Jurgen Klopp called him “sensational” and “wonderful” as he pushed for a place in Liverpool’s first team after his long, painstaking climb through the Reds’ academy; the German handed him his LFC senior debut at the relatively tender age of 19, at that point a rising England youth international and one of the Scousers’ top prospects.
He reportedly interested Marcelo Bielsa enough that the legendary Argentine manager changed travel plans to scout him personally while in charge of Leeds United, and he remained on El Loco’s radar for years afterwards, even prompting a £10 million ($13.4 million) transfer bid when he was at Rangers FC – which the Scottish giants summarily rejected as well short of their valuation.
An Ajax scout is said to have been reminded of Wesley Sneijder after watching him in a youth tournament; Owen Hargreaves compared him to Franck Ribery after he starred in a 2022 Europa League win over Borussia Dortmund, flashing a devastating blend of speed, slick skills and relentless directness on the wing.
Seattle's newest sensation
There might be parallel universes where Ryan Kent blossomed into a Liverpool hero like Trent Alexander-Arnold, another academy kid who came through around the same time. Or became a Leeds legend, a trusted Bielsa soldier. Perhaps even part of the generation that’s elevated the Three Lions back into international soccer’s elite.
Instead, he’s a Seattle Sounder now, half a world away from home, writing another chapter in a thoroughly unconventional footballing journey as this year’s unexpected coup on the MLS transfer market.
“Over the past five years or so, I've had many opportunities to join teams in the Premier League. It's just, that's never really been the end goal for me in football,” Kent told MLSsoccer.com in a wide-ranging one-on-one conversation this week ahead of Seattle’s tasty clash with Minnesota United on Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire (6 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, AppleTV+).
“Football is a short-lived career; I want to experience as much as it is in different environments across the world as I could – you know, see the different cultures in football. Some people, especially in England, I guess there's a sort of like, blueprint to a player's career path. It’s something I've never stuck to.”
Watch Kent’s early action for the Sounders – he’s already posted three assists, 10 key passes and taken on defenders 22 times, eight of them successful dribbles, in just 362 minutes – and all that early hype he inspired sounds pretty reasonable. It’s understandable to wonder where on earth this guy came from, and how he’s landed in MLS.
The English winger says he had ample options over the winter, including clubs competing in the UEFA Champions League, after a mutual parting with Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahçe in October. He’d already been a legitimate star at Rangers, racking up 33 goals and 56 assists over five successful seasons in Glasgow, and plenty of Gers faithful would have welcomed him back.
Yet Seattle was his choice. If that appears to flout the conventional wisdom back in his homeland, well, that’s partly the point.
“I think people would probably be surprised with the caliber of some of the teams that I did turn down,” said Kent. “It was just more important for myself to come up somewhere where I could express myself and play freely, and just get back to enjoying things again. So it's felt the right fit.
“I don't know. I always like to experience new sorts of challenges. I've lived away from home since I was a little kid.”
Trials and tribulations
Indeed, Kent joined Liverpool’s academy at age 7, and spent the next decade commuting from his family’s home in Oldham before moving into a homestay closer to the training ground as he closed in on a full professional contract. Chasing the dream wasn’t always dreamy.
“In England, at these academies, you devote your whole life to football. You don't really have a social life,” he recalled. “You leave school, you've got to go straight to training – especially for me, that was sometimes an hour and a half drive from Manchester to Liverpool. I'd be getting home at 11 o'clock at night some days with traffic, go have my tea and then do it all over again, six, seven times a week. It's very tough.
“My life as a footballer started from the age of seven, not from when I made my debut,” he added. “Not a lot of people can cope with them demands at such a young age. It can be very hard.”
Somewhere along the way, Kent concluded that he needed to walk this winding path on his own terms. That’s why he elected to leave Liverpool in favor of Rangers, even after coming so close, on more than one occasion, to breaking into the talent-packed first team at Anfield.
“Liverpool did want to keep me on,” Kent recalled. “But once I'd gone on loan from Liverpool to Rangers under Steven Gerrard and understood what football is really about – playing in front of 50,000 people every week, packed-out atmospheres, playing in Europe – once I got a feel for that, I didn't want to revert back to being a fringe player.”
And it’s why he stuck to his guns when his time at Fenerbahçe disintegrated into a rancorous standoff after he fell out with manager Ismail Kartal and drew the ire of the club’s upper-level management, exiled from the first team amid his first season and forced to train on his own.
“Things started really well when I went in there. And then all of a sudden, I was not starting, and I didn't believe that I had a good enough explanation as to why at the time,” he said. “Then I had certain fallouts with the manager over certain things, and things no longer were anything to do with the footballing side of things. It became financial for them.”
The much-heralded arrival of Jose Mourinho at Fener last summer offered a lifeline, or so it seemed. ‘The Special One’ appeared keen to give Kent a second chance, giving him the start in a Champions League qualifying match vs. FC Lugano last July. But he wrote off the winger permanently after that solitary appearance, Mourinho reportedly telling him, “I will never let you play,” ordering him to leave for another club before the transfer window closed.
