Not every talented young player enjoys a seamless path from the academy to the first team like Lamine Yamal or Kylian Mbappé. Many are forced to take more meandering routes to the top, moving from club to club in search of that coveted breakthrough. Even the very best are sometimes released from academies at a young age — only to flourish and dominate elsewhere.
These are tricky situations when dealing with teenagers (or sometimes younger) and each of them is unique, as any number of factors can influence things. Players can move through academies early in life as their parents relocate, then later, as competition for places is gauged, sometimes players take it upon themselves to find first-team minutes elsewhere.
In hindsight, it can be tempting to wonder “what could have been.” More often than not, you think, “he played for… them?!”
Some clubs, such as Manchester United and Liverpool, rarely (if ever) allow promising youth talents to slip away, but plenty of other clubs do. Here’s a look at the ones who got away from Europe’s big clubs — some through no fault of their own, but others surely count as epic blunders.
The Gunners have a rich history of promoting prospects from their Hale End Academy into the first team. Their success around the turn of the century was underpinned by the likes of Tony Adams and Ray Parlour, while the current group of Bukayo Saka, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri and Max Dowman are hinting at something special.
However, they have let a few slip through. Serge Gnabry joined the club at 16, barely made an impact, then exploded at Bayern Munich, but others were in the system from a much earlier age … though a nine-year old Harry Kane is a bit too young to count.
Eberechi Eze
Arsenal star Eze spent five years at the club’s academy before being released aged 13. He even faced further rejection as a youth player at Fulham, Reading and Millwall.
But he finally got his chance at Queens Park Rangers and after a superb five-year spell at Crystal Palace, he found his way back to Arsenal last summer in a £60 million move.
Andy Cole
Cole is remembered as one of the best English goal scorers of his generation and a crucial part of Manchester United’s famous 1999 treble-winning squad. But his footballing life began at Arsenal’s academy, graduating to the first team for a single game as a 19-year-old in 1990 before being sent to second-division club Bristol City.
It meant Arsenal enjoyed none of his 187 Premier League goals.
Atleti’s academy is basically a central midfield factory: Koke, Gabi and Saúl Ñiguez — all key features of the teams that reached the Champions League final in 2016 — were homegrown. Plus, Liverpool striking great Fernando Torres hailed from there too.
However, the best central midfielder their academy ever produced left without signing a professional contract. Although it still might not be their biggest academy miss.
Rodri
The 2024 Ballon d’Or-winning midfielder spent six years at Atlético’s academy before being released at age 16 due to a reported lack of physical strength. He found a home instead at Villarreal, where he graduated to the first team and became a young star.
He returned to Atlético in 2018 in a €25 million deal, but they enjoyed him for just a single season before City came calling. He went on to win a host of major titles, including four Premier Leagues and the Champions League, as well as the Euro 2024 title with Spain.
Raúl González
One of Real Madrid‘s most coveted academy graduates, Raúl still holds the club’s record appearance record and is their second all-time top scorer.
Yet he almost never joined the club’s academy at all: he spent two years at Atlético between 1990 and 1992, but left when the club temporarily shut their academy in 1992 to “save costs.” Oops.
La Masia is probably the most famous football academy in the world, having produced greats such as Lionel Messi and Yamal. There have also been a host of other high-flying academy prospects who went elsewhere for a quicker path to first-team football — namely, Cesc Fàbregas, Gerard Piqué and Dani Olmo.
Yet, there are some prospects who left with little fanfare, only to become prominent talents later on.
Mauro Icardi
Barcelona fended off serious competition to secure Icardi’s services at age 15. However, he spent three years at the club’s academy and never graduated to the first team. By the time he joined Sampdoria in 2011, initially on loan and then permanently, he hadn’t made a single Barça appearance.
His ascent from Sampdoria to elite European football was quick, though. Within two years, he had joined Inter Milan, where he scored 124 goals in 219 games before taking in spells at Paris Saint-Germain and Galatasaray.
Marc Cucurella
Cucurella may not look like a typical Barça player, but he spent four years at La Masia. He tasted first-team football out on loan with Eibar and Getafe then never returned — probably because Jordi Alba had a firm grip on the starting left-back spot.
Like so many players featured here, there have been recent reports in Spain linking Cucurella with a dream move back to where it all began.
It has traditionally been very difficult to make the step from the academy to the first team at Bayern. The standards are so high, and they are so efficient at sweeping up the top emerging talent from other German clubs that there’s often no pathway at all. Still, there’s at least one player they likely wish they had kept.
Mats Hummels
Hummels spent the entirety of his 11-year youth career at Bayern, but he made just a single appearance for the first team on the final day of the 2006-07 season against Mainz – then coached by Jürgen Klopp.
He left to join Borussia Dortmund on loan in 2008 and soon joined permanently. It turned out to be an expensive mistake for Bayern as Hummels went on to make over 200 appearances for Dortmund, including in the 2012-13 Champions League final against them.
Of course, Bayern won that Champions League final, and they later signed Hummels back from Dortmund in 2016 in a €35 million deal.
Chelsea‘s academy has dominated youth competitions for the last 15 years, producing a seemingly endless list of impressive players. The likes of Reece James and Mason Mount made the transition to the first team brilliantly, but many others slipped away.
Michael Olise
Bayern Munich star Olise floated through three major English academies, including Arsenal and Manchester City, before settling with Reading.
