Sports
Western Michigan won the men’s hockey natty! Now what?
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — In February 2022, Dan Bartholomae, the newly appointed athletic director at Western Michigan, held his first all-staff meeting.
After weeks of learning about the university and its athletics profile, Bartholomae delivered a message for anyone willing to hear it: Think big.
“We are going to win conference championships, we’re going to put ourselves in a position to win national championships,” Bartholomae said that day. “But we all have to believe we can do it, and we ought to agree that that’s important. If you agree and you’re willing to do the work, you belong in this room. If not, like, that’s cool, you don’t have to stick around.”
Bartholomae’s directive sounded like what many new ADs would tell their staff. But those words needed to be said, and ultimately believed, at Western Michigan, which hadn’t won any Division I national championships since men’s cross country went back-to-back in 1964 and 1965.
Shortly after the meeting, hockey coach Pat Ferschweiler went to Bartholomae with his own message: What you’re saying is true. Keep saying it. When Ferschweiler played for WMU in the early 1990s, he thought the team could win a national title. But there was always hesitancy around campus.
“For too long, we’ve been shy about saying we want to be great, in case we’re not great,” Ferschweiler said “We second-tiered ourselves as a university. That’s not the case anymore.”
The Western Michigan men’s hockey team was top tier last season — actually, in a tier of its own. National champions. The regional school in southwest Michigan won it all. On Thursday night, a championship banner will be revealed at Lawson Arena as WMU opens the season against Ferris State.
Men’s hockey is distinct in that teams from a range of schools can contend for the sport’s top prize. From 2001 to 2010, seven titles went to teams from schools that have Power 4 football. From 2013 to 2024, all but one championship went to a school without a team in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Title winners included Denver, Providence and Quinnipiac, which don’t have football teams at all and can sink resources into hockey. Other winners included North Dakota, which plays in the Football Championship Subdivision, and Minnesota-Duluth, which plays Division II football.
Then, in April, Western Michigan captured its first championship. WMU plays football in the Mid-American Conference, a proud but financially challenged FBS league, and hockey in the NCHC, which Ferschweiler calls “the SEC of hockey” because of its surge in national titles, winning seven of the last nine NCAA tournaments.
“There’s nothing more exciting than a national championship for a regional university like us,” WMU president Russ Kalvahuna said. “The story of a regional university is always thinking you might have a chance, but learning you don’t. And that’s what this team completely demolished for all of us.”
Bartholomae views Western Michigan’s championship as distinct, even from those won by others in the NCHC, where only one other member, Miami (Ohio), plays FBS football. When he attends athletic director meetings in the MAC, he can sense the other two longstanding members of the league that have hockey teams, Miami and Bowling Green, “looking to replicate our success.” (UMass, which just joined the MAC this season, plays in Hockey East, winning the national title in 2021.)
But Western Michigan also faces the pressure of: What’s next? After surging to the summit of the sport, how does WMU stay there? The plan involves the people and homegrown ingredients that fueled the program’s rise and a massive facilities project designed to put WMU on or near the top rung for good.
LAWSON ARENA OPENED in 1974 and looks its age, from the earth-tones exterior and low ceiling to the cramped concourse and cinderblock hallways. There are markings of WMU’s national championship both inside and outside, but the building oozes history, including the faded photos of past teams and individual standouts. The late ESPN host and play-by-play broadcaster John Saunders played at Lawson, as did his brother, Bernie, a WMU Ring of Honor member who logged 10 games for the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques.
The arena has a seating capacity of just 3,667, nearly half of which is assigned to the Lawson Lunatics, WMU’s student section, which uplifts the Broncos and torments visitors, especially the unfortunate souls sent to the penalty box right in front of them.
“Insane,” star goaltender Hampton Slukynsky said of playing in Lawson.
“Crazy, in the best way possible,” said forward Owen Michaels, WMU’s captain.
“The coolest thing ever,” added defenseman Cole Crusberg-Roseen.
