They are still available: African stars, Arsenal players, WC winners….

The very busy and very, very expensive June transfer window had ended on September 1st but only for the Top 5 European leagues. Other leagues can still sign players (and they do), but even the biggest clubs can get a footballer (or two) if certain conditions are met. The biggest of them is the player’s status. Any players without a club can sign for anybody at any point in time, as a free agents and there are a lot of those players, some of them even famous. The number of free agent footballers is still big, after all, one of them like Kelechi Iheanacho just found another club and is a member of Celtic FC as we speak. But who are others?

Well, there are certainly a strong number of free agents from which we could form a quite strong starting 11. The weakest point in this team would be the goalkeeper, as there are no really good names who are available. Legendary Steve Mandanda (40) was released by Rennes and Guillermo Ochoa is still looking for a club. When it comes to defense, the situation is much better as there are quite a few players out there. Arsenal didn’t offer Takehiro Tomiyasu (26) a new deal and he is currently without a club, as well as three time Serie A champion with Juventus Mattia De Sciglio. Speaking about trophies, France was a World Cup winner in 2018 and one member of that team is out there looking for his next gig. Samuel Umtiti, former France U20 World champion and Spanish champions (twice) with Barcelona has been released by Lille and with his age (31) and injury record, he will struggle to find a big club again. Apart from Tomiyasu, there are no less than three Premier League defenders out of contract: Benjamin Mendy, also a WC winner, the Premier League and Ligue 1 champion was released by Zurich, while Sergio Reguilon, who played for both Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, Tottenham and Manchester United is still available. The trio finishes with Kurt Zouma, who played for Chelsea and West Ham and now has to find another employee.

Former Nigerian star is back in the UK

Midfield is also crowded with great footballers who are missing something now, or they would be already in some team. Christian Eriksen (33), Hakim Ziyech (32), Dele Alli (29), and Frenchmen Dimitri Payet (38) are some of those famous midfielders who are finding it tricky to find a suitable club. Iheanacho found a place to stay, but his colleague strikers are not so lucky. Players like Paco Alcacer (Barcelona, Dortmund) is free, as well as Wissam Ben Yedder (35) and Leed’s Patrick Bamford (31). Cameroonian Karl Toko Ekambi finished his story in Al-Ettifaq and may return to France where he played of Lyon and Rennes.