England’s Under 21s reached the European Championship final for the first time since 2009 on Wednesday night with a 3-0 win over Israel.
Morgan Gibbs-White, Cole Palmer, and Cameron Archer were on hand with the goals which booked Lee Carsley’s young Lions a place in Saturday’s final, where they will face Spain.
The standout stars for England at this tournament include Aston Villa‘s Cameron Archer, Arsenal‘s Emile Smith-Rowe and Man City goalkeeper James Trafford, who is closing in on a £19million move to Burnley after five clean sheets at the Euros.
The last time the U21s reached this stage, it was an ugly affair as the likes of Lee Cattermole and Nedum Onuoha were beaten 4-0 by a German machine which featured the likes of Mesut Ozil, Manuel Neuer and Jerome Boateng.
England’s beaten finalists have had contrasting careers since that tournament, with some still playing at the highest level now and others bowing out from the sport much earlier than planned. Mail Sport looks at the Young Lions’ Class of ’09 and asks: where are they now?
England Under 21s booked their place in the European Championship final on Wednesday
Mail Sport takes a look at where members of the last U21 side to reach the final are now
Scott Loach (Goalkeeper)
Loach is still playing today for League One side Derby County, though he was restricted to just three cup appearances last season.
The 35-year-old was tipped for a bright future as a youngster at Championship club Watford, though while he has had a respectable career, he never went on to feature in the Premier League.
Despite spending four seasons playing consistent second-tier football for Watford in his youth, a journeyman career has seen Loach at 19 clubs since 2004, including ten loan spells mostly with League Two and National League teams.
After the Euros final in 2009, Loach did receive a couple of call-ups to the senior England squad in 2010, though he did not play.
At club level, his highest distinctions include playing 130 consecutive Championship matches and being named Hartlepool United’s Player of the Year in 2017-18 after keeping nine clean sheets in their National League campaign.
Scott Loach was called up to senior England squad in 2010 but failed to make an appearance
Martin Cranie (Right back)
Another Football League stalwart, Cranie is currently a free agent after rejecting a contract extension at Luton in 2021, which in hindsight looks unfortunate following their promotion to the Premier League.
Most of his football has been played in the Championship for the likes of Coventry and Barnsley, but he has also appeared in the top flight for Southampton, Portsmouth, and Huddersfield.
Cranie was instrumental in England reaching the final in 2009 and got on the scoresheet in their semi-final win over Sweden.
A couple of career highlights include winning the Championship play-offs with Huddersfield in 2017 and earning promotion two years later with Sheffield United – albeit both times as a bit-part player.
Martin Cranie led a long Football League career before choosing to leave Luton in 2021
Micah Richards (Centre back)
Now we’re hitting the big leagues as we come to punditry supremo and Mail Sport columnist Richards.
In his heyday, Richards was a fantastic player – imposing, composed and mature enough to become Man City’s youngest ever captain at the age of 19.
A gem of the City academy, he was the only one from his cohort who remained a consistent starter following the club’s lucrative takeover in 2008.
But despite being a Premier League winner and 13-time senior England international, injuries blighted Richards’ career. A loan to Fiorentina in 2014-15 did little to reignite his City fortunes, meaning he eventually moved to Aston Villa to see out his final days as a professional before retiring aged 31 in 2019, arguably having not fulfilled his potential.
Nowadays, he is a side-splitting pundit on Sky Sports, the BBC and popular US network CBS, while striking up an unlikely bromance (of sorts) with Roy Keane.
Micah Richards was tipped to be one of the world’s best defenders but struggled with injuries
Nedum Onuoha (Centre back)
Onuoha is a real ‘streets won’t forget’ player and now works as a pundit for ESPN as well as a community ambassador for Man City. The former centre back also hosts a podcast called Kickback, where he discusses football, music and life.
He led a strong career, growing up at City before moving to Sunderland, QPR and Real Salt Lake after losing his place with the former.
Onuoha was already 22 by the time England reached the Euro final in 2009 and had also declined a call-up from Nigeria in 2007 to pledge his future to the country, a decision he came to regret.
In a peculiar way, he managed to help City win their first Premier League title in 2012 even after leaving the club.
When watching back Sergio Aguero’s legendary title-winning goal in their 3-2 win over QPR, you’ll see the latter’s No 42 marking Edin Dzeko before clasping his head in dismay when Aguero gets the emphatic goal.
That man, head in hands, is Nedum Onuoha. One wonders if his devastation was really at QPR conceding on a relegation-threatened day or with rue that he had left the Sky Blues earlier that season.
Nedum Onuoha played for Manchester City and is now a presenter and podcaster
Kieran Gibbs (Left back)
Gibbs, currently an Apple TV presenter for Inter Miami, led a solid Premier League career, mostly turning out for Arsenal.
He was once seen as the long-term successor to Ashley Cole in north London, but never quite jostled Danny Rose out of the England left-back slot and only made 10 appearances at senior level.
Still, he led an impressive career, scooping up two FA Cups and contesting a host of Champions League clashes in 12 years at Arsenal … before bizarrely moving to West Brom.
It was a strange switch in 2017-18 as he dropped down into the Championship a year later despite clearly being a Premier League-level defender. But a search for more game time drew him to the Hawthorns.
He spent the last two years of his career with Inter Miami before terminating his contract earlier this season and taking up a presenting role on the club’s Apple TV broadcast coverage.
Kieran Gibbs hosts the ‘The Inter Miami Show’ on Apple TV after retiring from the MLS club
Fabrice Muamba (Defensive midfield)
Currently a Bolton Wanderers academy coach, Muamba is the subject of one of football’s saddest but equally uplifting stories.
