Journeyman footballers conjure up a wealth of emotions in fans. The term can have negative connotations of a player who perhaps never quite made it to the top, or who is unable to settle at any club for very long, forced to constantly move around in search of a new team.
And yet, fans also revere and respect the journeyman. They have enough talent to play the sport for a living, something only very few can claim, but also must go the extra mile (or sometimes more like a few thousand miles) to keep on living the dream.
In an era when superstar players and their astronomical wages are a stark reminder of the difference between fans and their heroes, the journeyman provides a refreshing reminder that for some professional footballers, their sole objective is to be able to play the game they love for as long as their body allows. All they need is a team.
The transfer king
Jefferson Louis is one of those names that lower-league English football fans of a certain age will recognize, probably because there’s a good chance he played for or against your team over the course of his 28-year career.
The striker changed clubs 51 times before finally hanging up his boots at age 46 at the end of last season to focus on his role as assistant manager at Slough Town in the National League South — English football’s sixth tier.
“Parts of me might still want to play, but what would I be gaining?” said Louis to ESPN. “I’ve experienced all the highs I can get in football. At this stage, playing would only be boosting my ego. Now I get my enjoyment by helping younger players develop.”
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However, when the news of Louis’ retirement broke, he was overwhelmed not just by messages of support from past clubs but also from managers trying to persuade him into a last hurrah.
“I was getting calls saying: ‘come over to us for a few months, you can still do a job,'” he adds. “But this time I knew it was the right time.”
Louis’ CV is a weighty tome that includes spells at the likes of Lincoln City, Rushden & Diamonds and Wrexham, where he scored 15 league goals in 2008-09 (more than a decade before future co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac completed their takeover of the Welsh club.)
But perhaps the pinnacle of Louis’ career came at Oxford United, where in 2002 he scored the winning goal against local rivals Swindon Town in the FA Cup second round and set up a match against Arsenal. As a lifelong Gunners fan, the game had special significance for him.
“I’ll take that game to my grave,” he says. “[Former Arsenal manager] Arsène Wenger met me before the game in the corridor, and we had a chat. I will cherish that for the rest of my life. I even went home with [ex-France and Arsenal winger] Robert Pires’ shirt.”
Louis even became a full international, albeit winning just the one cap for Dominica in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Barbados. But after that, he found that his clubs weren’t willing to release him for his international obligations.
As well as a slice of luck in remaining free of serious injury, Louis credits his longevity to a strong work ethic and a strict vegan diet. This kind of off-the-pitch discipline has become much more expected in recent times, but one of its pioneers was John Burridge. The former Aston Villa and Newcastle United goalkeeper racked up 29 clubs and 768 league appearances between 1969 and 1997 and played until he was 45, thanks to a teetotal lifestyle and a diet that included baby food.
The life of a transient footballer can be dispiriting, but Louis found motivation from the fact that there were always offers every preseason.
“Managers kept wanting me, so I must have been doing something right,” he says. “I can’t say a bad word about any of the clubs I played for. I have no regrets.”
The striker still playing at 50
Another player who has managed to keep himself playing well beyond his peers is Jamie Cureton. Now player-manager of Isthmian League North Division side Cambridge City (not to be confused with League Two Cambridge United), Cureton turned 50 at the end of August but is not yet ready to lose the “player” part of his job title just yet.
“I’ve sacrificed a hell of a lot for football, and you put your family and relationship through a lot of stress,” Cureton tells ESPN. “But I’m proud that I’ve played for so many clubs and that people still want me.
“The older you get, the more you have to move around. You always have to keep proving yourself and the contracts get shorter, but you learn to look after yourself better.”
A striker best remembered for scoring goals during spells at Bristol Rovers and Reading, Cureton’s career has spanned 22 clubs and nine tiers of the English football pyramid. From the highs of the Premier League — where he made his first appearance at 19 for Norwich City against Everton in 1994 — down to the Essex Senior Football League, Cureton’s career path also took a short detour to South Korean side Busan IPark FC.
One of the only eight English outfield footballers to have made over 1,000 competitive appearances, Cureton is still registered as a player for Cambridge City and has made it clear that he intends to get on the field at some stage after his 50th birthday.
“I will put myself in the team at some point when I feel it is right,” he says. “I played at the end of last season, and my mind is still very much tuned to playing. I still feel like a player.
“I never thought I’d go on playing this long, but that moment when I made my 1,000th appearance was something special. You never think as a kid that you’ll be doing that.”
The elite journeyman
The nickname “El Loco” (The Madman) is something of a cliché in football, but the moniker is apt for Uruguayan forward Sebastián Abreu whose journeyman credentials involved much more jet-setting and elite-level football than most players with such itinerant careers.
Abreu started out at Defensor Sporting Club in Uruguay‘s capital of Montevideo, before leaving for San Lorenzo in Argentina. He went on to play for 32 clubs in 11 countries in locations as far-flung as Beitar Jerusalem in Israel and Aris Thessaloniki in Greece.
While on the books of Spanish side Deportivo La Coruña, Abreu was loaned out seven times and made only 15 appearances for his parent club between 1998-2004, allowing him to rack up new locations at will.
