After cementing his eligibility late last year, Leicester City midfielder Hamza Choudhury played for the Bangladesh national team for the very first time on Tuesday and therefore became the latest inductee of an exclusive Premier League club.
Though he is spending this season on loan from the Foxes at Championship side Sheffield United, England-born Choudhury has previously made 57 top-flight appearances for his parent club. That makes him the first-ever Premier League player to represent Bangladesh.
Choudhury won seven caps for England at under-21 level as a youngster, but officially switched his international allegiance to Bangladesh in December and was subsequently included in the Bengal Tigers’ lineup for their 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualification third-round match against India on Tuesday.
An international with Spain at youth level, Amat spent four years in the Premier League with Swansea City before returning to LaLiga on a permanent basis with Rayo Vallecano in 2018. The center back is actually distantly descended from Indonesian royalty via his grandparents, and honored his lineage by making his debut for the national team in 2022. He has since gone on to represent Tim Garuda in several major competitions, including the AFF Championship and the AFC Asian Cup.
10. Ali Al-Hamadi (Iraq)
Al-Hamadi made his Premier League debut with newly promoted Ipswich during the opening portion of the 2024-25 season before falling down the pecking order and eventually joining Stoke on loan in January for the remainder of the campaign. The 23-year-old striker did however manage to become Iraq’s only top-flight representative in the meantime, having played 14 times for his national side since making his debut back in 2021.
11. Victor Wanyama (Kenya)
Wanyama made over 150 Premier League appearances for Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur in a top-flight career that spanned seven seasons. The combative central midfielder also earned 64 caps for Kenya having made his senior international debut in 2007 at the age of just 15. Wanyama retired from international duty in 2021 after the Kenyan Football Federation was banned by FIFA over corruption allegations. However, after the ban was lifted a year or so later, the former captain reversed his decision following protracted discussions with the national sport minister.
12. Dylan Kerr (Malta)
After finding himself on the fringes of the Leeds teams that won both the Division II title in 1989-90 and the Division I title in 1991-92, Kerr made five appearances in the inaugural Premier League season and thus will go down in history as the Premier League’s only Maltese-born player.
13. Ali Al-Habsi (Oman)
Along with a venerable international career that spanned 136 caps, former Oman goalkeeper Al-Habsi spent 14 years playing in England with Bolton Wanderers, Brighton & Hove Albion and Reading. But his crowning achievement undoubtedly came in 2012-13 when he won the FA Cup with little-fancied Wigan Athletic by pipping Manchester City in the dying seconds of the final at Wembley.
14. Zesh Rehman (Pakistan)
Rehman is rightly regarded as an inspirational trailblazer in English football after becoming the first British-Asian player in history to appear in the Premier League and the English top flight overall, doing so after coming on as a substitute for Fulham against Liverpool in 2004. He also represented England at under-18, under-19 and under-20 levels before declaring for Pakistan in 2005 and going on to win 22 caps.
Etheridge was born in London to an English father and a Filipino mother, and thus was able to play for England at under-16 level before becoming first-choice international goalkeeper for the Philippines at senior level. The former Fulham and Cardiff City player initially rejected an advance from the Philippine Football Federation before changing his mind in 2008. He has since won 82 caps and is ranked fourth in the nation’s all-time list of men’s appearance makers.
Donk was born and raised in Amsterdam, but his family’s Surinamese descent meant that he began to explore the possibility of playing for the South American nation in 2014. He received a call-up but was unable to secure clearance to join the squad after representing Netherlands‘ under-21 side as a youngster. Five years later (a decade on from his short loan stint at West Bromwich Albion), the towering center back received a second call-up from Suriname and this time was able to complete the requisite paperwork, allowing him to make his international debut in a World Cup qualifier against the Cayman Islands. Donk was made captain for the occasion and even found himself on the scoresheet in a resounding 3-0 win.
Dahoud is a slightly tenuous inclusion on the Premier League’s list. While born in Syria, the defensive midfielder has never actually represented his home nation in a competitive international fixture. He has played for Germany twice at senior level, though both appearances came in friendly fixtures — meaning he is still able to switch allegiance. Indeed, Dahoud declared himself eligible for Syria last year only to pull out of his first squad after taking umbrage at the facilities and training conditions.
The first and only Tanzanian international to ever appear in the Premier League, striker Samatta’s contribution to the top-flight pantheon amounts to 14 league appearances for Aston Villa during the COVID-stricken 2019-20 campaign. However, he did manage to score one goal, which came on his debut in a 2-1 defeat against AFC Bournemouth.
19. Abdukodir Khusanov (Uzbekistan)
One of four high-profile arrivals during the most recent transfer window, City signed defender Khusanov from French side Lens in January in a deal worth £33.5 million. He then made his Premier League debut just five days later and became the Premier League’s first Uzbek player in the process — though things got off to a rocky, error-strewn start against Chelsea. The young center back certainly has plenty of pedigree in the bank already though, having already won 18 senior caps for his country when he signed for City.
