The English Championship has quietly become a practical training ground for Canadian and American internationals preparing for the 2026 World Cup. Liam Millar, now a seasoned presence at Hull City after spells with Liverpool, FC Basel, Charlton Athletic and Preston North End, offered a blunt assessment of the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Championship is one of a kind,\u201d Millar says, after a long pause. \u201cIt’s a league where, genuinely, you don’t need to play good soccer. You just need to know how to win, and I think we\u2019ve figured that out exceptionally at Hull City.\u201d<\/p>\n
His view captures why North American players have migrated to the second tier. Prior to the 2025\u201326 season, Patrick Agyemang, Haji Wright and Daryl Dike found Championship clubs. The winter window added Cyle Larin and Ali Ahmed. In total, six Canadians and seven Americans are active in the league; five of those players, including Millar, Ahmed, Larin, Agyemang and Middlesbrough midfielder Aidan Morris, were in March international camps as they build toward the World Cup.<\/p>\n
On the surface the Championship ranks highly in global competition. Opta\u2019s League Power Rankings placed it 10th in the Top 30 leagues in November. Beyond rankings, players point to the league\u2019s pace and physicality and the straight path it offers toward Premier League exposure.<\/p>\n
Ahmed, who joined Norwich City from the Vancouver Whitecaps after scoring in the 2025 MLS Cup final, calls the new league \u201cbrutal\u201d and \u201ccutthroat,\u201d and added: \u201cWe might not play well all the time, but we\u2019re learning how to win, and in the end, that\u2019s really what matters in the Championship.\u201d He has four goals and three assists in his first 15 appearances for the Canaries. Millar added: \u201cYou don’t always have to outperform the other team,\u201d Millar says. \u201cPlaying the Championship, it’s tough, it’s challenging, it’s not easy … Ali and Cyle are there now; they’re both doing very well, but the longer it goes on, the harder it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strikers have seen particularly rapid returns. Derby County paid upwards of $8 million for Agyemang after his MLS form and Gold Cup showing; he has 10 goals in 36 games for Derby. Haji Wright has 16 goals in 27 league matches for Coventry City. Larin, at Southampton, has four goals and an assist in 11 games and said, \u201cI\u2019m happy to be scoring goals again,\u201d Larin said. \u201cI went through a difficult period in my football career… nobody always stays scoring goals, and you can have your down moments, and mine was longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Physical intensity and promotion chase have made the Championship a proving ground for North America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1249,961],"tags":[1550,1551,1549],"class_list":["post-9912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","category-international","tag-championship-adaptation","tag-cyle-larin","tag-liam-millar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}