career was short.
Very short, in fact: it took 17 minutes. The keeper was introduced as a late replacement for Manchester City against Arsenal in 2010 after Shay gave a shoulder injury to worsened that he had picked up a week earlier when he dived in vain for the deceased winner of Paul Scholes in the Manchester Derby.
But it was a big problem at home. Those 17 minutes represented the first – and only – times that a player from the Faröer had played in the Premier League. It was such a big problem that a local radio station could not even wait until the game was ready to call his brother for a response. Fortunately, Nielsen gave a clean slate, so that it was definitely uncomfortable prospect that his brother should offer some live, on-Air commentary on an embarrassing blunder.
“He was so nervous that he couldn’t say a word,” says Nielsen now. “He just gave the phone to my sister -in -law.”
Nielsen is part of an unusual small club of players, a group that was recently accompanied by New City who signed Abdukodir Khusanov, the defender from Uzbekistan: they are two of the 18 men who are the only players from their respective countries to one Can be made in the Premier League.
Neilsen made his only Premier League performance in April 2010 (Neil Tingle -PA images via Getty Images)
So as you can imagine, it was pretty big news in the Faros when Nielsen appeared. TV and radio reporting was a given, but his almost literal 15 minutes of fame was the city’s conversation. “I spoke with a bouncer in a nightclub that I knew,” says Nielsen. “He said that the only thing that everyone talked about on Saturday evening was how I made my appearance in the Premier League.
“It was as big as it happened. I remember that people sent me photos and text and called – to this day I meet people who still say they remember where they were at that exact time when I came. ‘
Khusanov is the second player to become a member of the club this season, after the striker of Ipswich, Ali Al-Hamadi, became the first Iraqi of Iraqi who adorned the division when he met Liverpool in the opening match of the season.
For the sake of completeness, the others are: Victor Wanyama (Kenya), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Armenia), Onel Hernandez (Cuba), Junior Firpo (Dominican Republic), Nathaniel Mendez-Laing (Guatemala), Danny Higginbotamam (Gibral), Rybralamam (Gibral), Ryginbothammam (Gibral), Ryginbotamamamamamamamamamamisilian , Ryan Donk (Suriname), Ali Al-Habsi (Oman), Jordi Amat (Indonesia), Hamza Choudhury (Bangladesh), Dylan Kerr (Malta), Mbwana Samatta (Tanzania), Frederic Nimani (Central African republic), Neil (Philippines) and Zeshman (Pakistan).
By definition, the countries on that list are not traditional football weather legs. Some players had a light leg-up, given that they were born and raised in larger or more recognizable football environments, but played for another country because of a family connection. Amat, Choudhury, Rehman, Etheridge, Hernandez, Firpo, Mendez-Laing, Higginbotham and Donk fall into that category.
But some of the others grew up in the environment where there were simply no role models to show them the way to one of Europe’s great competitions. They are trail blazers.
“You have to see someone who did it before,” says Nielsen Athletics. “We are closely linked to Denmark, so you look at players from there, but (having no Faroo -example) it did not make it any easier. There had been no one in the Premier League of the Faröer, and although there were some young players who had had youth contracts at some Premier League clubs, there was no one to look up to. “
Wanyama also had no countryman to show him the path to the Premier League, but he was lucky that he had at least more direct role models, such as his brother, McDonald Mariga, who joined Parma in series when Wanyama was 16 . Before that, Wanyama Mariga followed to Helsingborgs in Sweden, briefly back home when the older brother went to Italy before he started his European trip with Beerschot in Belgium. It also didn’t hurt that his father, Noah, played and coached in Nairobi-based Side AFC leopards.
Wanyama plays for Tottenham in 2019 (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
“I grew up in a football family,” says Wanyama Athletics. “I used to watch the Premier League – I grew up watching those games. When I was 11, I already dreamed of being there ever. I loved Roy Keane and Paul Scholes.
“My father was a coach, my brother played: it was something very deep. It was in our blood. I wanted to play on the biggest stage. I was aware that the Premier League was the toughest competition in the world. I knew it would be difficult to go in, which motivated me. ‘
The situation of Etheridge was slightly different. Born and raised in England, the keeper qualified to play for the Philippines through his mother. He would travel to the Philippines fairly regularly, but for various reasons he did not go back for years. Then, at the age of 18, his former teammates in the Chelsea Youth Team and Filipino internationals James and Phil Younghus band also presented him for a place in the team. He made his debut in 2008, clocked more than 80 caps and was named National Team Captain in 2022.
