The framed shirts hang along one side of the tunnel leading out on to the turf at Borussia-Park, a gallery of internationals and seasoned professionals that offers a reminder of what hard work can achieve. The roll call begins with Germany’s Marcell Jansen. It takes in Eugen Polanski of Poland, Chelsea’s perennial loanee Marko Marin and Marc-André ter Stegen, a Champions League winner with Barcelona in May. Those directly beneath the speakers, through which booms the local anthem Die Elf vom Niederrhein before kick-off, include the current Mönchengladbach midfielders Patrick Hermann and Mahmoud Dahoud.

Yet there is still room in that hall of fame for others to be mounted and, if all goes to plan, the next addition could be an Englishman abroad. “Every time I walk down that corridor it inspires me,” says Mandela Egbo. “Mo Dahoud, that last name, has just made his Champions League debut. That can’t help but inspire you to try and be the next shirt up there, but that’s only one of the reasons I am here. To think that people might see it going well for me and it might motivate others to move out of their comfort zones and take a leap of faith, take a risk … well, if that happens, I’ll have done a half-decent job.”

Egbo needs an introduction. He is an 18-year-old who grew up in Hackney but was schooled in his football south of the river, the defender nurtured first at Afewee Urban, the club staffed by volunteers in Brixton which counts Nathaniel Clyne as one of its many graduates, then at Crystal Palace’s academy in Beckenham. He is an England youth international, a member of John Peacock’s Under-17 squad who won the European Championships in Malta in 2014 having claimed the Premier League club’s scholar of the year award the previous year. The right-back travelled with Palace’s senior squad for their draw at Swansea last season and had been a regular in their development squad.

He was considered the next prospect likely to progress from junior to senior set-up, following Wilfried Zaha into the first team. Yet, a month before he turned 18 and in the same week England’s Under-21s limped away from the Euros in the Czech Republic, Egbo was confirmed as a Borussia Mönchengladbach player. Palace were dismayed, the compensation of around £200,000 distinctly inadequate even for a player who had not signed professional terms, but the youngster had spied an opportunity. Around 20 players have progressed from the academy into the senior side since the North Rhine-Westphalia club moved in 2004 from the Bökelbergstadion to the new £65m Borussia-Park, where Manchester City are the visitors in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

The Bundesliga, of the five major European leagues, offers the most obvious and well-trodden path for rookies into first teams with Germany’s World Cup success of 2014 the result of the emphasis placed on youth development over the last 15 years.

Borussia Mönchengladbach supporters have seen around 20 players progress from the academy into the first team over the last 11 years. Photograph: Julio Munoz/EPA

Egbo has nothing but praise for everyone he worked with over seven years at Palace but moving to Germany, even without a word of the language, represented a clear step up in his education. There are other young émigrés within the England set-up, but not many: Taylor Moore has been developed by the academy at Lens, now of France’s Ligue 2; Danny Collinge departed MK Dons for VfB Stuttgart in 2014. Both remain key members of their national age groups. “Leaving the Premier League and coming here might look odd from the outside,” says Egbo. “Apart from Danny at Stuttgart, there isn’t anyone else who has made that move from England recently. So, at first glance, it seems surprising.

“But, whether I was playing football or in full-time education, I’m at an age when people go away to uni. I’ve done the same thing. I’ve moved away to learn my craft, just as a student goes away to university. My family have been moving across seas for generations to better our education. My mother went back to Nigeria for secondary school and university. I’ve got cousins from Nigeria who are in England for work at the moment, and cousins, aunties and uncles who have moved to America. We’re quite an international family. This is normal.”

This month, while in rehabilitation from a thigh injury, he watched Aidy Boothroyd’s England Under-19s beat Germany in nearby Bergisch Gladbach, visiting the victors’ dressing room post-match and receiving assurances from the manager that “I’ve not been forgotten, they’re still watching”. That was reassuring. “The language is coming, slowly and steadily, but the idea of moving to a new country always excited me,” Egbo says. “Whether it goes perfectly or doesn’t go amazingly well, it’ll still be an experience, and that is something nobody can ever take away from me. Whether I’m playing in the Bundesliga every week in four years’ time, playing for England or even for Nigeria, I’ll have taken in a new culture, lived in a new country, and hopefully learned a new language. I’ll take all that.”

The likelihood is his football will also benefit from a spell abroad. In an age where young English talent invariably finds itself clogged in the bottleneck just below the first team – particularly at Premier League clubs where the risk of blooding potential is balanced with the fear of dropping out of the money-flushed elite – Egbo’s schooling will be rather different.

Palace’s academy has provided a conveyor belt of talent, particularly when they were in the Championship. However, like many top-flight clubs, they have grown privately disenchanted with the development league and taken to loaning out brighter prospects to speed progress. Sullay Kaikai moved to Shrewsbury this month. Hiram Boateng and Jerome Binnom-Williams are gaining game time at Plymouth and Burton respectively.

