What happened to Gedion Zelalem? The former USMNT target and Arsenal starlet who was compared to Cesc Fabregas

Born in Berlin to Ethiopian parents, Zelalem learned the game in Germany, featuring for Hertha Berlin's academy at the youngest of levels. In 2006, at the age of nine, he arrived in the U.S. with his father following the passing of his mother in the previous year, moving to the DMV area and quickly establishing himself as a rising star in local circles.

It was during that time he was discovered by former Arsenal full-back and then-scout Daniel Karbassiyoon, who convinced the Gunners to take a chance on the young American and offer him a trial. His stay was quickly made permanent.

“It was surreal,” Zelalem told MLSSoccer.com in 2019. “I saw the first-team players, I was starstruck. I saw Arsene Wenger, I was starstruck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I was living in a movie.”

Zelalem was a Gunner, and he looked set for big things.

Zelalem was initially introduced into Arsenal's Under-17s, but graduated to the U21s in April 2013, despite being just 16 at the time. By that July, Zelalem was training with the first team for their preseason tour of Asia, a surprising inclusion given his lack of experience.

It was at that time that the comparisons started. Hailed as the next Fabregas, expectations were high for the young midfielder. "He is a player with a good eye and good technique and is very agile," Wenger told Sports Illustrated in 2014. " He has the ambition to find the ball on the field. So he's the kind of player who could be of use to the United States. He's in some ways the type of player the U.S. was missing in the World Cup.

"He is potentially an international player, for sure. But the next two or three years he will have to show he has the mental qualities to fill that potential. That's what's at stake for him now. If he grows physically, since he's slim, and continues to develop his mentality, the potential is there for him to be a top professional player."

He continued to rise through the ranks at Arsenal, making the bench that September before an unfortunate injury delayed a potential Premier League debut. In January, though, he made his first senior appearance for the club, replacing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in an FA Cup win over Coventry City.

That March, he signed a new contract in north London. His club future was sorted, but the rumblings were just beginning regarding his international allegiance.

There are few things American soccer fans enjoy than annointing the next big thing and, in a world where the U.S. now sees players playing at the very top of the world game, it's a bit harder to explain the climate that Zelalem was in back in 2014.

American soccer fans salivated at the idea of having an Arsenal-trained star leading their midfield for years to come. Because of that, the full-court press was on from the moment Zelalem burst onto the scene.

Germany, though, seemingly had the upper hand. Having already turned down overtures from Ethiopia, Zelalem played for Germany's youth teams multiple times from 2012-13. He had trained with the U.S. U15s at one point in 2012, but was unable to actually play for the team as he was considered a resident, but not yet a citizen.

The option, though, opened up in 2014 when it was confirmed that his father intended to apply for U.S. citizenship, which would extend to Zelalem due to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. In the summer of 2014, though, on that day at Red Bull Arena, Zelalem was coy.

"At the moment I'm just trying to break into the first team of Arsenal," he said. "They're both great countries. The U.S. is on the rise. Germany is already a great country. So whichever country I choose will be a good choice."

In December 2014, reports emerged that Zelalem had become a U.S. citizen. Soon after, Sunil Gulati, then U.S. Soccer's president, announced that the process had begun to being Zelalem into the national team.

By 2015, Zelalem's status was confirmed, as he linked up with the U.S. U20s for the 2015 U20 World Cup despite being just 18 years old. He played in five matches that summer as the U.S. made it all the way to the quarter-finals.

“Gedion is simply the most technical player I’ve ever had on the youth national team,” ex-U.S. U20 head coach Tab Ramos said. “Really easy on the ball, can get out of trouble. I saw someone for, at that time, he was really special and different than anyone we ever had.”

In 2015-16, after making two total appearances for Arsenal in the years prior, Zelalem went out on loan to Rangers as the Gunners pushed for him to add more physicality to his game. The year after, he went to VVV Venlo in the Netherlands to help him mature in the attacking end. At one point, he was linked with Borussia Dortmund. Zelalem was a rising star, and the world was watching.