Neil Etheridge in action for Cardiff against Manchester City in 2019 (Oli Scarff / AFP)
“I just felt a connection with the country and the people,” says Etheridge from Thailand, where he now plays. “The Philippines are an extremely proud country. The culture and blood runs through you. I was only 18, but I saw an opportunity to make a change in a country that is not necessarily football -oriented. Basketball is the No. 1 sport. At the time, football was not really a sport that was recognized. “
He’s not kidding. They had sunk until the 195th in the world around the time that Etheridge was first called up and had little to no record in the international competition. Their highest ranking in the intervening years of 111 may not seem great, but they qualified for the first time in 2019 for the Asian Cup and achieved the second qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup, again the first time the team was gone so far.
Etheridge achieved most of this before he first played in the Premier League, finally in 2017 after winning promotion with Cardiff. “It was a huge deal,” he says. “Although it was not that big as if a filipin was playing in the NBA, and Manny Pacquiao de Nr. 1 athlete in the country is due to a rural mile. I was probably more recognized if the first South East Asian player to play in the Premier League, instead of the first Filipino.
“I was able to do a lot at first. In 2010 we reached the semi -final of the South East Asian Cup (AFF Cup) for the first time and that was then blew up football in the Philippines. Even now, 15 years later, it is still in children’s phases, but it is something that I am proud to be part of, to put football on the map in the country. “
National identity can be a somewhat complicated, non-binary and sometimes fluent thing, so it is worth offering some parameters: the players are defined as ‘of’ their specific country, whether if they are born there and no other represent land, or if they have represented that country at a completely international level.
There are some curiosities on the list. The Premier League has seen several players born in Suriname and represented the Netherlands (Regi Blinker, Edgar Davids, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaina), but Donk, the only player who represents Suriname, was born in the Netherlands.
A few on the list were not classified as from their respective countries while playing in the Premier League. Higginbotham played a few games for Gibraltar, but they were long after his Southampton/Sunderland/Stoke City pump. The debut of Mendez-Laing for Guatemala came when he was in League One with Derby, a few years after his top-flight days with Cardiff.
Danny Higginbotham back in 2010 in his match days for Stoke City (Mike Egerton/PA images via Getty Images)
Then there are the gray areas, such as former Brighton & Hove Albion -midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud, which is counted on some lists as the only representative of Syria. He was born in Syria and raised in Germany, for whom he played two friendly games in 2020, so thus was considered German while he was in England. In 2024, however, he changed faithfully to the nation of his birth and was called to the Syria team … Only to withdraw before he actually played. He can still represent them in the future, but we will not have him for the time being.
Then there is equatorial guinea. Emilio Nsue, who was born and raised in Spain and made four performances for Middlesbrough in the Premier League, played 45 times for Equatorial Guinea between 2013 and 2024 and won the Golden Boot on the Africa Cup of Nations 2023. He could not count , because in 2024 FIFA ruled that he was not eligible all the time.
In 2013, the Equatoguinean football federation applied for their Spanish counterparts for NSUE to change nationality (he had made various competitive performances for various Spain -Jeugd teams), but at least there were some irregularities with the process. They took a default of two qualifying games of 2014 World Cup because of NSUe’s non -subsidiaability, but they still kept picking him and did this at various intervals during the following decade. It really seems that FIFA only noticed it because of his heroic deeds at Afcon, at which point they declared his entire international career -thus and invalid.
So … does he count? Are we going in a weird, metaphysical field by pretending that NSUE’s international performances literally never happened, instead of administratively never happened? If so, Pedro Obiang, will be the only other equatorial Guinea International, the 19th person on this list. But for now we are going with a tangible reality and creditquatorial Guinea with two Premier League players.
Of course the Premier League is not the highlight for everyone. It is not necessarily the case that every player slept on Barclays, sheets and their only desire as a child to play in England.
Take Wanyama for example. “It was a bigger deal to play for Celtic,” he says, “because it was the team that I grew up. 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 be the inspiration and role model that they didn’t have when they were younger.
“Without wanting to blow my own trumpet,” says Etheridge, “if it wasn’t for me and the success I had, there would be many football players who would not have had a career in the game. Many people would not even have known That the Philippines had a team, if it was no longer for myself, and the success I had later in my career, played in the Premier League, which could really improve us there are many people around the world who have decided to play for the Philippines because they now know what the national team of the Philippines is. “
Wanyama adds: “I am proud when I have made young players dream, to believe in themselves that one day they could play in the Premier League. Now everyone wants to be there, and they know that the door is open to them. They believe they can do it too. ‘
(Top photos: Getty Images)