Mandela Egbo says of the regime at Borussia Mönchengladbach: ‘We do a lot more double sessions, so they’ve installed rooms in the first-team changing rooms where players can sleep between sessions.’ Photograph: Felix Huesmann/Demotix/The Guardian

Egbo would have expected to join their number had he remained at Selhurst Park. Instead, once fit, he will compete in the Uefa Youth League group with Manchester City – who include his England team-mate Pat Roberts in their number – Sevilla and Juventus, games which mirror the first-team’s daunting Champions League section. More pertinently, Borussia’s Under-23s play in Germany’s fourth division against senior sides. They won the Regionalliga West last season but lost out on elevation to the national third tier in a play-off to Werder Bremen’s reserves. Regardless, rivals such as Rot-Weiss Essen and Alemannia Aachen can draw crowds of 15,000 for home games.

The concept of B teams is resisted by the majority in England but Germany is evidence it provides a tough grounding. “I would have looked to go out on loan this season at Palace but, when you’re out on loan, you’re away from your club and almost forgotten a bit,” says Egbo, reflecting a situation Palace have since addressed with the appointment of Mark Bright as a liaison between loanees and their parent club. “Here in the Under-23s you’re here every day, you train with the first team whenever they need you, you’re always under the eye of the head coach and, in the Fourth Division, you’re playing against men.

“That’s what everyone goes out on loan for, to gain that experience of needing to win because you have to provide for your family, to earn your lifestyle. When you go out on loan, it’s not a joke. You can’t just lose willy-nilly and shrug your shoulders, because it matters. We get that here every week. Even from being in the changing rooms after games, you see how much it means to every one of the players here to win a game. It’s more than just football. It has implications on their lives. That is an education in itself.

“I’d read that the chances of coming through a club into the senior team were higher here than anywhere else in Europe’s major leagues [almost 15% of Bundesliga players were “club raised” in 2014], and obviously they are world champions and their entire system is aimed at youth development. They saw me playing on the international stage and, after meeting the sporting director, the academy manager and the head coach, it was a no-brainer. Young English players do have opportunities in the Premier League: look at Wilf and Nathaniel, or Joe Gomez at Liverpool. Izzy Brown and Dom Solanke have made their debuts for Chelsea. But every player is different. The route for me was coming here. I wanted something new.”

The facilities on offer twisted his arm. Borussia-Park, which can host 54,014 spectators, is out of town, with the club’s training pitches and reserves based on site. Their academy, like counterparts in England, caters from Under-9s with a boarding school for up to 12 young players housed at the stadium and three other colleges in Mönchengladbach having been granted “elite football school” status by the DFB. The club traditionally recruited from the local region, though recent years have seen their international scouting network spread. Lucien Favre, until he resigned as head coach this month after a poor start to the season, had two or three Under-23s train with his squad on a regular basis. The aim of Max Eberl, the sporting director, remains to ensure a third of the club’s players have graduated through the academy.

“Everything about this place is sports science put into practice,” says Egbo. “We do a lot more double sessions, so they’ve installed rooms in the first-team changing rooms where players can sleep between sessions. Everything is figured out and on site, whether that be the cafeteria, the gym, the training pitches. The first team and academy sides work side-by-side and mix together. The drills they put on are perhaps more technical. The tactical coaching I received at Palace has stood me in good stead, but here it’s more about making yourself a better individual player. About mastering the ball.

I'm not here to be 'an English lad in Germany'. I've come here to learn, to speak the language, and to fit in.

“We’ll be given a ball and certain skills to practise on our own, which was something I did at a younger age group in England but which was steadily phased out for more teamwork exercises. Here, they expect you to feel comfortable on the ball in any scenario. I’ve heard the first-team head coach tell his players they need that because, around the box, we’re all about short, sharp and fast passes. The Bundesliga games themselves are probably more technical and tactical than the Premier League, which is so frenetic. The coaching at both clubs is a good standard but I’ll definitely be a better all-round player in the long run by learning in Germany and adopting Borussia’s style of play.”

Egbo’s early impressions are positive. Borussia is “close-knit and homely like Palace, but everything is just bigger” and he feels “comfortable” in new surroundings. He had done his research, both in terms of Mönchengladbach’s glittering history and their revival over recent seasons, watching weekly Bundesliga highlights on terrestrial television back home in Hackney once he had become aware of the German club’s interest.

He is now installed in his own flat close to the ground, with his parents regular visitors, given London is only a 55-minute flight away. When he is properly settled he intends to undertake an Open University degree, maintaining the studies his father, Freddie, has stressed are so important. German may be an option. “I’m not here to be ‘an English lad in Germany,’” he adds. “I’ve come here to learn, to speak the language, and to fit in with it all. The idea is to be here for the duration of the four-year contract, and more if they’ll have me. I don’t have any plans to head back to England in a hurry.

“I have to prove myself here. Yannick [Bolasie] messaged me when I moved, saying: ‘The real work starts now.’ That sums it up really. I’ve moved to a new country, taken a big step, but I haven’t achieved anything yet. Now the work starts to get into the first team.”