Things didn’t work out for Haji Wright at FC Schalke 04. But the striker is now enjoying success in England.
Haji Wright is now 27 years old. So it’s understandable that it may seem like an eternity ago to Schalke fans that the American left them in 2019 at the tender age of 21.
The 1.93-meter center forward now plays for Coventry City in England’s second division – and very successfully so. Coventry missed out on promotion to the Premier League last season. Now things are looking much better.
The club leads the table with 58 points, ahead of Middlesbrough FC, which has the same number of points. The top two places qualify for direct promotion to the Premier League. Hull City is in third place with 54 points.
And Wright is also back in form after an outstanding start to the season with eight goals in his first nine league games. After a calf injury in November 2025, he fought his way back and scored his ninth and tenth league goals in January. These are statistics that the US international was unable to achieve with the Schalke professionals. Wright did not make his mark at Schalke Wright was once a great promise for the future at FC Schalke 04. But things didn’t turn out as well as expected. With 14 goals in 22 games, he helped Schalke’s reserves win promotion to the Oberliga in 2018/19, but the former US youth international waited in vain for his breakthrough with the pros. He only made seven appearances and scored one goal in the Bundesliga.
What followed was a bit of an odyssey: Wright was loaned to SV Sandhausen for a while, then moved permanently to VVV-Venlo and later to Sönderjyske in Denmark. From there, he was eventually loaned to Antalya. He immediately made an impact there, scoring 15 goals and providing two assists in his first season. It took Wright 35 games to achieve this.
Antalyaspor exercised their option to buy Wright and put €1.88 million on the table. Wright continued to deliver in his second season in Turkey, scoring 16 goals and providing three assists in 29 games.
In the summer of 2023, he then moved to English second division club Coventry City for around nine million euros, where he has already proven his scoring instinct once again.
And that is also reflected in his market value. In the summer of 2019, Wright was 21 years old and playing for the Royal Blues’ second team. His market value at that time, according to “transfermarkt.de,” was €500,000. Now, around six and a half years later, Wright’s market value has increased twenty-fourfold. The portal currently lists him at €12 million. Wright’s contract runs until June 30, 2027.