Having excelled at second-tier Blackpool for two and a half years, 22-year-old Thomas Ince might have expected a certain gradient of career progression. Crystal Palace, where he spent five months on loan this year, was certainly an option. Cardiff City, whose interest nearly led to a move last summer, was another. Instead, Ince finds himself in Milan, negotiating terms with Italian giants Internazionale. That, you have to say, is a bit of a result.
If Ince completes his move, he will become the latest member of a very small, select group, a league of extraordinary English footballers who actually had the courage to try their luck overseas.
Ince will be the first English player to make a full transfer to Serie A in 11 years, the last being Jay Bothroyd at Perugia. In his brief stay in Italy, Bothroyd enjoyed new experiences, scored five times and became such close friends with his teammate Al-Saadi Gadaffi that the then-Libyan dictator’s son paid for his honeymoon in LA and Hawaii. Yet despite these rewards, the only Englishman to play in Serie A since was David Beckham with his two loan spells at AC Milan.
The last high-profile English player to give La Liga a crack was the wayward ex-Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant. The famous "Beckham Law," a tax break designed to lure the cream of foreign executives to Spain, enabled Pennant to effectively earn 80,000 pounds a week, a wage far in advance of what anyone with any sense might have paid him in England. Pennant put the money to good use, buying a Porsche with the registration plate “P33NNT” and then, according to Spanish paper Marca at least, forgetting that he owned it and leaving it parked outside a train station for six months.
Christopher Lee/Getty ImagesTom Ince's possible move to Italy with Serie A club Inter Milan is a decision that most of his fellow countrymen wouldn't make.
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