Eric Cantona for France, Fabrizio Ravanelli for Italy, Danny Higginbotham for, um, Gibraltar – these are some of the iconic (and not so iconic) players who have netted their affiliated nation’s first goal in the Premier League.
Since the new incarnation of the English top division began in 1992-93 there have been goalscorers from 91 different countries, according to data sourced from Opta.
Victor Wanyama added Kenya to the list when he scored his first goal for Southampton last month. There have only been two seasons (2003-04 and 2007-08) when a new country has not been added to the totals.
Unsurprisingly, given that they were starting with a blank slate, the 1992-93 season had the most new nations scoring with 24. Brian Deane (English) of Sheffield United starting things off with a headed goal against Manchester United.
Every single one of the eight World Cup winning nation has a registered Premier League goalscorer. The first of these to get a goal besides England was France thanks to Eric Cantona, who was playing for Leeds in the 1992-93 season when he got his first goal in the new league. The last was Argentina’s Horacio Carbonari in 1998.
Despite most major football nations being represented on the list there are still some countries with huge populations that have not got a Premier League goal yet. The most notable example is India, where there is currently a concerted effort going on to build interest in football.
One striking thing from looking at the list is that he Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark all got their first goals in the four days between the 22 and 25 of August thanks to Gunnar Halle, Anders Limpar and Jan Molby respectively.
The data goes with affiliation rather than birth should a player represent another country internationally. Famous examples where this is the case include Muzzy Izzet (Turkey), Danny Higginbotham (Gibraltar), Ruel Fox (Montserrat) and Roy Wegerle (United States but born in South Africa).
Manchester City have introduced the most new goalscoring nations to the division, including Dutchman Michel Vonk and German Uwe Rösler. Edin Dzeko from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Stefan Savic from Montengero are the Sky Blues’ latest additions to the Premier League map.
The full list of players represents a trip through Premier League nostalgia. Who can forget Trinidad and Tobago’s Dwight Yorke, the Czech Republic’s Karel Poborsky and Colombia’s Faustino Asprilla? We’ve picked out some of our favourites and included their full number of goals for the season in the graphic below – scroll further down to see the entire list in full.
