The number of Colombian players in the Premier League hit an all-time high last season, following a rising trend of more Colombians leaving their nation to play in the European top five leagues.
There were nine Colombian players in the English top-flight in 2023/23, vastly surpassing the 2005-06 to 2022-23 season average of 3.1, data from Transfermarkt shows.
The prominence of Colombian players in the league, including Liverpool’s Luis Diaz and Crystal Palace’s Daniel Muñoz, coincides with a wider trend of Colombian representation in Europe’s top five leagues.
Since the 2019-20 season there has been a steady rise in the number of Colombians coming to the Premier League, a stark contrast to previous years.
Colombia: a nation obsessed with football
The surge of Colombian talent playing in the Premier League and abroad resonates with a nation which has historically struggled to unite due to divisions of race, class and illegality.
Colombian football tour guide Jairo Calderón supports this notion.
He said: “Football means effervescence, passion and instils the spirit of society by spreading its similarities and animosities.
“Colombian football represents Colombian heritage and legacy, uniting the country no matter the domestic conflict.
“Watching the likes of ‘El Pibe’ Carlos Valderrama and Andrés Escobar lets people come together in unison to scream their team on to score a goal.”
Football creates an “avenue of pride” which can be used as inspiration and a powerful way to represent a population in a bid to change foreign stereotypes.
This was evident during the 2014 World Cup when the Colombian Ministry of the Interior surveyed the importance of football to the people, a resounding 94% said it was important or very important.
Colombian and Latin American adaptation to playing abroad
University of Leeds Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies Dr Peter Watson spoke on why Colombians and Latin American players historically have failed to adjust to playing in the Premier League.
He said: “If you read a lot of the stories of the players who went to England and even Germany, there is that lack of understanding of what a Colombian player might be and might need.
“There is an expectation of you will learn the language, but that’s not happened straight away.”
Watson also highlighted the Latin American footballer stereotype that English managers saw as a reason for why Colombians and Latin American players have struggled in the English top-flight.
He said: “Fancy Dans, oh Latin American players don’t like it up them, no good at Stoke on a Tuesday night when it is wet.
“That idea of what a South American player was was quite pervasive and, therefore, there is a lack of acceptance of what they can bring.
“I think that slightly reductive essentialization of what a Latin American/Colombian footballer is is increasingly out of date.”
Yet, the rigidness of Premier League managers and teams faded as the top-flight became increasingly more global, being broadcasted to 189 of 193 UN member states in the 2023-24 season, according to the Premier League.
In the 2023-24 season, 1.87billion people followed the Premier League worldwide with a third becoming interested in the last four years, showing the globality of the league.
The increase in Colombian representation in the Premier League has only occurred in the last two seasons, unlike in other European leagues.
Peaks of Colombian players in Europe can be seen in the Italian Serie A in 2013-14 with 13 players and in the Spanish La Liga in 2017-18 with 12.
Watson highlighted cultural and linguistic reasons for why more Colombians opt to play in Spain and Italy than anywhere else in Europe’s top five leagues.
He said: “You are looking at acclimatisation and the difficulty of players coming from a very different environment to Europe.”
The Italian and Spanish cultures align much closer than Germany and England with the Mediterranean nations sharing linguistic similarities and similar eating habits, allowing faster integration of Colombian players, according to Watson.
Historically, large influxes of Italians and Spaniards have migrated to Latin America, principally to Brazil and Argentina on the east coast of the continent.
In the past five seasons, there has been a season average of 28.4 Brazilians and 27 Argentine players in Serie A.
Conversely, in La Liga, there has been a season average of 34.2 Argentines, dominating the Latin American make-up of the league compared to 23.4 Brazilians.
These statistics demonstrate the cultural proximity of Italy and Spain with Latin America with two national footballing powerhouses sending more players to these leagues.
The trend continues in the Premier League where Brazilians dominate the Latin American player populace with Argentina in second and Colombia in third in the last five seasons.
Brazilian and Argentine prevalence in the Premier League and top five European leagues correlates with the superior strength of the national leagues in comparison to the Colombian top-flight.
Colombian football players tend to progress to European football via stints in the USA, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil rather than directly paving a way to the top five European leagues.
Former Aston Villa striker Jhon Durán is a prime example of this trajectory, leaving Colombia for American side Chicago Fire before being snapped up by The Villains in January 2023.
The development of data-led scouting networks in Colombia has also been a key reason for the surge of Colombian representation in Europe.
Strategies implemented by Brighton and the City Group franchises have allowed big name clubs to bring in Colombian players in a talent factory format.
As Watson described, poverty inspires footballing talent to flourish as Colombians and Latin Americans alike share a determined work ethic to survive and to succeed in football.
Not all Colombians have struggled to make it to the top of football, but as more Colombians get noticed, the national footballing quality will continue to grow.
Featured image credit: Coly23 via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence
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