AGR: On Ali Ahmed's hot start with Norwich, Tani Oluwaseyi's UCL exploits, and a growing CanMNT transfer economy
It hasn’t taken long for Ali Ahmed to settle into life in England, as the CanMNT winger has quickly hit the ground running for new club, Norwich City.
In just his first two games with the Championship club, he’s already scored a goal and added an assist, looking exactly like the dynamic winger his new side has needed to spark their middling attack to life.
Despite the ongoing transfer saga surrounding star striker Josh Sargent, who looks set to head to MLS to lead the line for Toronto FC, Ahmed’s arrival has helped fans quickly forget about him, as they’ve picked up a pair of wins in his first two appearances for the club.
Thanks to that, they’ve provisionally climbed out of the relegation zone in the Championship table, which is massive news for Ahmed. 
When this transfer was announced, there were two big concerns that were highlighted by most who analyzed the move - that he might not play significant minutes as a mid-season signing, and that Norwich might get relegated after a poor start.
To be fair, the former was more of a general concern that Canadians tend to have about all of their players moving, having been burned plenty of times before - Ahmed wouldn’t have been the first Canadian player to join a new club just to rot on the bench, after all.
Not a bad way to score your first City goal 🤝 pic.twitter.com/nsYTfgxC4p
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) January 21, 2026
In terms of the latter, though, that was a much bigger concern, as it would’ve made no sense for Ahmed to depart his last club, the Vancouver Whitecaps, to join a team that would be playing in England’s third tier this summer.
Of course, it’s still early, as a lot can change for both Ahmed and Norwich, but it’s worth highlighting the positive start to their relationship, as they’ve benefited significantly from each other’s presence.
Ahmed has a lot of work still to do as he adjusts to the speed and physicality of a new league, especially as those around him adjust to his unique playstyle, although it’s encouraging to see how clinical he’s been, in particular - those who will have followed him closely will know that’s been something he’s worked hard at to improve over the last few years, specifically.
Ali 🔗 Anis pic.twitter.com/MPnxDg9Hib
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) January 17, 2026
At the same time, it’s worth noting that he’s still building up fitness after a bit of a break, which is why he played just one half in his debut, before playing slightly more in his second match. One has to imagine a fully fit Ahmed will have plenty of fun in the Championship, even as his new opponents start to get acquainted with him.
Overall, though, it’s encouraging to see the way that Norwich have eased him into action, which is no small detail.
Why, one might ask? Given that it’s a World Cup year, it’s hard not to think about another Canadian who made a similar move to Ahmed, but in the 2022 World Cup cycle.
That, of course, was Richie Laryea, who headed to then-Championship side Nottingham Forest at the beginning of 2022. After a couple of outstanding seasons in MLS, it was an exciting opportunity for Laryea, who got to join an up-and-coming Forest side pushing for promotion.
Reports that #TFClive and #CanMNT RB Richie Laryea is set to complete a move to Nottingham Forest, via @FabrizioRomano
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) January 6, 2022
Will Laryea do well in the EFL Championship? pic.twitter.com/E0188VHlaw
Unfortunately, though, minutes were hard to come by for Laryea, who played just 117 minutes across five appearances in the Championship (Ahmed, for context, is already up to 108 minutes in just his two appearances). Due to the presence of Djed Spence, who was having an excellent season, Laryea was unable to break through, as he instead had to enjoy a front-row seat to what ended up being a thrilling promotion campaign for Forest.
For a player who couldn’t earn a sniff with the team in the Championship, that ended up being a horrible stroke of bad luck for Laryea, who was unlikely to ever earn a role with the team in the Premier League in those circumstances - especially when considering the shopping spree Forest immediately went on after that promotion. Because of that, with the World Cup approaching (luckily for Laryea, it was in the winter that year, not the summer), he returned to MLS and never played another game in Europe.
All of that to say, it adds context to why it’s been so exciting to see Ahmed hit the ground running the way he has, with Laryea’s situation offering a parallel outcome that many Canadians were worried about occurring to him when making this move - with how important he’s proven to be to this Canadian team, no one wanted to see him lose form ahead of the World Cup after joining a new club.
Yet, that just shows the shifting reality for Canadian players, which is very important to highlight, as the landscape looks a lot different for Ahmed than it did for Laryea four years ago, which has allowed him to make this move a lot more seamlessly.
