Why south London is turning out so many great footballers

While Sancho and Gomez are the stars of this year, they are not the end of the story, says Jack Pitt-Brooke

Jadon Sancho had the strength of character not to settle for the fringes of the Manchester City squad and is now a star with Bundesliga-topping Borussia Dortmund (Bongarts/Getty)

Look at the team at the top of the Premier League. Or the team on top of the Bundesliga. Or the England team. Or any England youth teams. Or any youth teams from any of the Premier League’s top sides, not just in London but increasingly in Manchester and Liverpool too. You will see the same stamp: young English players playing with flair, with freedom, showing the skills that they taught themselves and their friends. The football of south London, played for the best teams in the world.

No English players have been more exciting in 2018 than Jadon Sancho or Joe Gomez. No one promises more for 2019, in the Champions League, the Nations League, or in Euro 2020, than they do. But what about Reiss Nelson, starring in Germany and for England Under-21s? Or Ademola Lookman, starting to make himself heard at Everton? Or any number of talented youngsters increasingly visible across our national game, all from the adjacent boroughs of Southwark and Lewisham.

This small band of dense city, just a few miles across, is now one of the productive hotbeds for young footballers anywhere in the world. Other parts of the country have been able to claim this before: Huyton, Wearside, more recently Barking in east London. But south London is now on top. It can claim to be England’s own version of the Paris banlieues, the greatest talent factory in the world.