When you ask yourself “why do so many foreign players of the same country play for this club?” It can be a matter of factors. Sometimes the club itself has a connection to the country, or there can be some sort of academic link.
Clubs form academies around the world for a good reason, and we are here today to understand why, by investigating a certain Danish side.
International academies; Nordsjaelland
To put everything straight, teams establish those in order to be able to gain a different type of player to what they already have available in their home country.
Take Nordsjaelland of Denmark for example, it is a slightly different case because an academy actually BOUGHT the club in 2015 with a view to integrate their aims together with the team’s ambition.
They were able to connect their academies which were already in Denmark, Egypt and even Ghana. They had strong connections to African countries which undoubtedly had a knack for creating fast, explosive types of talent.
This allowed them to nurture talent, Nordsjaelland have been fielding a team of mainly players aged 21 or under, in a competitive Danish top flight; the Superliga.
A host of West African players mixed in with young Danes has made this team super innovative and efficient, with a twist of talents, play styles and backgrounds making it a thoroughly interesting team!
Currently, the side don seven young African players in their first team, all of which are under 21 years old. One recent arrival (January 2022), Ernest Nuamah, was a result of the “Right to dream” academy’s set up - which Nordsjaelland uses very keenly, having an amazing collaboration which allows the Danish to identify top Ghanaian talent.
Ernest Nuamah is currently 18, and is a rapid right winger. The young Ghanaian gave insight to Nordsjaelland’s official media;
“At Right to Dream, I have learned to adapt to new challenges and be thorough in my work. Expectations are high at the academy, so I have learned a lot over the years, which has helped me become a better football player and teammate,”
The winger’s addition is a good one to their squad as a left-footed winger was missing from the Nordsjaelland squad for a while - not having fielded one since key man Andreas Skov Olsen left.
One of the biggest first sales by Nordsjaelland was currently-failed wonderkid Emre Mor, who departed for Borussia Dortmund. Although not successful on Dortmund’s end, the Turkish sale was a big financial feat for the club FC Nordsjaelland.
Though the side have nurtured a big share of their own familiar Danish names;
Andreas Skov Olsen was yet another great player to have left the club bringing on a positive financial sum to the Serie A via Bologna - he now plies his trade in the Belgian pro league with giants Club Brugge.
Currently highly-rated Damsgaard is yet another prospect, who on the back of an impressive Euro 2020 campaign, has upped his price tag even more so since leaving Nordsjaelland, playing for Sampdoria.
Other very honorable mentions include Bournemouth attacking midfielder Emiliano Marcondes, Galatasaray’s Victor Nelsson, and Brentford’s Mathias Jensen.