Forgotten ballers playing in the UEFA Conference League this season
With Mo Salah currently operating in Turkey, he is one of a number of recognisable names that will be playing in the UEFA Conference League this season.
Salah’s long Liverpool stint came to an end this summer with a surprise move to Turkey and Trabzonspor, where he has already scored seven goals in as many matches in the league.
The club’s attention turns to Europe this week with a game against Finnish side Kuopion Palloseura on Thursday, but which other familiar faces can you see in the competition this season?
David Luiz
Once described as “being controlled by a 10-year-old on a PlayStation”, the chaotic former Chelsea and Arsenal man is still playing football at the age of 39.
After his time in England ended, he left Europe for Brazil and Flamengo in what seemed his final goodbye but he returned to the continent and the left-field choice of Pafos in Cyprus in 2025.
As Cypriot champions, they qualified for the Champions League and managed to reach the league phase, where they were rewarded with fixtures against the likes of Bayern Munich, Juventus and a return for Luiz to Chelsea. Luiz even managed to score against Monaco.
They finished fourth last season, which meant Conference League football for the Brazilian and the club that was only founded 12 years ago.
Imran Louza
Louza joined Watford when they were a Premier League team but could not stop them dropping into the Championship.
He did though become the Hornets’ best player and scored seven goals and provided nine assists in the 2025-26 campaign.
That saw Panathinaikos come calling who bought him for £7m and he has played six matches for his new club so far.
Joao Moutinho
It seems crazy that Wolves were able to not only sign a player as good as Moutinho but also keep him for five years.
The man behind that was Jorge Mendes with the super agent having interests in both parties.
Having become a hero at Molineux, he moved to Braga in 2023. He’s still there now, adding a League Cup to his trophy cabinet.
The now 40-year-old has had some serious longevity in the game too, having played 1,156 competitive matches.
That puts him 12th in the all-time top appearances makers and he is five away from equalling Pat Jennings.
Dani Carvajal
Describing a right back as a baller can be a bit of a stretch, but when he’s won six Champions Leagues, it’s fair enough.
We must admit that we thought the former Madrid full-back had already retired from football but he actually recently joined Getafe on a free until the end of the season.
Getafe’s stadium is only 20km down the road from the Bernabeu so Carvajal may not even have to move house and fair play to him for going that route rather than a big money move to the MLS or Saudi.
He has yet to feature for his new club but could make his debut at the weekend.
Fabinho
The former lynchpin of Liverpool’s midfield is back in Europe, having left for the Saudi money in 2023.
With the bag secured, the now 32-year-old returned to Europe and Trabzonspor where he linked up with former team-mate Salah.
He’s played five games in the league for his new club so far and by all accounts been one of their better players.
Sead Kolasinac
Kolasinac was at Arsenal during a period where the team was shifting away from the fluid football of Arsene Wenger and more to the physical style we see under Mikel Arteta.
He absolutely never shirked a tackle and was also part of the squad that won Arteta’s first piece of silverware.
He broke his ankle in 2022, having already dropped to the bench and joined Marseille in the winter transfer window.
He is now at Atalanta, moving there in 2023, but suffered another long-term injury. This time it was a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.
He missed seven months of football but signed a new one-year deal with the club in May.
Julian Brandt
We all knew a football hipster who used to tell us back in the day that Brandt was the next world-class player and while that did not exactly happen, he’s still had a solid career.
He moved from Bayer Leverkusen to Dortmund and stayed for seven years until he left for Ajax this past summer.
During his time in Germany, his trophies were sparse with just a DFB Pokal in 2019, but he was part of the Dortmund squad that made it to the 2025 Champions League final.
In the summer, he moved to Ajax and he is still only 30 years old.
Marko Arnautovic
The former Stoke man is 37 now and currently playing his football in Serbia for Red Star Belgrade.
After his West Ham stint ended in 2019, he took the big money offered by China and Shanghai and it looked as if he was going to disappear from the footballing consciousness forever but he returned to Europe in 2021 and joined Bologna.
There he enjoyed the most prolific run of his career with 25 goals in 58 games which was enough for Inter to go after him. He joined the San Siro side on loan for the second time in his career before moving there permanently the following season.
He only spent a year there before moving to Belgrade, where there is quite a heartwarming story behind it.
Sinisa Mihajlovic, who played for Red Star Belgrade in his career, was previously manager at Bologna and the Austrian promised his coach that he would one day play for Belgrade.
Mihajlovic, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2019, passed away in 2022 and Arnautovic gave a teary press conference when he completed his promise to his friend.
Since moving there, Arnautovic has got nine goals in 22 Serbian SuperLiga matches so far with the club winning the title in his first season there.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen
The second-best German goalkeeper of current times is now playing his football at Ajax after a long stint at Barcelona.
At his peak, ter Stegen was a world-class shot-stopper who produced some ridiculous saves and he has a long list of honours to mark his time in Catalonia.
In an unsurprising move, Barcelona decided to treat their own player poorly in an effort to register a new player after he had a back operation last summer.
Barcelona wanted him to share medical data with La Liga which could allow the club to register another player but the league rules stated the player had to be out for four months and Ter Stegen was adamant he would be back in three.
He was stripped of the captaincy but did eventually sign the document needed, having been relegated to third choice behind Joan Garcia and Wojciech Szczesny.
For the second half of last year, he moved down the road to Girona and is back on loan this campaign at Ajax.
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