After a recent practice at Lawson, Ferschweiler walked into the team’s cozy meeting room and sat down with a Diet Mountain Dew. Ferschweiler is the face of WMU hockey, a former player who returned as coach and accomplished the unthinkable at his alma mater.
But when WMU recruited him out of Rochester, Minnesota, he didn’t know much.
“That was pre-internet, so we had to pull out the old paper maps and figure out where it was,” Ferschweiler said. “Since I stepped foot on campus, I fell in love. The cool thing about Western to me has always been, it’s big enough to offer everything, but small enough where you still feel valued as an individual.”
Ferschweiler won MVP honors for the Broncos in the 1992-93 season and played for teams that had winning records but never advanced to the NCAA tournament, which had only 12 participants at the time. He teamed with Keith Jones, who went on to NHL prominence, and now serves as president of hockey operations for the Philadelphia Flyers. WMU had only one NCAA tournament appearance and three regular-season or conference tournament titles before Fershweiler returned to the school for the first of two stints as a Broncos assistant in 2010, but he had greater aspirations even going back to his playing days.
“I just thought this is a world-class place, and it’s a hidden gem,” he said. “We have tons to offer here.”
Arguably WMU hockey’s greatest asset is Lawson, an arena that reflects the program’s soul. Last year’s Broncos won a team-record 16 games there, with their only two losses coming in overtime. WMU is 52-23-2 at Lawson during the past five seasons.
“I love Lawson Arena, and our players love playing in Lawson Arena,” Ferschweiler said. “On Friday and Saturday nights, it’s as special an environment as there is in college hockey.”
The problem with Lawson, for a program aspiring to be elite, are the other days of the week.
“On a Monday and Tuesday when most of the recruits come through, it’s a 51-year-old building,” Fershweiler said. “It’d be nice to have a prettier wrapping, which we’re certainly going to have in our new building.”
In the fall of 2027, Western Michigan is set to open the Kalamazoo Event Center, a $515 million project that will be the new home for Broncos hockey, WMU’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, and the Kalamazoo Wings, a minor league affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks. The downtown facility, not far from WMU’s campus, was in the works before the hockey team’s national title and had its groundbreaking ceremony last month.
WMU soon will move from a charming but aging barn to possibly the best facility in college hockey. There are other, more immediate changes too, as WMU begins its penultimate season at Lawson.
“Pat and I laugh about this: It was cheaper to go to our hockey games than it was to go to a movie in 2022,” Bartholomae said. “We had to put together a ticket model that actually made us competitive. We hadn’t set up the infrastructure to be big time.”
Kalvahuna took over as president in July but needed no introduction to Lawson. He saw his first game there at 7, sitting next to his father, Eduardo, an immigrant from Brazil who knew little about hockey but sought an outlet away from the house during wintertime. Russ Kalvahuna later watched games from the stands as a WMU student and absorbed Lawson’s intimacy and energy.
“We held off the price inflation for as long as we could, but we’re proud of the fact that you can come to Kalamazoo, like my dad and I did, but unlike us, you can see national talent in a small venue with an extraordinarily vibrant environment,” Kalvahuna said. “And we’re going to amp that up with the arena in two years.”
ON THE NIGHT of April 12, Jackson Hammerschmidt sat in Section 301 of the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, alongside two dozen others from the Lawson Lunatics. They watched WMU play Boston University — a program with five NCAA titles and 25 Frozen Four appearances — for the national championship. Hammerschmidt, president of the group, donned the cowboy hat he wears for every game at Lawson.
When Michaels scored to give WMU a 4-2 lead with 7:16 to play, Hammerschmidt and the others moved down to ice level. During WMU’s on-ice celebration, Bartholomae saw Hammerschmidt beyond the boards and tossed him an official national championship hat.
“It’s my favorite hat, and that includes my cowboy hat,” said Hammerschmidt, a senior from Wheaton, Illinois. “It made it extra special, because everyone was down there. Probably one of the greatest days of my life.”