“I'm in a country on my own, away from home, in an environment where the people there don't want you there anymore,” he explained. “They try and make things as uncomfortable for you as they can, to try and force you to get out of the club, and I had to be patient in the manner in which I went about things, so that I left on my terms, basically.”
Rave Green resurgence
Kent held his ground, pointing to the terms of his contract and exercising his legal rights. Though it left him with almost zero match action for the better part of a year, and he had to wait until the winter transfer window to make his next move, Fener finally agreed to a mutual contract termination.
Which all makes this budding resurgence in Seattle that much sweeter.
“It's an experience. I'm glad that I've went through that, to see certain things in football,” said Kent. “You’ve got to go through difficult times to really appreciate the good times in football, because more often than not, there's a lot more downs than there are ups in football. But I think it's not something that I'll dwell on. I’m glad that's out of the way now, and I can come to a place like this where there are a lot more genuine people.”
Those quick feet and slashing runs at opposing back lines look a level or three above what might typically be expected from what was essentially an emergency signing for the Rave Green. He arrived as a free agent, fairly late in the Primary Transfer Window, after Paul Arriola was lost to a torn ACL just seven games into life as a Sounder. Kent has turned out to be a whole lot more than just a warm body.
“The stuff he does on the ball, you can tell he’s a good soccer player, and his teammates know,” head coach Brian Schmetzer said in mid-May. “That type of leadership can be powerful.
“You love when a guy is serious about getting his career jump-started again, and he’s doing the work to be prepared. I love it.”
A signing a decade in the making
It turns out the Sounders had an ace in the hole on this recruiting job. A decade ago, assistant coach and former midfielder Andy Rose crossed paths with Kent during a loan stint at Coventry City, and the two made a positive impression on one another, enough that they kept in contact over the ensuing years.
“We didn't play games together, but had a few weeks of training and immediately I saw what a talented player he was,” Rose explained to MLSsoccer.com on Thursday. “Both feet, his directness, his awareness of space around him, his ability to turn out of pressure, receive on the half-turn and explode through on goal. He had some really interesting characteristics now that obviously we get to witness for the Sounders.
“Although it was brief, he struck me as a player with a really bright future, one that I wanted to keep an eye on.”
Kent had visited North America several times, be it on club duty or for holidays, and was intrigued by the way of life. Having a firsthand connection made it that much easier for him to take the plunge, as did the “really, really good people, really genuine people” he met in Seattle.
Fans of the 2010s-era LA Galaxy and observers of that era in MLS may be surprised to hear it, considering how generally disappointing his time at the club was. Yet Gerrard had also provided a strong firsthand endorsement of the league when he worked with Kent at Rangers.
“He told me, before you finish, you need to go and experience the MLS, you'll enjoy it over there. So yeah, I'm definitely enjoying life,” said Kent. “Coming over here was to sort of re-establish myself again, and more importantly, just get back to just enjoying football, enjoying life in general.”
He’s been intrigued by his new environment, impressed with the tactical diversity and general balance among the teams he’s encountered thus far compared to Turkey and Scotland.
“It's quite interesting. In a lot of the places I've played in, and the last two clubs I've been at, there's maybe two or three teams in the league who sort of dominate,” said Kent. “Most weekends you're coming up against teams who are going to park the bus.
“One thing I've noticed here is that the games are a lot more even. I don't know if that's to do with the salary caps, maybe. Teams seem to be quite evenly matched over here, and I'm quite surprised with not necessarily the level [but] the style of play, more than anything. A lot of the teams that I've come up against so far, and ourselves included, really like to play football, especially play out from the back.”
Legendary potential
Seattle’s participation in the FIFA 2025 Club World Cup was another attraction. Next month, the Rave Green will face powerhouses Paris Saint-Germain, Atlético de Madrid and Botafogo in that tournament.
“To play against some of the best teams in the world, it's definitely an opportunity I'm looking forward to taking,” said Kent. Considering he’s still working towards full form after so many months on the sidelines, it could help him raise his level that much further.
Rose would agree. He believes Kent has what it takes to become a Sounders icon, perhaps even an MLS Best XI honoree.
“He was out of the game for a little while, so getting really up to speed in a comfortable environment is going to take time. But in my opinion, the best version of Ryan Kent can be one of the top players in our league,” he said.
“I don't think the Sounders have had too many players like that, who can turn a game as an individual as quickly as he can. His ability in 1-v-1 isolation and as someone who gets the fans really excited – as a player, it's so much fun playing with guys like that. I remember being a young player and being teammates with Obafemi Martins here in Seattle.
"In some ways, I get similar feelings, where as soon Obafemi got the ball, you just felt like anything could happen," Rose said. "That's the ceiling I certainly see for Ryan.”
Jonathan Sigal contributed to the reporting of this story.
