A third-tier player who's 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 the Black Cats' first Europa League campaign since 1967 feels like a modern fairy tale.

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 teams to grab seventh spot on the final day, courtesy of a 2-1 home win over Chelsea FC. O'Nien was central to that success.

The defender provided the assist for the second goal, his first in the top flight, having only recently stepped up to this level despite arriving at the club in 2018. Back then, Sunderland were still in the third tier, and O'Nien 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 his squad rivals, and he went on to make five additional starts before the season closed.

His first start came in the March clash with Leeds, and he was subsequently named Man of the Match—partly because he performed well, but mainly because he is "Mr Sunderland", as fans and the club itself have christened 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 exposed when he plays as a half-back in a back three. Those shortcomings have made him a social-media punchline among English football fans.

Yet his worth to the club is far greater. 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 reads 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 called his father to say there would be no contract and his time there was up. His dad then sent dozens of emails to numerous clubs—and received just one reply. O'Nien subsequently slipped into non-league football with Wealdstone FC in the seventh tier of English football.

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 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 anchoring the side as a regular starter. The club earned promotion to the Championship via a play-off final win over Wycombe, his former employer. They then consolidated in that division before securing a long-awaited return to the Premier League just twelve months ago. He managed just eight minutes of action in 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 AFC splashed out over €210m to prepare for the Premier League, O'Nien was rewarded with a contract extension until 2027, with an option for a further year.

A senior international debut now seems inevitable, though he acknowledges he must keep improving to make that happen. The same determination drives his bid to become Sunderland'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."