Hammerschmidt wore the hat and a Lawson Lunatics T-shirt as he spoke in the hallway outside WMU’s dressing room, acknowledging the players and coaches as they passed by. The group became a registered student organization in 2022, the same year WMU earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and recorded its first tournament win.
They’ve been integral in the program’s rise, and part of what makes WMU different.
“I remember a lot of players giving me the trophy, [saying], ‘Man, it’s as much yours as it is ours.’ I’m like, ‘That’s where you’re wrong,'” Hammerschmidt said, smiling. “It’s been really awesome. They treat us like family.”
Hammerschmidt has regular dialogue with Bartholomae and Kalvahuna. He spoke at the groundbreaking event for the new arena and has sat in on design meetings. Bartholomae even had the architects shadow the Lunatics to understand their perspective and how they impact the game-day experience.
At the new arena, the student section will be positioned next to the players entrance and will convert from individual seats for non-WMU games to benches, which the Lunatics prefer, since they stand all game.
“I might be a bit biased, but I challenge you to find another institution that highlights a fan base like that,” Kalvalhuna said. “It’s actually a part of our team.”
The Lunatics aren’t the only ones with input in the arena project. Ferschweiler’s wish list included a performance center just for the hockey team, which currently lifts weights in a shared space at WMU’s 68-year-old basketball arena.
The coach also wanted improved nutrition and recovery spaces for the athletes — even a performance chef — and has gotten the green light for it all.
“They haven’t said no to me for three years,” he said.
The upgrades will be significant for Western Michigan hockey, which currently has a facilities setup that’s “worst in our league,” Bartholomae said. “By far.”
While MAC football programs typically don’t have super donors, WMU has Bill Johnston, chairman of the Kalamazoo-based Greenleaf Companies, who is backing the project.
“I’ve never been in a room where somebody said to me, ‘You need to tell us exactly what it is, what you want, and I need you to think as big as you possibly can, and don’t let anybody censor what you think is important for this building to be successful,'” Bartholomae said. “And then that same person is writing one check to cover it.”
The facility isn’t WMU’s only investment area. Ferschweiler, promoted to replace Andy Murray in August 2022, was initially the lowest-paid NCHC coach. After leading WMU to three consecutive NCAA tournaments and the team’s first-ever tournament win, he received a new contract in January that runs through the 2029-30 season and pays him $420,000 in base salary.
There are also the players.
“We’ll probably be the last major sport team to win a national championship with zero NIL dollars — we had zero last year — which I’m certainly proud of,” Ferschweiler said. “We certainly have some this year.”
The challenge going forward might be handling the new luxuries. Should the program that not long ago had an underpaid coach, outdated facilities and meager infrastructure worry about losing its blue-collar edge?
WMU’s CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION began on the ice and continued that night in a giant ballroom at a nearby hotel, which Bartholomae rented out in anticipation of a victory. When the team returned to Kalamazoo, there was a line of limos waiting.
“We rode around town, thousands of people in the streets, just cheering us on,” Slukynsky said.
The Broncos were honored on the field at Comerica Park and Ford Field in Detroit, and at Wrigley Field in Chicago. They got the key to the city in Kalamazoo, and receive congratulations whenever they go around town in their WMU gear.
But Ferschweiler has tried to make it clear where the focus should be.
“Rip the rearview mirror off and look through the windshield,” he said. “We’re going forward at all times in this program.”
The 55-year-old is fixed on the future, even after interviewing with the Flyers for their head-coaching vacancy this spring. Bartholomae knows Western Michigan, even in its enhanced financial position, can’t compete with NHL money, and doesn’t minimize what losing Ferschweiler would mean to WMU.
What Bartholomae can offer is a partnership to try and establish Ferschweiler’s alma mater as an enduring national power.
“That interview was great for me because it validated everything we did here at the highest level,” Ferschweiler said. “I went in there and told them exactly who we are, what we are, why I believe in things for three hours, and walked out going, ‘They believe in that a little bit now, too.'”
