When the English champions Manchester City suffered a shock run of losses recently, soccer fans began guessing what moves coach Pep Guardiola would make to stop their winter slump. No-one expected him to call for a defender from Uzbekistan.
Abdukodir Khusanov, still only 20 but already with 18 appearances for the White Wolves, is set to become Guardiola’s first signing of 2025. On 11 January the tall center-back agreed to join City in a €40 million ($41 million) transfer from the French team RC Lens. Once the move is complete, Khusanov is expected to sign a contract for four and a half years,
Manchester City have won five of the last six Premier League titles. They were European club champions in 2023 after winning a first UEFA Champions League.
With Europe’s giants very rarely looking to Asia for their next young star, Khusanov has taken an unconventional route to the Etihad Stadium. He began his career in the youth team of local side Bunyodkor, before moving to Belarus in 2022, at the age of 18, to play for Energetik-BGU Minsk.
In 2023 Khusanov was part of the Uzbekistan youth team that won the AFC Under-20 Asian Cup. There his confident passing and physicality caught the attention of RC Lens. He became a fan favorite in northern France, and the youngest Uzbek to play in the Champions League.
Conor Bowers, a British fan of Uzbek soccer, has followed Khusanov’s career closely, and mentions that the €40 million man once struggled even to make teams in his homeland. “Although he is now over six feet tall, his youth coaches thought he would be too small to make it professionally. And that was even as a child, when he played as a striker.”
Of his season in France, Bowers adds: “People had high hopes for Khusanov, but no-one expected him to move to a club the size of Manchester City this fast. People feel it will put Uzbekistan in the spotlight of the football world.”
It was his strong performances in the French league that put Khusanov on the radar of Europe’s best clubs – Manchester City beat other English teams to his signature – but the defender is also vital to his national team. With the striker Eldor Shomurodov (of Roma in Italy) leading the attack, and Khusanov the team’s rock in defense, Uzbekistan has become Central Asia’s most accomplished side. The senior team is on course to qualify for next year’s men’s FIFA World Cup in North America.
Khusanov will be the first footballer from anywhere in Central Asia to play in the English Premier League. However, he is not the first player born in Tashkent to grace the so-called “best league in the world”. The Nigerian forward Peter Odemwingie spent his early childhood in Uzbekistan’s capital, before playing in the EPL for West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City.
As news of Khusanov’s move to Manchester swept across Uzbek media over the weekend, sports fans were excited by the prospect of one of their footballers playing under the legendary coach, Guardiola. “It’s a big thing for us to get to see one of our young players winding up at Pep’s team”, says Donat Iskanderoff, an Uzbek sports journalist.
Iskanderoff adds: “One fact people might not know is that his father [Hikmat Hashimov] used to play football as well, for Metallurg Bekabad [and the Uzbek national team]. But Abdukodir plays under a different surname – the father wanted to take pressure off his son.”
Salvaging Manchester City’s season while taking his nation towards a first World Cup, Abdukodir Khusanov will have no way of escaping the pressure now. But whether or not he is a success in England, the impressive young defender will have the whole of Uzbekistan behind him.
