Jadon Sancho is a teenager with the world at his feet.
Hailed as football’s best wonderkid in 2019, he has exploded on to the global scene for Borussia Dortmund.
Not since Wayne Rooney have England had a teenager envied around the world so widely.
Which makes it all the more remarkable to think that Manchester City – the world’s richest club with a conveyor belt of talent
– lost the future Three Lions star to a plucky German underdog like Dortmund.
So how on earth did it happen?
Born in the March 2000, the South Londoner’s unique talent has been obvious since a very young age.
He was going toe-to-toe with 10 and 11-year-olds when he was age five.
A Chelsea fan as a kid, he idolised Brazil legend Ronaldinho,
who is regarded as one of the most flamboyant and entertaining footballers ever to grace the game.
And Sancho has that same swagger in his own playing style.
He’s constantly looking to take on defenders and grab goals and assists from every situation.
He makes the extraordinary look ordinary.
Sancho was on Watford’s books for a short time but, as one of his coaches acknowledged,
‘even Stevie Wonder could have spotted Sancho would be a star’.
Aged 14, Man City signed him and he moved to Manchester to pursue his dream of becoming a Premier League superstar.
In the 1990s, England’s starting 11 was built on a foundation of Manchester United players.
Now it’s Pep Guardiola’s Man City who have the cream of the national team crop.
Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker and John Stones were ever-present throughout the Three Lions’ surprise run to the semi-finals in Russia 2018.
And with Sancho and Phil Foden in City’s youth ranks, it looked like Guardiola
would have the top two talents in England under his wing for the foreseeable future too.
But Sancho never settled at the Premier League’s newest kingpins.
It’s alleged an unruly attitude led to tension within the Etihad academy,
who wanted him to be a model citizen.
He didn’t feel unconditional love from his club. And that’s where Dortmund came in.
Dortmund’s scouts first spotted Sancho’s electric excellence with England’s youth set-up in 2016.
The next year, in May 2017, Sancho was the best player at UEFA’s European Under-17 Championship, where England finished runners up.
This was a kid anyone with eyes could see had phenomenal potential.
Man City offered to fast-track him, Foden and fellow mega talent Brahim Diaz into the first team, but that wasn’t fast enough.
The ambitious teenager made up his mind and the Man City talent was heading for Dortmund.
The German club paid €8 million compensation to City after Sancho terminated his youth contract.
Now when you think that Paris Saint-Germain sealed a €180m deal
for Monaco’s Kylian Mbappe, Sancho could become a preposterous bargain.
It’s not impossible that he’ll cost close to – or more than – how much PSG paid for Mbappe.
As always with precocious wonderkids, it’s impossible to know for sure.
What is certain though is how successful Sancho’s Dortmund switch has been.
While Foden’s fast-tracking involved winning trophies with Man City in 2018, he played just 43 minutes in the Premier League.
Lots of benchwarming for Pep, not a lot of game-time.
Sancho, on the other hand, played 12 league games for his new club in 2017-18.
Given the No.7 shirt in a huge show of faith, he became a first-team regular in the second half of the season.
Dortmund pulled out all the stops to make his new life in a new country comfortable,
moving Sancho’s father with him to Germany. He even has his own chef!
By the time his second season rolled around he was a fully formed attacking sensation.
Sancho scored six goals and bagged eight assists before the halfway stage of the Bundesliga campaign, with Dortmund flying high at the top of the league.
Bayern Munich were left in the dust, Sancho was on top of the world.
He made his senior England debut in October 2018 in the UEFA Nations League.
So what does the future hold for Sancho?
Well, in the short-term he’ll be hoping for domestic success with Dortmund.
Sancho won’t be in a massive rush to leave considering the game time he gets at Signal Iduna Park – and it’ll take a crazy bid to pry him away in 2019.
City would love to have a talent like Sancho back on their books –
and it’ll be embarrassing if he returns to England with Manchester United, as some within the club will surely fear.
Though who knows – perhaps Real Madrid, Barcelona or even Bayern could see the benefit in buying a player who proven he can succeed abroad.
After all, history’s littered with England players who tried and failed in elite European leagues outside the UK.
Sancho, still a teenager, is already making history in that sense
and there will undoubtedly be many more awards to follow his NxGn 2019 win with Goal.