Jadon Sancho remains a potential future Ballon d’Or winner despite his struggles at Manchester United and a series of unspectacular loan spells, claims former Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzic. The England international winger has rather lost his way, with a big-money move to Old Trafford not working out as planned, but there is still potential in his game to be unlocked.
Sancho struggles: Man Utd flop & loan moves
Sancho is still only 25 years of age, so should not yet have reached his peak. He would hope to have found greater consistency in his game, having shown what he is capable of when making the brave decision to leave Manchester City for Dortmund in 2017. His exploits there earned senior international recognition and a £73 million ($97m) transfer to United.
Sancho managed just 12 goals for the Red Devils through 83 appearances, with a tumble down the attacking pecking order leading to him heading back to Signal Iduna Park in January 2024. He would go on to grace the Champions League final that season – picking up a runners-up medal.
The 2024-25 campaign was spent at Chelsea, hoisting the Conference League trophy aloft there, but no permanent transfer was agreed. That meant Sancho had to find another home in 2025, with Ruben Amorim deeming him surplus to requirements in Manchester, and just eight minutes of Premier League football have been seen at Aston Villa.
AdvertisementGettyBallon d'Or hopefuls: Sancho ranked alongside Bellingham & Haaland
Terzic, though, remains convinced that Sancho can rekindle a lost spark. He has also worked with the likes of Declan Rice, Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland, meaning that he knows how to spot a superstar in the making.
Terzic has told : “All those players can win the Ballon d’Or in the future. Even Jadon. From the talent point of view, if you talk about Jadon, then maybe five years ago you would talk about Ousmane Dembele [who won the prize this year with Paris St-Germain] in the same way. I am talking about the talent and potential.
“The difference is Erling will reach this level if he stays hungry: Jadon will only reach this level if he keeps smiling – and Jude needs to do both. I really love Jude. He and Declan Rice will be the key figures in English football for the next 10 years. They have leadership and Jude has the ability to give solutions on the highest levels [and] make players around him better. This is what he can do.”
How Terzic brought the best out of Bellingham
Terzic, who led Dortmund to the 2024 Champions League final, added on how he helped to bring the best out of current Real Madrid midfielder Bellingham: “One example: I told him I possibly won’t be around when he’s going to win the Champions League but I’m going to be around when he’s going to lift his first trophy of his career and this is what we did with the German Cup. So he was on a springboard.
“Unfortunately, I was there when he lifted the Champions League trophy [at Wembley]! Both of us made our way to the final, but he left us for a record fee, and 10 months later, we faced each other in the Champions League final. We tried to develop him from being a winner, because he wants to win every game, into becoming a leader.”
Getty Images SportHandle with care: How Sancho needs to be managed
Terzic added on how he was able to get Sancho firing on all cylinders, with other coaches having struggled in that task: “On the pitch, I tried to reach the joy of the child in Jadon – off the pitch, the professional athlete in Jadon. The only thing players hate more than rules is if there are no rules. As a manager sometimes you are a brother, sometimes you are a father, sometimes you have to be a lawyer and sometimes you have to be a judge. What I don’t want to be is a policeman all the time.”
World Cup winner Dembele has shown what is possible, having faced plenty of uncomfortable questions at Barcelona before landing a Golden Ball with PSG, but it may be that Sancho needs to find another new challenge in 2026 – severing ties with United on a permanent basis – in order to start heading down a similar path.