Former Centaur Haji Wright Looking to Play in 2026 World Cup
Haji Wright is a professional soccer player currently playing for Coventry City Football Club in England. In the 2025-26 season, he led them to promotion into the Premier League with a club record for most goals scored by an American—17 goals, including a hat trick on February 16th and 1 assist in his 38 appearances. He also earned the English Football League (EFL) championship player of the month in February and earned a spot in the league's Team of the Season. He has been with the club since 2023.
Haji Wright was born here in Los Angeles and attended Culver City Schools, including Linwood E. Howe Elementary. There, at the age of 5, he decided that he wanted to be a professional footballer. That dream rapidly became a reality as he made his professional debut in 2015 with the New York Cosmos, shortly after leaving CCHS to pursue his soccer career. After that, he had stints with clubs in Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark and Türkiye before catching the eyes of the United States Men's National Team (USMNT). He had played for the United States U15, U17 (where he scored 27 goals in 34 games at the U17 World Cup in Chile), U18, U19 and U23 teams before making his senior debut on June 1st, 2022 against Morocco and scored from a penalty to seal the 3-0 win for his country.
After making his senior debut, Wright made the team to go to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He made 4 appearances, and he scored a goal as a starter in the round of 16 against the Netherlands, where the US team was later eliminated. That performance caught the eye of Coventry City who paid the Turkish team Antalyaspor a club record 10 million dollars to take over his contract. His performances at Coventry City earned him a spot on the US national team as a striker and left winger for the 2026 World Cup this summer. At this tournament, he will play 2 games in his home city of Los Angeles at Sofi Stadium. The group stage games for the US are against Paraguay played in Los Angeles, against Australia played in Seattle, Washington and lastly, they will return to Sofi Stadium to play Türkiye.
Although he made his professional debut 11 years ago, Haji Wright’s career is still very far from over. He is 28 years old and is now heading to the English Premier League to play against some of the best players and biggest clubs in the world. The Premier League will serve as a big test to truly see how high he can climb, and it will open up new opportunities for his career. Wright has already come so far from Culver City all the way to Coventry, and he still has so much further to go in his career.