‘Things are finally changing’: Michael Mancienne on his path from frustrated youngster to Bundesliga and MLS trailblazer Once an England up-and-comer, Mancienne was never given a chance at international level and has had to fulfill his ambitions elsewhere

In the history of the England under-21 side, only one player – Fabrice Muamba – has made more appearances without making earning a senior cap than Michael Mancienne. Billed as Chelsea’s most promising homegrown defender since John Terry, Mancienne turned out 30 times in total for the under-21s, also playing for England’s under-16s, under-17s, under-18s and under-19s. And yet no senior cap was forthcoming as his international career stalled.

Mancienne’s tale is a familiar one. It is the quintessential encapsulation of the issues faced by the English game in bringing through young players, both at club and international level, over the past decade or so. “Things are finally changing,” notes Mancienne, now at the New England Revolution in MLS after spells with Hamburg and Nottingham Forest, but this comes too late for the centre back. He’ll never get that cap now.

“I didn’t feel like [a cap] was close [when I was in the under-21s] or that there was a path for players in the under-21s to get into the England team,” explains the 30-year-old. “It didn’t feel like if I played well for the under-21s I would get a call up.” Mancienne did receive one senior call-up, for a friendly match against Germany in November 2008, but that felt more like a novelty than the start of a meaningful international career.

Things might have been different for Mancienne had he broken through now rather than 10 years ago. In Gareth Southgate, England now have a manager who has emphatically placed his faith in youth. “I think having someone like Southgate [as England manger] definitely would have helped me,” says Mancienne. “Having an English manager who understands the game and has been through the youth ranks himself… it might have changed things a bit earlier.”

‘In Germany they give you a chance’

Indeed, Marcus Bettinelli, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joe Gomez, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Angus Gunn, Nathaniel Chalobah, Mason Mount, Demarai Gray, James Maddison, Tammy Abraham and Dominic Solanke have all been lifted up into the senior set up from the under-21s by Southgate since his appointment back in 2016. Lessons, it appears, are being learned from the past and Mancienne represents one such lesson.

Of course, it wasn’t just at international level that Mancienne crashed his head against English youth football’s glass ceiling, but for Chelsea too, whose inability to bring through players has almost entered cliche. He only made four senior appearances for the Blues, spending loan spells at Queens Park Rangers and Wolves before making the permanent move to Hamburg.

“From a young age I always had the mindset that I would love to play abroad and experience different cultures,” he says, explaining why Germany and the States appealed as footballing destinations. At the time of his move to Hamburg, Mancienne was the only Englishman playing in the Bundesliga. He was an anomaly, and in retrospect something of a trailblazer given the trend that has emerged in recent years for English players – Jadon Sancho, Reiss Nelson, Reece Oxford – frustrated by the lack of Premier League opportunities making the move to the land of fußball.

“The difference is they give you a chance,” explains Mancienne, naming former Hamburg teammate Jonathan Tah as an example of a player thrown in the deep end to sink or swim. In Tah’s case, now a fully-fledged German international with over 100 Bundesliga appearances at just 22 years old, he swam.

‘Rooney deserves his cap’

“They’d rather play one of their homegrown players than bring someone in, and the clubs get money for bringing through young players as well,” the New England defender elaborates. “As a young player, you always want to be playing and there is a greater chance of doing that in Germany because of the culture there.”

Now living and playing in the States, Mancienne will watch Thursday’s friendly between England and USA from a different perspective. He, like so many others, is looking forward to seeing Wayne Rooney, also now an MLS player with DC United, don The Three Lions once last time. But the argument made by many is that by handing Rooney a farewell, he is depriving a youngster the chance of his first cap.

Not so long ago, Mancienne would have been that hypothetical youngster. “I think he deserves it, to be honest,” the defender reasons. “Rooney is a legend. He’s also played well over here in MLS, so he’s in good form… so why not? There will be plenty more caps for young players.” Now that Southgate is England manager, there may well be. It wasn’t that way in Mancienne’s day, though.