Uzbekistan will become the 19th different nation to have exactly one Premier League player when Abdukodir Khusanov plays for Man City. Here, we chart the 18 others.
When Manchester City’s new signing, Abdukodir Khusanov, makes his Premier League debut, he will become the first player from Uzbekistan to play in the competition.
It will be a landmark moment for a nation with little footballing pedigree. Uzbekistan, part of the Soviet Union until 1991, have never qualified for the World Cup, but it seems times are changing. There’s a chance they will qualify for the 2026 tournament, and they now have a player at not just any Premier League team, but the eight-time champions.
Uzbekistan will become the 19th different nation to provide one Premier League player.
But which other countries have produced exactly one player in the English top flight? Here’s the full list, along with the sole player from those nations to have made at least one Premier League appearance.
Armenia
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Former Manchester United and Arsenal midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan is the only Armenian to have played in the Premier League, racking up a total of 78 appearances split perfectly between his two clubs in England. He scored 13 goals across his three seasons in the Premier League and provided 14 assists.
Mkhitaryan won a couple of trophies in his first season with United, but he barely played the following campaign as they finished second in the table. He then moved to Arsenal only to find his game time limited there, too, before he left England for Serie A, where he has been ever since.
Bangladesh
Hamza Choudhury
Leicester City midfielder Hamza Choudhury has 57 Premier League appearances to his name but only two of them – both substitute appearances – have come since he switched allegiance to Bangladesh.
Earlier in his career, Choudhury made seven appearances for England Under-21s, but in December 2024, FIFA approved his request to change the nation he represents. When, three days after that news, he came off the bench for Leicester against Wolves, he became the Premier League’s first ever Bangladeshi player.
Central African Republic
Frédéric Nimani
When Frédéric Nimani came off the bench in Burnley’s 1-0 defeat to Bolton in January 2010, he became the first player from the Central African Republic to play in the Premier League, and he remains the only one.
He made a second appearance a month later, coming off the bench in a 5-2 loss at Aston Villa, but the forward, on loan from Monaco, failed to make a lasting impression.
In 44 minutes across two games for Burnley, Nimani had just 23 touches of the ball, completed 10 passes and failed to have a single shot.
Cuba
Onel Hernández
Onel Hernández enjoyed one season in the Premier League with Norwich in 2019-20, during which he made 26 appearances, most of them on the left side of attack, but he scored just one goal and added two assists. He did carry an attacking threat with his dribbling, though, ranking 13th in the league for successful dribbles per 90 (2.7).
However, the Premier League’s only Cuban hasn’t been seen in the top flight since. Norwich have spent four of the last five seasons in the Championship, and Hernández went out on loan elsewhere in the second tier in 2021-22 when Norwich were briefly back in the Premier League.
Dominican Republic
Junior Firpo
Signed from Barcelona a year after Leeds’ return to the big time, Junior Firpo arrived at Elland Road to much excitement. The left-back didn’t prove to be quite the silky player many had hoped, though, with as great a penchant for a booking as a ball into the box, as he picked up the most yellow cards (11) in the Premier League in his debut season.
He has been at Leeds ever since and is playing a prominent role in the team’s attempts to get back into the Premier League (while still picking up cautions consistently). He remains the only player affiliated to the Dominican Republic to feature in the Premier League.
Faroe Islands
Gunnar Nielsen
Seventy-cap Faroe Islands international Gunnar Nielsen remains the only player from his country to play in the Premier League, and he only made one appearance… but he did so on a high-pressured occasion.
As the third-choice goalkeeper for Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City, who were chasing Champions League qualification for the first time, Nielsen was barely needed all season. But he made the bench for an April trip to Arsenal, and Shay Given was forced off injured with 14 minutes remaining. Nielsen entered the pitch to play behind Vincent Kompany and Kolo Touré as Arsenal pushed for a winner. He saved a 90th-minute effort from Nicklas Bendtner to hold out for a clean sheet, meaning he ended his Premier League career with a 100% save success rate.
Gibraltar
Danny Higginbotham
The player with the most Premier League appearances on this list, Danny Higginbotham qualified to play for Gibraltar through his maternal grandmother, and he played in their first ever game – a friendly draw with Slovakia.
However, that came at the wrong end of his career, as by that stage he was playing for Chester in the Conference Premier.
He already had 210 Premier League appearances to his name by that point, although technically, given he was born and raised in England, he wasn’t actually Gibraltarian until after his time in the top flight was over.
