More Clubs Than Tiger Woods: Football's Favourite Journeymen

More Clubs Than Tiger Woods: Football's Favourite Journeymen

Football has many great storylines and phenomenon's. Be it wonderkids and academy stars getting to the top or well established players coming back to where it all began for one last hurrah.

Not mentioned in this list is one of my personal favourites and one I'm sure many reading will agree is simply football heritage. This is the idea of journeymen who have seen so many clubs and continents playing football they etch themselves into legend simply by virtue of nobody really getting how they did it.

This list is going to explore 10 of the most notable journeymen and some of the absolute top tier players that have been all over. By the way please bare in mind that this list is not intended to be a ranked order.

There will definitely be an arguable case for some of the players in this list being your 'classic journeyman' but the aim is to include a variety of those who define the term to the letter and those who could make a case of being one despite phenomenal careers.

1. Robbie Keane:

Though he may be somewhat of a legend, Robbie Keane had a career with many resemblances of a journeyman. In total he played for 11 different clubs, his most notable spells coming at Tottenham Hotspur and LA Galaxy.

On top of this he won a couple of trophies to boot. He won 2x Irish Player of the Year in 2009 and 2013, 1x MLS MVP award in the 13/14 season, 3x MLS Cup Champion with LA Galaxy in 10/11, 11/12, 13/14, 1x Supporters Shield at LA Galaxy and the English League Cup in 2008 with Tottenham Hotspur.

The League Cup win was in fact Tottenham's last trophy before their Europa League win just last season. Because of this he has etched himself as a cult hero for Spurs combine this with a fantastic goal scoring record, Keane may well be one of the greatest journeymen of all time.

2. Jermaine Pennant:

Jermaine Pennant began his career as a highly promising teenager, signing for the Arsenal academy for roughly 3 million euros back in 1999, at the time an absolutely huge figure for such a young player.

Arriving from Notts County Pennant had huge potential for the future and on occasion showed flashes of this but for the most part his career did not pan out as some may have initially expected it to.

Spells throughout England came playing for the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Portsmouth before his career took a different turn and he found himself travelling continents to continue his playing career. He ended up playing for the likes of Pune City in India and Tampines Rovers in Singapore, interesting moves but probably quite far from the career trajectory anticipated all those years ago as one of the nations brightest academy talents.

3. Samuel Eto'o:

Not all of the players on this list are classified as traditional journeymen, some have had illustrious careers but simply played in such a vast array of places they fall under the wide cast umbrella of what constitutes a journeyman.

Eto'o is one of those players, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest attacking talents of his generation and will rightly be remembered as an iconic player. If not for his career for the image of him wearing Cameroon's iconic vest kit designed for the 2002 African Cup of Nations.

Despite joking about this he should absolutely be remembered for his playing career as it was incredible. A total of 368 career goals and a phenomenal 19 club trophies, including 4 Champions League titles Samuel Eto'o staked a claim to being one of the greatest strikers of his generation and arguably one of the best of all time.

4. Nicolas Anelka:

If you ask Arsenal fans that were watching in the late 90s what they thought of Nicolas Anelka they would tell you nothing but praise. He was the original dominant French striker in North London before a certain Thierry Henry claimed the title for himself.

To put it into perspective how much promise Anelka showed he moved to Real Madrid for 35m euros in 1999, if you put that amount into a football inflation calculator that's roughly equivalent to 198m euros. 198m, in the modern age that would be a transfer on the equivalent of Mbappe's move to PSG or Isak to Liverpool for even more perspective of how huge the hype behind him was.

He didn't go on to have a bad career by any means, in fact he had a very good one but perhaps not to the level that a transfer fee such as that would anticipate. Later in his career he made moves across continents to places such as China with Shanghai Shenhua and India with Mumbai City. Try to imagine Mbappe made a turn in his career that saw him one day playing in India as a journeyman and it seems bizarre but strangely it wouldn't be the first time as shown by Anelka.