WMU didn’t sneak up on anyone last year, as a preseason top-20 team that entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 4 overall seed following its first NCHC title. But the Broncos are the overwhelming No. 1 team in the country entering this season, as they try to become the first team to capture consecutive national titles since Minnesota-Duluth in 2019.
Although All-American Alex Bump and other heroes from the title team are gone, WMU might have an even better roster, bolstered by several returnees who could have pursued the pro route and the arrivals of four transfers or freshmen who are NHL draft picks.
“I expected guys to come in ready to work their asses off and go get it again,” Crusberg-Roseen said. “I don’t think anybody here is going to rest on their laurels.”
The Broncos are accessing higher-level recruits, but since the hockey prospect cycle goes several years out, the benefit of the championship — and the new arena — might not fully be felt for another year or two. Bartholomae expects WMU to be “a mainstay in the Frozen Four,” and a program with the results and resources that others envy, as Denver and North Dakota have been in the NCHC.
Ferschweiler is still thinking big. He will smile when the banner is unveiled at Lawson, mainly because of what it took to reach this point, but also because of where he thinks WMU is headed.
“It’s a pretty amazing thing for Western Michigan University,” he said. “But again, it’s a beginning, it’s not an ending of what we think our success is going to look like.”
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The Los Angeles Dodgers topped the Philadelphia Phillies following an 11-inning thriller in Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Thursday night.
The Dodgers had the bases loaded with two outs in the bottom of the 11th with outfielder Andy Pages at the plate against Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering. Pages hit a bouncing grounder to Kerkering, who had a tough time fielding the ball. He needed to make a rushed throw to the catcher J.T. Realmuto, but he tossed it too high and out of his reach.
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Los Angeles Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim, center, scores the game-winning run past Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto (10) on a ground ball by Andy Pages and a throwing error by Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering during the eleventh inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Hyeseong Kim scored the game-winning run to give Los Angeles the 2-1 victory. The Dodgers’ World Series title defense was still alive.
Phillies players were seen consoling Kerkering in the dugout as he stared out at the field in disbelief.
Philadelphia drew first blood in the top of the seventh. Nick Castellanos doubled to left field and scored Max Kepler. Philadelphia just needed to use its depth in the bullpen to keep Los Angeles at bay and live to play at least one more game.
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim (6) celebrates with Shohei Ohtani after scoring the game-winning run on a ground ball from Andy Pages and throwing error from Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Orion Kerkering during the eleventh inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
BLUE JAYS MANAGER, STARS TAUNT YANKEES AFTER WINNING ALDS: ‘START SPREADING THE NEWS’
However, Cristopher Sanchez walked Mookie Betts. It allowed Justin Dean to score and tie the game.
The Dodgers received a huge pitching performance from Roki Sasaki. The rookie, who was originally signed over from Japan to be a starter, delivered three scoreless innings for the Dodgers. He struck out two on 36 pitches.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki claps on the mound during the eighth inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
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It was an all-around game that helped the Dodgers win the game and finish the series.
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One of the most vocal and potentially powerful boosters in college sports lashed out at conference commissioners for stymieing changes he thinks could save the rapidly changing industry, and then the commissioners countered, with one of them saying the booster’s views “reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of college athletics.”
The dispute began with an argument Thursday by Cody Campbell, Texas Tech’s billionaire head of regents, about how the proposed pooling of college TV rights could feed additional billions into school coffers, but that progress is being held back because “the conferences are all represented by commissioners who are very, very self-interested.”
“The commissioners don’t really care what happens at the institutional level,” Campbell said at a panel discussion held by the Knight Commission, an oversight group that released a survey in which a majority of college executives who responded said Division I sports was headed in the wrong direction. “All they care about is what happens to them. And I think that is fundamentally the problem.”
