A third-tier player who made it in the Premier League! How Luke O'Nien rose from the seventh tier to European competition and earned legend status at his club

The 31-year-old is right. Next term will be O'Nien's ninth at AFC Sunderland, and he is set to line up for the Black Cats in the Europa League—a campaign that has not happened for 53 years.

Sunderland's return to international football had been absent for 53 years. Having begun the campaign as a well-funded promoted side, the Black Cats leapfrogged several established clubs to grab seventh spot—and a European berth—thanks to a dramatic 2-1 home win over Chelsea on the final day of the Premier League season. O'Nien was central to that success.

The defender provided the assist for the second goal to make it 2-0, marking his first assist in the top flight after a handful of top-level appearances. Although O'Nien has been at Sunderland since 2018, back then the club was still in the third tier and he was far from a star performer.

He has now played 329 competitive matches for the club; only two players who passed away before the turn of the millennium are ahead of him in the club's all-time rankings. O'Nien needs another 23 matches to take the top spot.

Yet the question remains: will he get them? Manager Regis Le Bris handed him only twelve league starts last term, and it was not until early March that he finally captained the side for a full 90-minute Premier League debut. That opportunity arose largely because of injuries to teammates, and he went on to make five additional starts before the season closed.

His first start came against Leeds, and he was named Man of the Match—partly because he played well, but mainly because he is "Mr Sunderland", as fans and the club call him.

O'Nien is not a Premier League player; he is a third-tier performer operating at a higher standard. He lacks pace, anticipation and quick decision-making—deficiencies that have been glaringly obvious when he has played as a half-back in a back three. Those shortcomings have made him a social-media punchline among English football fans.

Yet his true value to the club lies elsewhere. As the sole survivor of the squad profiled in the acclaimed 2018 documentary "Sunderland 'til I Die," he now acts as the glue binding players and supporters together. He is the emotional leader every squad needs, a player whose total commitment makes supporters' hearts race.

For him, that commitment counts for more than any tactical positioning. Finlay Holcroft, a youngster from Sunderland's U18s, recently said of O'Nien: "I firmly believe that Luke is a good role model in all aspects of football. Whether as a leader or simply when you watch him on the pitch and see how he surveys the game, how he talks to the others and helps everyone. Some people don't see that, but there's a lot more to it than meets the eye, especially with Luke."

When O'Nien was Holcroft's age, there was no hint he would one day become the player he is today. "The Europa League was never the dream. Not because I didn't want it, but – to be honest – because I never thought it was possible," he said recently.

He began at Watford FC, but the club eventually called his father to say there would be no contract. His dad then emailed dozens of clubs and received just one reply, so O'Nien dropped into non-league football with Wealdstone FC in the seventh tier.

That was twelve years ago. Even in 2015, three years before his move to Sunderland, O'Nien was still plying his trade in the sixth tier. He then stepped up two divisions to join Wycombe Wanderers. "I will always be indebted to you," O'Nien wrote about these two clubs after a successful season with Sunderland.

After three years and 119 competitive matches for Wycombe, he moved to League Two side Sunderland, who had just been relegated from the second tier. There, O'Nien experienced the full range of footballing emotions, beginning with a play-off final defeat to Charlton Athletic at the end of his first season. A year later the club finished eighth—its lowest ever league position.

The tide turned in 2022, with O'Nien now a regular starter; the club secured promotion to the Championship via a play-off final win over his old side, Wycombe. They then consolidated in the second tier before, 12 months ago, sealing their long-awaited return to the Premier League. He made just eight minutes of the dramatic 2-1 play-off final win over Sheffield United in the fifth minute of stoppage time, yet had already racked up 48 appearances for the club.

While the club splashed out more than €210m to prepare for the top flight, O'Nien was handed a reward: a contract extension until 2027, with an option to add a further year.

A European debut now seems inevitable, though he acknowledges he must keep improving to earn it. That progress is essential if he is to realise his ambition of becoming the club's all-time appearance record holder. "I've had some good games, some bad ones and everything in between. I've improved since my first game," he said. "And if I want to reach 350 or more appearances, I need to keep getting better so I don't stay the same player I am right now."