Of those three academies, he spent by far the longest at Chelsea (seven years) and left at 14. Like Eze, Olise impressed during his spell in the Championship and earned a move to Crystal Palace where they starred together. In 2023, Chelsea triggered a clause in his Palace contract to sign him for £35 million, but he opted to join Bayern instead, and he has since become one of the most-coveted wingers around.
Declan Rice
Rice also spent seven years in Chelsea’s academy before being released at 14. He joined West Ham United, went on to captain them and even won a trophy (UEFA Europa Conference League in 2023).
Frank Lampard, himself a West Ham academy graduate turned Chelsea legend, led the charge for the Blues to re-sign him in 2023, but he moved to Arsenal instead for an initial £100 million and now stands on the cusp of winning a Premier League title.
Jamal Musiala
Born in Stuttgart, Musiala moved to England aged seven, spent nine years in the Blues’ academy, and then moved back to Germany at 16 with his parents.
That meant his breakthrough into one of the world’s best midfielders came at Bayern Munich, not Chelsea.
Marc Guéhi
Guéhi was on the Chelsea academy books for 12 years and was a serial winner and leader in their youth teams. However, he found a path to the first team blocked and after a spell on loan at Swansea City, he joined Crystal Palace in 2018 for £18 million.
After a summer move, he is now a starter for Manchester City and will be a key player for England at this summer’s World Cup.
A stream of top-level footballers have moved through the City academy in the last 10 years. Many have been moved on to fund the club’s huge transfer spending — Cole Palmer‘s £42.5 million move to Chelsea is the best example — but there are many more, and Southampton alone signed five City youth players. Still, others departed in much quieter circumstances.
Brahim Díaz
Díaz spent most of his youth career at his hometown club of Malaga before moving to City aged 15, upon which he excelled in their youth system.
But he only managed 15 appearances for the first team before joining Real Madrid in 2019 in a €15 million deal, going onto spend three seasons on loan at AC Milan before becoming a fixture in the first team at Madrid.
Jeremie Frimpong
Liverpool wing back Frimpong spent nine years in the City academy, but never made a first-team appearance.
At age 18, he joined Celtic in 2019 in a £300,000 transfer — a fee that looks like a bargain in hindsight — and after two years at Celtic, he joined Bayer Leverkusen, where he was a key part of their undefeated season in which they won the Bundesliga and German Cup in 2024. It spurred a €35 million move to Liverpool last summer to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Academy graduates breaching the PSG first-team is a common sight these days — Warren Zaïre-Emery is leading that charge — but it wasn’t always this way. Not so long ago, the pathway was blocked, leading to a steady exodus and some missed opportunities.
Kingsley Coman
Coman publicly bemoaned his lack of opportunities in the French capital, suggesting young players were “shoved to one side.” The winger made just four first-team appearances before he left at the end of his contract to sign for Juventus.
He later spent nine years at Bayern Munich, where he won the Champions League in 202 after beating — yep, you guessed it — PSG in the final. He now plays alongside Cristiano Ronaldo at Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr.
Ferland Mendy
Real Madrid paid an initial €48 million to sign Mendy from Lyon, where he had emerged as a top left back. That will have been tough to watch for PSG, who had him at their academy for eight years, although a significant hip injury stunted his progress.
Still, at age 17, he found his way to Lyon via Le Havre, where he spent two years in the youth team before graduating.
Barcelona’s La Masia may be the most talked-about academy in football, but Madrid’s La Fábrica (The Factory) has produced its fair share of quality too over the years, such as goalkeeping great Iker Casillas and six-time Champions League winning right back Dani Carvajal. Still, as with other super clubs, the standard of the first team is extremely high and even the best prospects sometimes slip away.
Achraf Hakimi
Born in Madrid to Moroccan parents, Hakimi spent more than a decade in Real Madrid’s system. However, upon returning from a brilliant two-year loan spell at Dortmund, Carvajal blocked the way to the first-choice right back role, so he signed for Inter Milan for €40 million.
He’s since joined PSG, won the Champions League and twice been named in the FIFPRO World XI.
Samuel Eto’o
Madrid unearthed an all-time great striker in Eto’o, plucking him from an academy in Cameroon aged 15. But they never reaped the rewards of their discovery as he played just seven times for Madrid, leaving in 2000 for Mallorca, where he had already enjoyed a brief loan spell.
It turned out to be a fateful decision. Eto’o went on to join Barcelona in 2004 and won the Champions League three times in the next six years — twice at Barça and again at Inter Milan — and ended his career as one of Africa’s all-time greats.
Spurs’ academy helped fuel their route to the 2019 Champions League final, with graduates Harry Kane and Harry Winks playing a key role all the way through. Since then, though, no one has really made the same jump. Though it’s possible that the club’s aggressive recruitment drive to sign many of Europe’s best teenagers — like Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray, Luka Vuskovic and Mathys Tel — has been a factor there.
Noni Madueke
Madueke was a hot prospect in Spurs’ academy for four years, captaining the youth sides and playing above his age bracket consistently. But when the time came to put his senior career on track, he departed for Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in 2019.
Playing time soon followed, as did goals and assists, leading Chelsea to spend £28.5 million to sign him in 2013. Two years later, a UEFA Conference League title and a Club World Cup win later, he joined Arsenal for £48 million.