Campbell said he supports elements of the recently introduced SAFE Act, a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that features a call for a rewrite of a 1960s law that would lift a restriction on college conferences from combining to sell their TV rights together. Campbell told attendees the move could be worth $7 billion, and said commissioners had said to him “privately” that they know a modification of that law would generate more revenue “but I don’t want to give up control of my own media-rights negotiation.”
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey told The Associated Press those conversations with Campbell never occurred.
“I have never stated — publicly or privately — that pooling media rights would increase revenue, nor do I believe that it would,” Sankey said. “His misrepresentation of my position raises serious concerns about the accuracy of his other claims. … His comments reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of college athletics.”
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark also denied making those remarks.
“Cody is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” Yormark said. “I’ve never said pooling media rights will increase revenue. The only thing I have said is that hope isn’t a strategy. There are unintended consequences to amending the [1961 Sports Broadcasting Act] that Cody and his team need to better understand.”
College sports has come under new financial pressure after the recent $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to directly pay players for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) to the tune of up to $20.5 million per university, starting this season.
Media deals make up the backbone of most schools’ bankrolls. The Power 4 conferences each have different, multibillion-dollar arrangements with varied expiration dates spread across multiple networks. The proceeds for those deals then go to conference offices, which all have their own formulas for divvying it up. The Atlantic Coast Conference, for instance, recently reworked its formula to base a portion of its payouts on viewership numbers for specific schools.
The Big Ten, meanwhile, has made headlines recently for being in late-stage efforts to procure up to $2 billion from private equity, which would create a new entity that would market the league’s media rights and other properties.
“The fact that we’re bringing private equity into something that is, in my view, owned by the American public in college sports, is outlandish,” Campbell said. “We have halfway professionalized this thing. And so we have a professionalized cost model on one side where we pay coaches a lot. We’re now paying players a lot. But we have this amateurish media-rights marketing effort that makes absolutely no sense to anybody.”
The Big Ten did not respond to an AP request for comment. Sankey and Yormark, however, pushed back on the idea that commissioners are out of touch with what’s good for college sports.
“My responsibility lies with the institutions I serve and the student-athletes on our campuses,” Sankey said. “Mr. Campbell’s suggestion that commissioners are indifferent to the institutional level is both irresponsible and damaging to his own credibility.”
“Our decisions are rooted in collaboration, accountability, and a deep understanding of the institutional impact for student-athletes,” Yormark said. “The SCORE Act is the first step in solving the issues facing collegiate athletics.”
The SCORE Act, which has support from the NCAA and the Power 4 conferences, proposes limited antitrust protection for the NCAA, mainly from lawsuits involving eligibility issues, and a prohibition on athletes becoming employees of their schools — a development that NCAA executive Tim Buckley said would be “the budget buster of the century” for college sports.
Campbell portrayed the SCORE Act as too broad a giveaway to the NCAA and the conference commissioners he challenged for wanting to run their own fiefdoms instead of looking out for the good of college sports in general.
“Protecting your position and protecting your importance and your ego, I could not care less about that,” Campbell said. “Because I know that if we don’t change something and bring more revenue in, a lot of sports are going to be cut, a lot of scholarships are going to be cut, and a lot of kids are going to lose opportunity.”
Though they may not quite be the all-conquering force they once were, there is still a sense of honor that comes with being a Manchester United player, coupled with an intense pressure to meet the high standards demanded by fans.
While certain players flourish in those conditions, many have wilted under the stresses, fallen out of favor or simply been unable to muscle into the starting XI only to find themselves occupying the sub’s bench week in, week out.
However, while some have seen their careers come to an abrupt standstill at United, there is a noted phenomenon in football circles known as the “post-United bounce,” where a number of players have successfully escaped their Old Trafford purgatory and almost immediately rediscovered their form elsewhere.
While the grass isn’t always necessarily greener, this season alone we’ve seen the likes of Marcus Rashford, Rasmus Højlund and André Onana join the ranks of players who have departed the Premier League giants at a low ebb before enjoying an instant upturn in fortunes after a fresh start.
