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.
Hamza Choudhury has become the first Premier League player to represent Bangladesh.
The 27-year-old becomes the third Premier League player this season to be added to the list of international lone stars after Manchester City defender Abdukodir Khusanov and Ali Al-Hamadi of Ipswich Town, who became the first senior internationals from Uzbekistan and Iraq, respectively, when making their English top-flight debuts in 2024-25. Choudhury is the 19th Premier League player to be the sole representative of his particular nation in England's top flight.
With Choudhury added to the mix, the total number of different nationalities to have been represented in the Premier League rises to 126. However, there are still a handful of large nations who have never seen a senior international player represent them in the Premier League with India, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Thailand among the most notable.
There is also only one continent on Earth that hasn't seen an international player grace the top flight -- though it shouldn't come as much surprise that Antarctica has not produced an ambassador capable of playing in the Premier League. At least, not yet.
0 Comments