On the same day that Ahmed found the top corner with a great strike for his first Norwich goal, his Canadian teammate, Tani Oluwaseyi, was further showing how much things have changed for these Canadian players while in action for La Liga side Villarreal CF.
There, Oluwaseyi was making the most of an opportunity to start up front in a UEFA Champions League clash against AFC Ajax, as he scored a beautiful goal in a 2-1 defeat. His second Champions League marker, as he scored in a 3-2 defeat to FC Copenhagen last December, it was a big milestone for Oluwaseyi, too, as he became just the sixth Canadian to score multiple Champions League goals.
WHAT A GOAL FROM TANI OLUWASEYI IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 😱🔥
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) January 20, 2026
(🎥: DAZN) pic.twitter.com/vHeHm0M09D
Considering that he was also in MLS just six months ago, it was a remarkable achievement from the striker, who has made the most of a shock transfer to a Champions League club in a top-five league last summer. That he now has seven goals across 1038 minutes of action by this point shows that, as anyone would’ve been ecstatic if he came close to those numbers across his first full season in Spain, let alone the first half of the campaign. 
Instead, he’s been able to join a growing list of Canadian players who are proving themselves capable of infiltrating clubs in some of the top leagues in Europe. It started last season with Moïse Bombito, who went from the Colorado Rapids in MLS to OGC Nice in France without skipping a beat, and that move has since opened the gates for the likes of Oluwaseyi, Ahmed, Nathan Saliba and others to make moves of their own over the last eight months, looking great while doing so.
Heading into the World Cup, that’s key to note. Not only is Canada benefiting from having more players move to higher levels, which has helped them hit new heights as a team under head coach Jesse Marsch (who has played a key role in facilitating some of these moves, it must be said), but this could have a big impact on what lies ahead for the team after the tournament, too.
Ultimately, soccer’s transfer market is dictated by familiarity as much as efficiency, so it’s typically been up to countries to prove that they can be a reliable development ground for talent before clubs go shopping there regularly. There’s a reason why teams will always fight for starlets from South America - there’s a long history of players emerging from countries like Brazil and Argentina before becoming stars in Europe, so why mess with tradition?
Over time, though, there have been small shifts. African countries such as Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria and many others have become a factory line for European clubs, and the same goes for Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea. Then, in recent years, the US has emerged as a big market, too, something Canadians have seen first-hand.
Typically, smart teams have always shopped in those markets, and now, bigger teams are starting to do the same, which has been massive for their player development.
In most cases, you could see a clear correlation between the success of a country's National Team, the growth of their domestic league, and the uptick in those transfers - just look at Ecuador as another example, as they’ve become a ‘hipster’ soccer market that has produced some huge players in recent years, thanks to impressive development in their league, and a rising National Team.
When examining that criteria, Canada certainly has the potential to be a similar market, as the emergence of players such as Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David, Tajon Buchanan, Ismaël Koné, Promise David, Bombito, Oluwaseyi, Ahmed, Saliba, and countless others has now started to show. Not only are most of those players thriving in big environments, but they’re doing so at a cut-rate cost compared to other countries after emerging from MLS (and now the CPL), which is rewarding teams shrewd enough to capitalize on that Canadian market. 
Because of that, the next six months could be pivotal for the Canadian transfer ecosystem. The more Canadians that continue to succeed in Europe, the better, especially if Canada can then have success at the World Cup off the back of those players.
Therefore, to bring it back to Ahmed, it’s the big underlying reason why it feels so exciting to see him hit the ground running at his new club, as every Canadian success story seems to have a domino effect on those around them, and his story is no exception.
That domino effect slowly started with Atiba Hutchinson in the 2010s, tripled in speed after Alphonso Davies’s 2020 breakout, and has since exploded in the last two years, as seen above.
For every mazy Ahmed dribble, big Bombito tackle, nice Oluwaseyi finish, and every other big play made by a Canadian, it will prompt a decision-maker to think “maybe there’s some value to be had in the Canadian market”, and that’s no small detail, especially given how cost-effective a lot of these players have proven to be for their teams.
Fitting, in a sense, that this phenomenon came to a head with Ahmed’s and Oluwaseyi’s exploits this week.
