Emerson Nwaneri received an England u16 call-up on Tuesday morning, but at the time of the announcement he was busy with the u18 north London derby.
Arsenal youngster Emerson Nwaneri was included in the England u16 squad announced on Tuesday morning, along with his academy teammate Mishel Nduka.
Emerson is the younger brother of Arsenal loanee Ethan Nwaneri, and he’s been rising through the ranks ahead of schedule like Ethan did.
The 15-year-old isn’t quite playing first-team football, as the older Nwaneri brother was at his age, but he’s jumped a couple of age groups to play for the Arsenal u18s and even debut for the Arsenal u21s this season.
In fact, at the time of the England squad announcement Emerson Nwaneri was with the Arsenal u18s for their north London derby match against Spurs.
Though Nwaneri started the game on the bench, he came on and scored Arsenal’s only goal of the game. The youngster pounced on a Spurs mistake to score in the 85th minute, his first goal at that level.
The final result was a desperately disappointing 4-1 defeat for the team, but given Nwaneri entered the match with Arsenal 3-0 down, he can’t take much of the blame for that.
With England, the younger Nwaneri has already made his u16 debut, providing a couple of assists against the Netherlands in December.
He’ll hope to do the same again this time around, with England facing Denmark on February 21st, Spain on February 23rd, and France on February 26th.