It is mid-July in Kössen, an Austrian village on the edge of the Alps, close to the German border, at Nordsjælland’s pre-season camp. The Danish Superliga club’s coaching staff, including Michael Essien, are preparing for the new campaign, the stunning scenery par for the course. Every training session is recorded by a drone.
The operator with the joystick in his hands? Well, that would be Caleb Yirenkyi, the Ghana midfielder who returned a week early from his post-World Cup break. He requested to join his teammates in the drills, but after physios told the 20-year-old he required more rest Yirenkyi did the next best thing.
It is a story that speaks volumes of his modest character and, a month on, he is poised to make his Premier League debut at Arsenal on Friday after Coventry made him their £26m record signing. Months earlier, Frank Lampard discussed Yirenkyi with Essien, his former Chelsea teammate, and Coventry beat off competition from top-flight rivals to make him their player after Ghana’s last-32 exit in the United States. Yirenkyi’s story is another triumph for Right to Dream (RTD), the academy umbrella that, via the Mansour Group, owns Nordsjælland.
The club is based in Farum, north of Copenhagen, and developed Mohammed Kudus, Simon Adingra, Kamaldeen Sulemana and Ibrahim Osman. Mikkel Damsgaard and Patrick Dorgu progressed through Nordsjælland’s youth programme and, in recent years, RTD opened hubs in Egypt and the US. After making his first senior start in February 2025, he started every league game for which he was available until departing this month, missing just three matches, all through suspension.
He is predominantly a central midfielder but has played at right-back for his country and ended his time at Nordsjælland as a left centre-back. At the start of last year, he excelled in a 3-1 victory over Manchester United in Altrincham (in front of a crowd of 334) en route to the Premier League International Cup quarter-finals, a tournament for under-21 teams. In Toronto this summer, Yirenkyi’s 95th-minute winner against Panama in Ghana’s Group L opener, a goal set up by his now Coventry teammate Brandon Thomas-Asante, made him only the second Ghanaian man to score on his World Cup debut, after Haminu Draman.
Yirenkyi idolised Essien growing up and Essien’s words of wisdom were priceless. Lampard sees those parallels himself and also shades of N’Golo Kanté’s qualities; Yirenkyi won possession more times than any other player in the Superliga last season (205) and was crowned young player of the year. Djimi Traoré, the former Liverpool defender, was another major influence.
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