Fabrice Muamba is a coach in Bolton’s academy but has also worked as a sports journalist
In August 2012, the Bolton midfielder was forced to retire after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing against Tottenham Hotspur five months earlier. That day football stood still and hoped for the best.
The images of Muamba surrounded by medics, aged just 23, stand among the beautiful game’s most haunting. His heart stopped for 78 minutes.
Since then, he has gone on to become a sports journalist after completing a degree at university, as well as a coach for Liverpool, Manchester City, Stoke, Rochdale, and now Bolton’s academy.
It is a tale of great determination fitting for a boy whose first 11 years were spent in a war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) before moving to England, not knowing a word of English, and still thriving.
Muamba never got to make a senior England appearance and declined to play for DR Congo.
Lee Cattermole (Central midfield)
Cattermole plays competitive golf and was a football coach as recently as this season. In late June, he was spotted at the International Series qualifying event, and back in February he left his role as Middlesbrough as U18s head coach.
As a player, he was made of bricks, a hard man forged in Stockton-on-Tees, who would not only run through a wall for his manager but would slide tackle through the Great Wall of China if he had the chance.
Don’t just take it from us – at 17, just a few games into his career at Middlesbrough, manager Steve McLaren declared him a ‘real tiger’, one who will ‘run through walls’ and ‘stand up and be counted’.
On the Premier League’s website, he ranks as the man with the tenth-most fouls in the league’s history (422), the fourth-most red cards (7), and the eighth-most yellow cards (88).
Through spells at Wigan, Sunderland for a decade and VVV-Venlo, he gave it his all, but he never reached the promised land of senior international football.
As well as Middlesbrough, he has coached at Burnley and Northern Ireland since hanging up his boots in 2020.
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Lee Cattermole is a competitive golfer and has coached at Middlesbrough and Burnley
Mark Noble (Central midfield)
‘Mr. West Ham’ is now the sporting director at his beloved club and was seen welling up after the Hammers recently won the Europa Conference League final.
He was captain of the England team who lost 4-0 to Germany in that U21s Euros final but never made the step up to the next level, despite six of his team-mates doing so.
Of all the players on this list, a man who made over 400 Premier League appearances is probably the most unlucky to have not worn an England shirt beyond U21s level – his grit and passing range marked him out as a quality midfielder.
Then again, he was competing against a so-called Golden Generation at England before a series of uber-competent midfielders in the latter half of the decade.
In a fitting tribute for his service to West Ham, he was voted Hammer of the Decade for the 2010s in a supporter poll.
West Ham legend Mark Noble is now the club’s sporting director after 18 years as a player there
James Milner (Right wing)
James Milner probably needs the least introduction on this list, having recently signed for Brighton following a trophy-laden stint at Liverpool.
Having made 61 England appearances between 2009 and 2016, going deep at this youth tournament was a sign of the successful career to come.
Three Premier League titles, a Champions League, two FA Cups, two League Cups, and a whopping 857 club appearances mark him out as the greatest footballer on this list.
Alongside his playing career, he also founded the James Milner Foundation, aiming to ‘promote community participation & healthy recreation for young people’.
And to think he could have played cricket instead! Milner played for the Yorkshire Schools team but decided to focus on football, and many fans will be grateful he did.
James Milner made the transition from England starlet to household name and has won lots
Adam Johnson (Left wing)
Adam Johnson played for England’s senior team before being convicted of grooming and sexual activity with a child
Adam Johnson has not played for anybody since 2016, when he pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child under the age of 16 and grooming.
In March 2016, he was sentenced to six years behind bars for grooming and sexual activity, though he was released in 2019.
The ex-winger was said to have considered writing an open letter to football clubs asking for a chance to play but was eventually talked out of it. League One and Two clubs within commutable distance of his County Durham home told Mail Sport they would not go near him.
A left-footed player, Johnson carved out a Premier League career with the likes of Middlesbrough, Manchester City, and Sunderland.
He played 12 times for England’s first team under Fabio Capello and Stuart Pearce.
Theo Walcott (Striker)
Reading are closing in on the signing of free agent Walcott after he was released by Southampton this summer.
The 34-year-old has had a long and fairly successful career since coming through the ranks at Southampton and becoming England’s youngest-ever player in 2006, aged just 17 and 75 days.
There is a sense, however, that he has never quite lived up to his early potential.
But all the same, the speed merchant has managed 129 goals in 563 career outings, including over a decade as a regular at Arsenal, where he won two FA Cups.
Add 47 England showings to that and it’s not a bad total.
Theo Walcott is famous for his Arsenal and England career, with Reading now trying to sign him at the age of 34
Michael Mancienne owns a property development business and retired in 2023
Off the bench
Defender Michael Mancienne, who graduated from Chelsea’s academy before leading a career in England, Germany, and the USA, now runs a property development business.
Former Everton starlet Jack Rodwell saw his hopes of a flourishing career dampened by persistent injury niggles. It didn’t work out for the midfielder in his big move to Man City and a decade later he finds himself at Sydney FC in the Australian A-League. He made three appearances for England between 2011 and 2013.
Midfielder Craig Gardner is the technical director at Birmingham City, where he spent a good chunk of his playing career. Mostly a Premier League player and the older brother of Blues player Gary Gardner, he also played for Birmingham’s arch-nemesis, Aston Villa.
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Jack Rodwell is living it up in Australia and has two seasons with Sydney FC under his belt
Ex-Blues man Craig Gardner is now technical director at Birmingham, where his brother plays