Those three aren’t the only big names to benefit from the post-United bounce either, with an ever-lengthening list of players experiencing a similar turnaround in the relatively fallow seasons that have elapsed since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager.
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2025-26
Marcus Rashford
Patchy form and a dip in morale saw Rashford made available for loan by his boyhood club at the start of the year, with Aston Villa first taking the plunge for the second half of last term before Barcelona weighed in by taking the England forward on a seasonlong deal in the summer.
The 27-year-old already looks like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders and the swagger is visibly returning. He has made a decent start to life in Catalonia, with three goals and four assists in his first 10 games for Barça, including an impressive two-goal salvo against Newcastle United in the Champions League which earned him a standing ovation from the home faithful.
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Amorim: The pressure of playing for Man Utd was difficult for Onana
Ruben Amorim talks about the pressure of playing for Manchester United following confirmation of Andre Onana’s loan move to Trabzonspor.
André Onana
A figure of derision under Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim, goalkeeper Onana was responsible for a string of handling and positioning errors in big games that eventually saw him lose his first-choice designation before ultimately being allowed to leave the club.
The Cameroon international signed for Trabzonspor on loan for the 2025-26 campaign and kicked things off by being named the man of the match on debut for the Turkish club despite them falling to a 1-0 loss. He then upped the ante by registering an assist in his second outing by laying on the equaliser in a 1-1 draw against Gaziantep FK.
Rasmus Højlund
A dearth of goals last season saw Højlund left out of the United squad altogether at the start of the 2025-26 campaign until Napoli came to his rescue in September with the offer of a return to Italy.
After mustering four Premier League goals last season, the 22-year-old Denmark striker took just 14 minutes to score his first for the Partenopei and has now produced four goals in his first six games for the club, including a brace in a 2-1 Champions League victory over Sporting CP and the winner against Genoa just before the October international break.
2024-25
Scott McTominay
McTominay sealed a surprise move to Napoli in the summer of 2024 after finding his game time limited under Ten Hag the previous season.
The Scotland midfielder then proceeded to win the Serie A title and be crowned the league MVP in his debut season in Italy while becoming a cult hero among Napoli fans by virtue of his tireless work rate, intense physical play, and of course his knack of scoring important goals in clutch situations.
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Why Antony felt disrespected at Manchester United
Real Betis winger Antony reflects on the end of his tough time at Manchester United.
Antony
Signed by Ten Hag from former club Ajax in an £82 million deal that made him United’s third-most expensive player of all time, Antony unfortunately misfired in England and quickly became a target for derision after routinely failing to make any impact in games while desperately running through his repertoire of superfluous skills.
After two largely unproductive seasons at Old Trafford, the Brazil winger joined Real Betis on loan for the latter half of the 2024-25 season and was immediately reborn, with nine goals in 26 games and a nomination for the LaLiga player of the month award after just a few weeks in Spain, and he has now moved to Seville on a permanent basis.
2023-24
Dean Henderson
A product of the United academy, Henderson was on the books at his boyhood club between 2015 and 2023 but managed just 13 games in all competitions. Following a succession of loans up and down the Football League, the goalkeeper signed for Crystal Palace on a permanent deal in August 2023 before going on to win the FA Cup and make his England senior debut during his second season at Selhurst Park.
David De Gea
The second goalkeeper to leave United in 2023-24, former stalwart De Gea saw his 12-year stint come to an underwhelming end when his contract was allowed to expire and he was released without much in the way of fanfare. The former Spain No. 1 then remained a free agent for the entire campaign before ending his extended sabbatical by joining Fiorentina in August 2024. With penalties saved and clean sheets kept, the 34-year-old then played an important role in helping La Viola qualify for Europe (via the Conference League) in his maiden season.
2019-20 and 2020-21
The Inter Milan Exodus
Thanks to a tricky regime change at United, a sizeable number of high-earning and/or underperforming players were cleared out to make room for fresh blood in the squad.
