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 might seem like half an eternity to Schalke fans that the American left the club in 2019 at the tender age of 21.

The 1.93-meter-tall center forward now plays for Coventry City in England’s second division—and he’s doing so very successfully. Last season, Coventry narrowly missed promotion to the Premier League. Now things are looking much better.

The club leads the table with 58 points, ahead of FC Middlesbrough, which is tied on points. The top two spots qualify for direct promotion to the Premier League. Hull City, in third place, has 54 points.

And Wright is also regaining his 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 U.S. national team player was unable to achieve with Schalke’s first team.

Wright failed to establish himself at Schalke

Wright was once seen as a great prospect 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 reserve team secure promotion to the Oberliga in the 2018–19 season, but the former U.S. youth international waited in vain for his breakthrough with the first team. He made only seven appearances and scored just one goal in the Bundesliga.

A bit of an odyssey followed: Wright was temporarily loaned to SV Sandhausen, then made a permanent move to VVV-Venlo, and later to Sönderjyske in Denmark. From there, he was eventually loaned to Antalya. There, he immediately made an impact, scoring 15 goals and adding two assists in his first season. It took Wright 35 games to achieve that.

Antalyaspor exercised its option to buy Wright and paid 1.88 million euros. 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 transferred to English second-division club Coventry City for around nine million, where he has once again proven his knack for scoring goals.

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’ reserve team. His market value at the time, according to “transfermarkt.de,” was 500,000 euros. Now, about six and a half years later, Wright has increased his market value twenty-fourfold. The website currently lists him at twelve million euros. Wright’s contract runs through June 30, 2027.