5: Lee Trundle:

An absolute icon of the English football scene, Lee Trundle may be known to many as the 'non-league Ronaldinho' and to be fair when you watch some of his highlights you get why. The man played with so much flair and trickery you find yourself shocked to realise he didn't grow up as a Brazilian.

Across his career Trundle played for 19 different side in varying levels of the English footballing pyramid, his best stint and the place he made a name for himself was the Welsh city of Swansea, where he showed a top record of 78 goals in 146 games.

Many may remember him for a top tier FIFA card back in the day or his highlight reels but Trundle is a certified journeyman and has established himself as a streets won't forget player to boot.

6. Jefferson Louis:

Nobody in history has encapsulated the idea of being a journeyman quite as well as Jefferson Louis, the man managed to play for 42 different clubs across the course of his career, frankly how that's even possible I don't understand but he managed it.

Louis joked about his career in an interview with the Telegraph in 2014 that he believes he may be cursed and to be honest it's tough to disagree with him on that as a possibility.

Making a total of 51 transfers across your career genuinely begs the question as to whether HMRC should get involved over potential money laundering. Either way Louis summed up exactly what it means to be a journeyman and his status as one is in absolutely no doubt, so much so his face is probably next to the word in a dictionary.

7.Kazuyoshi Miura:

The Japanese star may have one of the most genuinely fascinating careers of all time. He sums up being a journeyman having played for 16 different clubs across 4 continents, this alone is interesting but his career path may be even more so.

He began his career in Brazil for giants Santos, made a name for himself back home in Japan and had stints in the Serie A, Croatian league and Australia to go with it. If you can't see how insane that is I don't know if football is your sport.

And if all that somehow wasn't enough the man is 58 years old and STILL playing professional football so for all we known he may well end up playing in every single continent by the end of his career which I suppose would be the ultimate journeyman achievement. Even if he doesn't manage to tick off playing in every continent, Miura has established himself as one of the greatest journeymen of all time and an iconic player in his own right.

8.Lutz Pfannenstiel:

Coming through as a promising talent in Germany many expected Pfannenstiel to take the more trodden path and make his way up the ranks at home before perhaps moving elsewhere. What nobody would have anticipated is a move to Malaysia and turning down Bayern Munich to do so.

The move to Malaysia was definitely out of the blue but Pfannenstiel was no stranger to unexpected moves and unexpected clubs. Lutz is the only player to play in all 6 of FIFA's confederations for 23 different teams, could you possibly be a better example of a journeyman.

To couple with this he may also have lived one of the most insane lives frankly anyone has ever lived with key moments such as modelling for Armani, stealing a penguin and spending 101 days in a Singaporean prison. Genuinely mental.

9. Steve Claridge:

There's a debate to be had as to whether throughout his career Claridge was on a mission to play for every team in the midlands of England. Whether this was the case is a mystery but what is inarguable is that he is a perfect example of a domestic journeyman.

Claridge played for 20 different teams all over the country with his best spells coming during his stints at Millwall, Birmingham City or Weymouth. A consistent feature of his career was his constant fluctuation between league levels often dropping from Championship to non-league and then back to League One.

Often when you imagine a journeyman they play at lower league teams like Trundle or Louis did but for Claridge he bounced between some big tier sides in his playing time. In fact if Claridge had a similar career just a little later you'd probably assume he was a top tier talent having ticked off playing for the likes of Bournemouth, Palace, Brighton and Leicester.

10. Zlatan Ibrahimovic:

When we talk about iconic footballers of the recent generation one that will immediately spring to mind is likely Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He was one of the most unique and dominant forwards of his era and will certainly be remembered as such partially because he'd likely tell you exactly that himself if you ever met him.

Zlatan was never short on ego and self belief but my god did he back it up. He managed to rack up 496 goals and 205 assists in 827 matches in his career. What makes him an arguable journeyman however is the fact that all this was done for 9 different clubs across 2 continents.

Many would argue that his peak was spent in France for PSG but as a testament to his ability others would probably tell you it was at AC Milan, or some might say it was at Inter Milan. The point is he was dominant wherever he went and there was a lot of places he went. In many ways he fits the bill as one of the best 'journeymen' to have ever played the game.