This considerable exodus saw a number of players join Inter Milan just in time to fuel the Nerazzurri’s charge to the 2020-21 Serie A title with a good number of said players still in situ when they won the Italian top flight again in 2023-24.
Indeed, Romelu Lukaku (2020-21), Ashley Young (2020-21), Alexis Sánchez (2020-21, 2023-24), Matteo Darmian (2021-22, 2023-24) and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (2023-24) all claimed major honors with Inter after leaving Old Trafford, and also played in Champions League and Europa League finals for the club too.
After having his ability to lead the line for United repeatedly brought into question, Lukaku was voted Serie A MVP in 2020-21 and finished second behind Cristiano Ronaldo in the scoring charts. Lukaku then won his second Italian league title at Napoli last season.
Chris Smalling
Smalling also left United for Italy around that time, initially on loan to Roma for the 2019-20 season before the deal was made permanent the following summer.
The center back was an instant success at the Giallorossi and even emerged as a European champion when they won the Conference League in 2021-22 under José Mourinho’s guidance. Smalling was voted man of the match in that final against Feyenoord and was included in the UEFA team of the tournament — a feat he then repeated the following year when Roma finished runners-up in the Europa League.
2018-19
Daley Blind
A fairly reliable and versatile defensive option for United, Blind enjoyed success during his four years at Old Trafford by winning an FA Cup in 2015-16 and then the Carabao Cup and Europa League in 2016-17.
However, despite being seen as something of a fading force on his United exit, the Netherlands international kicked on by returning to boyhood club Ajax to claim three more Eredivisie titles and two KNVB Cups before spending a single season with Bayern Munich and lifting the Bundesliga shield in 2022-23. The 35-year-old veteran is still going too, and is currently in his third season with Spanish side Girona.
2016-17
Memphis Depay
It’s fair to say that Depay failed to fully ignite at United under Louis van Gaal, with an underwhelming 18-month spell at Old Trafford coming to an end in January 2017 when he signed for Lyon in a permanent deal.
Still only 22 at the time, the Dutch forward’s career soon began to gather momentum and he technically won LaLiga with Barcelona in 2022-23 (though left the club halfway through the season after making just four appearances) to join Atlético Madrid. However, Depay has been a bona fide league winner in recent months, taking the Brazilian Serie A title with Corinthians in 2025.
2015-16
Ángel Di María
With stints at Benfica and Real Madrid already under his belt, Di María was recognized as one of the most skillful playmaking wingers in the world when he signed for United in August 2014 in a huge deal worth almost £60 million — the highest transfer fee ever paid by a British club at the time.
Unfortunately despite early promise, a failure to settle in England, untimely injuries and a dramatic oscillation in form saw Di María regularly squeezed out of the first team under Van Gaal and it all came to an end after 12 months when Paris Saint-Germain offered to rectify the situation in the summer of 2025. The nimble Argentina star duly went on to win a domestic quadruple in his debut season before adding a further 15 major honors to his collection during the seven years he spent in Paris — also winning the FIFA World Cup and two Copa Américas with Argentina.
At the grand old age of 37, Di María is still playing in Argentina with his boyhood club, Rosario Central.
2014-15
Wilfried Zaha
Something of a poster boy for the false start of the post-Alex Ferguson era at United, Crystal Palace star Zaha was actually signed by Fergie in January 2013 but had his move delayed until the following summer, by which time the legendary Scot had retired and been replaced at the helm by protégé David Moyes.
Zaha made just two appearances under Moyes, who sent the young winger out on loan to Cardiff City for the second half of the 2013-14 campaign. Without making a single league start for United, the 22-year-old then returned to Palace in 2014-15, initially on a season-long loan and soon found his ridiculously quick feet again, immediately re-establishing his “fan favourite” status at Selhurst Park while subsequently hitting the best form of his career in the Premier League, carrying the Eagles for several seasons and winning the club player of the year award in 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.
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