9 English Players Who Have Scored Hat-tricks in Other Leagues

If you haven't been watching the Bundesliga since it returned (what else have you been doing?), then you might have missed Jadon Sancho doing bits over the weekend.

The Borussia Dortmund winger made it 20 goals for the season with a hat-trick in a 6-1 annihilation of Paderborn, and became the first English player in 31 years - exactly - to score three times in a game in one of mainland Europe's four major divisions.

Hat-tricks for English players outside of England are a rare commodity, it seems, so that got us thinking: who are some of the others?

Kevin Keegan - Hamburg 3-1 Arminia Bielefeld (1978)

Kevin Keegan was a bloody good player. The perm-headed enigma, having won three league titles and a European Cup at Liverpool, swapped Merseyside for Hamburg in 1977 - the £500,000 fee setting a British transfer record at the time.

And he was superstar in Germany, posting up 40 goals in 111 appearances for HSV.

Among those goals were a game-winning treble against Arminia Bielefeld in 1978, on his way to claiming the Bundesliga - the only honour Keegan won in Germany.

Trevor Francis - Udinese 0-4 Sampdoria (1983)

A £1m move from Birmingham City and Nottingham Forest might seem like next to nothing now, but almost 40 years ago, it was groundbreaking.

Legendary Blues striker Francis will forever enjoy the distinction of being the first British player to move for a seven-figure sum, and went on to score an iconic diving header that clinched the European Cup for Forest in his first season.

All that aside, it's the nomadic later stages of his career where it really gets interesting. While playing for Sampdoria in 1984, he netted a famous hat-trick against Udinese; which included a looping overhead kick, a terrific solo effort and a powerful long range drive.

Francis, naturally, assisted the other goal.

Gary Lineker - Barcelona 3-2 Real Madrid (1987)

The Heysel disaster in 1985 dawned a strange period for English football. With English clubs banned from the European Cup, a host of players headed abroad to keep their hand in at the elite level, and among those were Leicester's Gary Lineker.

The current face of Match of the Day brought the best of his poaching abilities to Barcelona over his three years, but it's his decisive display against old rivals Real Madrid at Camp Nou - where he almost single-handedly put Los Blancos to the sword - that is best remembered.

Brian Stein - Caen 3-0 Cannes (1989)

Chances are you hadn't heard of this guy until he started popping up in the stat tweets over the weekend. Until Sancho's antics, he remained the last English player to score a hat-trick in one of the other four major leagues in Europe, having done so against Cannes on the final day of the 1989 Ligue 1 season.

His career wasn't quite as remarkable as Sancho's is promising to be, but he won't ever want for a pint in Bedfordshire, having netted over 100 goals for Luton Town between 1977-1988.

He managed a single England cap against France at the height of his powers; he didn't score.

Chris Sutton - Kilmarnock 0-5 Celtic (2003)

Ah OK, now we're getting into it.

Scottish football's favourite shithouse pundit was once Scottish football's favourite shithouse striker; a humongous lump who put himself about, got in the way, fouled defenders and knew how to score goals.

He helped fire Blackburn to a Premier League title in 1995, but a misfiring spell at Chelsea saw him swap the EPL for the SPL as he went chasing titles at Parkhead.

There, he wasted no time getting back up and running, lighting up a prolific partnership with Henrik Larsson and scoring goals left and right. His peak came in the 2003/04 season, where he scored 28 times in all competitions - including trebles against Kilmarnock and Dundee United.

Robbie Fowler - Perth Glory 3-1 Melbourne Victory (2010)

Robbie Fowler's hat-trick for Perth Glory is, of course, not the most famous hat-trick of his career - that came in about five seconds against Arsenal in 1994 - but when you have to differentiate between which treble you're talking about, you know you've had a decent career.

It's not overstating it to say Fowler is one of the greatest strikers of the Premier League era; only six players in the competition have bettered his 163 goals.

He enjoyed a decent amount of success elsewhere too, rediscovering himself in the later part of his career as an efficient A-League marksman. He marked his first season with Glory by taking Melbourne to pieces with his signature ruthlessness in front of goal.

Bradley Wright-Phillips - NY Red Bulls 4-0 Houston Dynamo (2014)

Can't be great to have a name like 'Wright-Phillips' and somehow not be the most famous 'Wright-Phillips' in football.

Bradley came through the ranks at Manchester City just behind his older brother Shaun, but was never quite able to break through in the same way. He took a less conventional route to fame - establishing himself as a prolific lower league striker with Southampton and Charlton, before heading stateside.

There, he has scored goals at a frightening rate, and within three seasons, he had scored as many goals in three seasons for the Bulls as Thierry Henry managed in four. He is their all-time record scorer on 126 goals - three of which came in a four goal demolition of Houston Dynamo not long after his arrival.

Matt Derbyshire - Omonia Nicosia 3-2 Ethnikos (2017)

The cult hero to end all cult heroes. There is something to be said about a player unafraid to go abroad and try something different when it's not quite happening at home, and that's exactly what Blackburn-born Derbyshire has made a career of.

Twice he has packed his bags and headed for the furthest reaches of Europe; once to join Greek side Olympiacos, and then in 2016, when he left Rotherham for Cypriot league leaders Omonia Nicosia.

He sunk the famous(?) Ethnikos in 2017, with three of the 64 goals he has netted for his new side to date.

Wayne Rooney - D.C. United 5-0 Real Salt Lake (2019)

Finishing off our list with the loudest of bangs, it's only Wayne bloody Rooney.

One of the most uniquely players of his generation, Rooney had to overcome a lot after arriving on the scene at Manchester United, often finding himself treated as a scapegoat when things weren't going well, but he persevered - and is now the club's top scorer of all-time.

He hasn't played in the Premier League since 2018, when he brought a second spell with Everton to an end to join MLS hopefuls D.C. United. There, he was a phenomenon, captaining United (D.C. edition) throughout his entire MLS career, and though he spent much of the time in midfield, he scored 25 goals in 52 appearances.

Arguably his best stateside performance came in his final season, in which he inspired Washington to the playoffs, setting the tone with a formidable three-goal showing against Salt Lake in March.

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