Jadon Sancho: Dortmund Star, Manchester United Exit and Free-Agent Search

Jadon Sancho’s career has had more turns than most players manage in two decades. He left England’s academy system as a teenager to chase first-team football in Germany, returned home for £73 million, fell out publicly with his manager, and then spent three seasons on loan at Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and Aston Villa, winning a European trophy at the last two. This week he is trending in Ghana because of a transfer story: BBC Sport reports that Getafe have made an offer for the former Manchester United winger. Here is how he got to that point.

Camberwell to Watford to Manchester City

Jadon Malik Sancho was born on 25 March 2000 in Camberwell, south London, and grew up on an estate in Kennington. He joined Watford at seven. Because getting across London to the club’s academy was difficult, he moved into Watford-provided accommodation at 11 and attended the partner school Harefield Academy as a boarder. At 14, he told an under-15s coach he intended to play for England.

In March 2015 he moved to Manchester City’s academy for an initial fee of £66,000, potentially rising to £500,000 with add-ons. City’s chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak named him as one of three young players to be fast-tracked towards the senior squad in May 2017. A dispute over assurances of playing time on a new contract then led him to leave. He has told interviewers that Ronaldinho was his biggest idol, someone he studied on YouTube, and that he grew up supporting Chelsea (Wikipedia).

Dortmund: a teenager who rewrote the record book

On 31 August 2017 Borussia Dortmund signed him for a reported £8 million. He became the first Englishman to play a Bundesliga match for the club. His first goal came on 21 April 2018, and in 2018–19 the records began to fall. He became the first player born in the 2000s to score twice in a Bundesliga match, the first from that generation to score in the Champions League for Dortmund, and the youngest player to reach eight and then nine Bundesliga goals in a season. He ended that campaign with 12 goals and 14 assists and a place in the Bundesliga Team of the Season.

The next year was stronger still: 17 goals and 16 assists in the Bundesliga in 2019–20, including his first senior hat-trick, a 6–1 away win at Paderborn on 31 May 2020. After his first goal he lifted his shirt to reveal a message that read “Justice for George Floyd”, which drew attention far outside Germany. In 2021 he scored twice in Dortmund’s 4–1 DFB-Pokal final win over RB Leipzig and was the tournament’s top scorer. Dortmund also won the 2019 DFL-Supercup with Sancho contributing an assist and a goal against Bayern Munich.

Manchester United: £73 million and a falling-out

Manchester United completed the signing on 23 July 2021 for a reported £73 million on a five-year contract. He scored his first goal in a Champions League tie against Villarreal in November and his first Premier League goal against Chelsea days later. The time at Old Trafford, though, never reached the heights of Germany. He returned to action after a spell out only in early 2023, was in the squad that won the 2022–23 EFL Cup, and then everything stopped.

In September 2023 manager Erik ten Hag left him out of the squad for a match with Arsenal, citing “his performances in training”. Sancho replied on social media that this was “completely untrue” and that he had been “a scapegoat for a long time”. United then announced he would train away from the first-team group pending resolution of a “squad discipline issue”. In January 2024 he went back to Dortmund on loan.

Three loans, three European finals

At Dortmund he scored against Werder Bremen and then Leipzig, and on 28 April 2024 became the highest-scoring Englishman in Bundesliga history, a record Harry Kane later passed. In the Champions League semi-final first leg against Paris Saint-Germain he completed 12 dribbles, a figure not seen at that stage since Lionel Messi in 2008. He started the 2024 Champions League final at Wembley, played 87 minutes, and lost 2–0 to Real Madrid.

He returned to United in the summer of 2024, then joined Chelsea on loan on 31 August 2024 with an obligation to buy that would be triggered if the club finished in the top 14. He scored in the 2025 Conference League final, a 4–1 win over Real Betis, but Chelsea chose not to sign him, paying United a £5 million penalty instead.

A season-long loan to Aston Villa followed on 1 September 2025. His first Villa goal came on 22 January 2026 against Fenerbahçe in the Europa League, and he came on as a substitute in the 3–0 win over Freiburg in the 2026 Europa League final in Istanbul. That made him the first player to appear in three consecutive European finals for three different clubs in three different European competitions.

England career

Sancho was capped by England at under-16, under-17 and under-19 level. He was part of the team that won the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, although Dortmund pulled him out during the knockout rounds, and he was named player of the tournament at that year’s UEFA European Under-17 Championship, where England reached the final.

He made his senior debut on 12 October 2018 in a 0–0 draw in Croatia and scored his first goals, a brace, in a 5–3 win over Kosovo on 10 September 2019. At Euro 2020 England reached the final. On 11 July 2021 he came on in the 120th minute for the penalty shoot-out against Italy, took England’s fourth kick, and saw it saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma. He, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were then the targets of racist abuse online. He was not selected for the 2022 World Cup, Euro 2024 or the 2026 World Cup squads.

Free agent

On 10 June 2026 United confirmed he would leave when his contract ran out at the end of that month. Since then he has been without a club. The BBC reports that Spanish side Getafe have made an offer. No move has been announced as of writing, and the report should be treated as a reported offer rather than a done deal.

How he plays

Analysts in 2020 described Sancho as quick, technical and creative, with dribbling and close control that made him dangerous one-on-one. In 2021 Dietmar Hamann called him the best winger in the world. At Dortmund he often played on either wing of a 4-2-3-1, alongside players such as Erling Haaland, Gio Reyna and Jude Bellingham.

Outside football, he is a well-known video gamer.

Honours

Borussia Dortmund: DFB-Pokal 2020–21, DFL-Supercup 2019, Champions League runner-up 2023–24. Manchester United: EFL Cup 2022–23. Chelsea: UEFA Conference League 2024–25. Aston Villa: UEFA Europa League 2025–26. England: Euro 2020 runner-up, U-17 World Cup 2017.

Sources

• Wikipedia
• BBC Sport
• Google Trends