Guatemala
Nathaniel Méndez-Laing
Nathaniel Méndez-Laing played for England’s youth teams but declared for Guatemala in 2023, long after making his 20 Premier League appearances for Cardiff City in 2017-18.
He has spent much of the rest of his career in the second and third tiers in England and, now playing regularly for Derby County in the Championship, there is a chance he will add to the number of top-flight games he has played in, albeit a slim one.
Indonesia
Jordi Amat
Amat switched allegiance to Indonesia in 2022, long after he had left the Premier League, where he racked up 52 appearances with Swansea back when he may even have harboured some hope of eventually becoming a Spain international.
Now playing his domestic football in Malaysia, Amat is still going for Indonesia, who in 2023 made it past the group stage of the Asian Cup for the first time in their history.
Iraq
Ali Al-Hamadi
The 2024-25 season has already produced a player from a new nation in the form of Ipswich Town forward Ali Al-Hamadi, the Premier League’s first ever Iraqi.
The former AFC Wimbledon striker is yet to start a game or score a goal in England’s top flight, but he is still very young and so has time on his side.
Kenya
Victor Wanyama
The most high-profile and successful Kenyan footballer ever, former Celtic, Southampton and Tottenham midfielder Victor Wanyama has 154 Premier League appearances to his name and was part of the Spurs team who made it all the way to the Champions League final in 2018-19.
A combative ball-winner, Wanyama is still going strong playing in Major League Soccer, and remains the only Kenyan to have played in the Premier League.
Malta
Dylan Kerr
The only Maltese footballer to have played in the Premier League did so in the competition’s inaugural season in 1992-92, playing a total of 286 minutes across five games for Leeds United. Those five appearances proved to be Dylan Kerr’s final games in the top flight.
Oman
Ali Al Habsi
Ali Al Habsi played 111 games in the Premier League for Wigan and Bolton between 2007 and 2013, and was part of the Wigan side who won the FA Cup in 2012-13 – Al Habsi’s final season in the top flight.
He had, however, lost his place as Wigan’s first-choice goalkeeper by the time the final against Manchester City came around, and watched on from the substitutes’ bench despite having played in some of the earlier rounds. He remains the only person from Oman to have played in the Premier League.
Pakistan
Zesh Rehman
Zesh Rehman began playing at Fulham, where he played 21 times in the Premier League at the start of what looked like a promising career. He stuck around in the Championship for a few seasons but was playing in League Two by 2008-09 before a world tour that took him to Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
He never made it back to the Premier League and so could not add to his 21 appearances, although he was playing international football for Pakistan as recently as 2019.
Philippines
Neil Etheridge
Neil Etheridge was born in Enfield, London, but qualified to play for the Philippines through his mother, and he was already representing them at international level long before his first Premier League appearance.
In fact, the goalkeeper’s Philippines debut came in 2008, when he was on loan from Fulham at Isthmian League side Leatherhead, and he ended up with more than twice as many international caps (82) as he did Premier League appearances (38), all of which came with Cardiff as he played every minute of the 2018-19 season.
Suriname
Ryan Donk
Centre-back Ryan Donk spent 2008-09 on loan at West Brom, making 14 starts and two more substitute appearances as the Baggies finished bottom of the table with the worst defensive record in the league (67 goals conceded).
He went on to make almost 400 more top-flight appearances in Belgium, Turkey and Spain, but never added to his Premier League tally.
In 2015, Donk, who had represented the Netherlands at youth level, tried to earn a Turkey cap, having become eligible through his residence in the country, but he was never given a call. In 2021, however, he played his first senior international game for Suriname. He remains the only player who has declared for Suriname to play in the Premier League.
Syria
Mahmoud Dahoud
Dahoud moved to Brighton on loan for the 2023-24 season but, having played fairly consistently for Borussia Mönchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund, wasn’t able to fulfil his promise in England. He made just nine Premier League appearances before returning to Germany midway through the season.
The midfielder actually has two Germany caps to his name but having only played in friendlies, he was able to accept a call-up to the Syria national team in 2024. He hasn’t yet represented them in a game but remains eligible to do so.
Tanzania
Mbwana Samatta
Tanzanian forward Samatta played 14 times in the Premier League in a six-month spell at Aston Villa in the second half of the 2019-20 season.
He scored on his Premier League debut against Bournemouth, but Villa went on to lose that game, and it would prove to be his only goal from 17 shots in 946 minutes of league action for the club. Villa ended up avoiding relegation by a single point, and Samatta left for Fenerbahce at the end of the season, never to return to England.
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