In 2017, Zelalem returned to the U20 World Cup, and big things were expected of him. That summer, he headlined a U.S. team that would include future World Cup stars Tyler Adams, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Josh Sargent and Luca de la Torre. Unfortunately for Zelalem, though, his tournament was over before it began.

On May 22, Zelalem tore his ACL just 34 minutes into his team's group-stage opener against Ecuador, one that saw the U.S. complete a miracle comeback at the death thanks to a 94th-minute goal from De la Torre. Zelalem's tournament was over, and the long road to recovery was set to begin.

Even the best of ACL injuries, if you can call them that, require many months to heal, but the process wasn't that easy for Zelalem. Several months into his recovery, he was informed by a specialist that he would need a second surgery that would keep him on the sidelines even longer.

It would be nearly a year-and-a-half before Zelalem would return to the field for Arsenal's youth team. By the spring of 2019, with just a few months left on his contract, Zelalem was allowed to leave Arsenal on a free to join Sporting KC in MLS.

Zelalem would spend the next four seasons in MLS, initially with SKC. The midfielder featured nine times for the club that season, but Sporting KC ultimately opted not to renew his contract after that 2019 campaign.

Zelalem then landed with New York City FC. He made just one MLS appearance for the club in his first season, a 14-minute cameo during the MLS is Back tournament in a Covid-impacted year, but NYCFC opted to bring him back in both 2021 and 2022. He played a bit more over those two seasons, featuring in 20 total matches.

Following the 2022 season, NYCFC declined Zelalem's contract, making him a free agent as he was unable to truly develop during his time back in the U.S.

It's clear to pinpoint the moment that Zelalem's career took a turn for the worse: that ACL injury. At the time, he was being scouted by some of Europe's big clubs, having already played for a club the size of Rangers. Even if it was never going to be at Arsenal, it seemed that Zelalem was destined for big things.

And then that U20 World Cup happened. Zelalem was never the same following that destructive knee injury and he was never able to turn into the player he could have been. It's what makes projecting players' futures such a difficult task: all it takes is one wrong step for a career to be changed forever.

Still, it isn't all down to that one injury. Hindsight does show that there were some aspects of Zelalem's game that likely would have prevented him from being an elite midfielder. He didn't have the physical presence to play as a deep-lying midfielder, nor did he have the discipline. Zelalem wasn't blessed with elite speed or strength, and that would prevent him from really being a top-level No.6.

On the other side, though, he didn't quite have the creativity or nose for goal to become an elite No.10. Because of that, Zelalem was something of a tweener. Even looking at the young star from all of those years ago, it's hard to project what position he could have played at a high, high level.

Still, this isn't an obituary for Zelalem's career. No, the midfielder is still very much making his way in the professional game, and, in recent years, he's finally found things he'd been missing for all of these years: a little bit of good health and a club to call home.

On deadline day of the 2023 winter transfer window, Zelalem signed with Den Bosch in the Dutch second division, where he's become something of a regular.

"We wanted to add a little more depth to the midfield choices. Gedion is a player that adds quality and experience in several areas," said the club's technical director Yousuf Sajjad, a former Arsenal scout. “Gedion has already played in the Netherlands when he was loaned out by Arsenal at a young age. From that point on he has continued to develop himself as a person and as a player.”

Now 26, Zelalem could eclipse the 1,000 minute mark for only the second time in his career this season, having already started all nine of the club's matches to start the Eerste Divisie season. On October 4, the club confirmed that the option to renew Zelalem's contract had already been taken up, keeping him with the team through 2025.

It may not have worked out the way many would have expected, as Zelalem did not star for Arsenal or Germany or the USMNT at the end of it all. But he is still very much giving it a go as he finally seems to be in a place where he can rebuild his career after all these years.