This resulted in Abreu being officially awarded the Guinness World Record for playing for the most professional football clubs in history, a record he set after joining his 26th club Audax Italiano in 2018. He still had more clubs to add to his total, ending with a total of 31 when he retired in 2021 at the age of 44. Even then, he was lured back to play in an over-40s tournament for his childhood club Olimpia de Minas shortly after he had seemingly hung up his boots.
“The beauty of sport is that you just go to different teams and give your best without knowing the consequences,” Abreu, who is now coach of Liga MX club Tijuana, told ESPN. “Then, time passes and you’re no longer a footballer and you revisit those places, and they welcome you warmly with good memories and positive energy.
“Instead of seeing it as something negative, as many might view playing for so many teams, I see it as something very beautiful. It allows you to see the world, to grow, to develop and expand your family.”
At club level, Abreu won several top-flight titles in South America, but on the international scene he enjoyed another level of success. He won the Copa América in 2011, and his decisive “Panenka” penalty in the shootout sent Uruguay into the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup during the infamous game against Ghana in which Luis Suárez stopped a certain goal with his hand and was sent off in the last minute of extra time. Abreu retired with 26 international goals, leaving him seventh in Uruguay’s all-time top scorer chart.
The ultimate globe-trotter
Although he only notched up a comparatively paltry 25 clubs, German goalkeeper Lutz Pfannenstiel is undoubtedly football’s most intrepid journeyman.
Eschewing an offer to play for Bayern Munich as a youngster, Pfannenstiel instead took the scenic route, forging a 20-year career that took in all six FIFA confederations. He was the first player to manage that feat, with only Dutch goalkeeper André Krul matching it since.
Pfannenstiel made over 500 appearances for an eclectic mixture of exotic clubs in Germany, Malaysia, England, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States, Brazil, South Africa, Finland, Canada, Namibia, Norway, Armenia and Albania. Even after retirement, the 53-year-old doesn’t appear to have lost his wanderlust — having coached in Armenia, Norway, Cuba and Namibia — and he recently departed his role as sporting director for MLS club St. Louis City.
The fearless goalkeeper seemed to attract drama everywhere he went, both on and off the pitch: He was wrongly arrested for match-fixing and served time in prison in Singapore; he risked being deported in New Zealand for stealing a penguin from a zoo; he nearly died during an on-pitch collision while playing for Bradford Park Avenue.
However, Pfannenstiel never set out intending to be a globe-trotter. He was seen as a promising goalkeeping talent in his native Germany and broke into the national set-up at the under-17 level, but he refused to accept that his next few years might be spent sitting on a bench at a Bundesliga side.
“I was very confident in my abilities,” said Pfannenstiel, who also works as a TV analyst on Bundesliga matches, to ESPN. “I wanted a pro contract, and I didn’t want to warm a bench. Then a weird offer came in from Malaysia, and I said, ‘Screw it, I’ll do it.'”
That offer was a contract with Penang FC, a side Pfannenstiel admits he knew nothing about. After a successful spell, his next destination was the less exotic south-west London with Wimbledon, where he found himself again stuck as No. 2 and so moved on again. That process became something of a theme for Pfannenstiel, who became accustomed to having his bags packed, ready to make the move at short notice to any club that needed his services, wherever in the world that may be.
“I was always the guy who was reliable on short term contracts,” he says. “I would get a call on a Sunday, be at a new club by Monday, train on Tuesday and play on Wednesday. I became like a household name for an emergency call — ‘if you have a goalkeeping emergency, call 0800 Pfannenstiel!'”
Pfannenstiel freely admits that he was trapped between two worlds — very talented in smaller leagues but lacking something at the highest level.
“I would have been a good Bundesliga second-string ‘keeper,” he says. “But I’m not a character who can sit on the bench.”
His fear of the bench kept him moving, and by switching between southern and northern hemispheres he would manage to play as many as 60 games in some seasons.
The historic achievement of playing on all six footballing continents came about in 2007 just as it seemed that Pfannenstiel was ready to settle down in Canada with MLS side Vancouver Whitecaps.
“I had a good contract. The kids were at school, and my wife was happy. I think I was ready to stay longer,” he says. “Then my agent calls me out of the blue and says: ‘Do you realize South America is the only continent you’re missing?’
“I didn’t want to move, so I told him I’d only consider a Brazilian side. I never thought he’d manage that. Then Atlético Ibirama in Brazil popped up, and I just couldn’t refuse. It was a great experience and challenge, and worth giving up the security of Vancouver.”
While Pfannenstiel admits his transient lifestyle has been tough at times on a personal level, he is overwhelmingly grateful for the unique connections he has with people all over the planet.
“For my whole family it was a challenge, but you get to really know a different culture when you live there,” he says. “Even if sometimes you do have to leave with just a few days’ notice.
“I know people all over the world and have a special connection with them. Plus, I have one of the best networks in international football, which has been very useful for my post-playing career. I’ve certainly never been bored!”
ESPN Mexico’s Katia Castorena contributed to this report
