Charlie Cresswell Left Leeds After 14 Games and Now Chases England Place

• Charlie Cresswell left Leeds for Toulouse in 2024 at 20 with no clear route into the first team, and he now plays for Rennes.
• The centre-back started 57 of a possible 68 Ligue 1 games in two seasons at Toulouse and turned down a return to England to stay in France.
• Rennes travel to Juventus in the Europa League on Thursday, and Cresswell says playing for England is his “biggest, biggest dream”.

The Leeds Fan Who Said Goodbye to England

“Leaving England is such a scary, scary decision,” says Charlie Cresswell. He never expected to make it. His father, Richard, built a career as a footballer in England, his brother, Alfie, was coming through the Leeds academy, and Cresswell himself was on the fringes of the Leeds first team when Toulouse came calling in 2024.

Now 24 and at Rennes, he is preparing for what the Guardian calls the biggest game of his career, a Europa League trip to Juventus on Thursday. He is also hoping that form in France will put him in the England conversation.

Why He Left Leeds

Cresswell has been a Leeds fan from the age of eight and joined the club at 10. He made 14 appearances for them, and a loan spell at Millwall in 2022-23 did not open a door either. “That was the biggest decision I made in football,” he says. “I was 20 years old with no games and I needed to get out and go play.”

He insists that proving a point to Leeds is not his aim, though his rise makes it a natural by-product. “I’m here doing my job, working as hard as I can, making a career for myself,” he says. Opportunities arose in England. He chose France.

Toulouse, Then Rennes

Toulouse, described by the Guardian as the Brighton of French football for their data-led approach, made him a mainstay. From a possible 68 Ligue 1 games he started 57 in two seasons before moving to Rennes last summer. Brighton had been linked with the former England youth international, and he says he had options to go back to England. He decided to stay in France after a discussion with his partner.

Rennes aim for the Champions League places, while Toulouse have been comfortable in midtable in recent seasons. “There’s that expectation to win games,” Cresswell says. “That was important for the next step.” He says he needs to build “that knowhow of how to win games under pressure”.

Several former Leeds colleagues had played at Roazhon Park, among them Raphinha, Joe Rodon and Glen Kamara, and Djed Spence, a former England Under-21 teammate, spent time on loan at Rennes from Tottenham. Cresswell did not need any of them to recommend the club. “It’s a club that sells itself,” he says.

Rennes are unbeaten in the Europa League with one win and one draw. Asked how far they can go, he does not hold back. “There are no limits. It would be stupid to put limits on ourselves. We can say we can win it.”

The England Dream

Cresswell, a two-time European champion with the Under-21s, has an England target. Playing for his country is his “biggest, biggest dream”, he says. “All I can do is carry on working.”

He looks to Jarell Quansah at Bayer Leverkusen and Trevoh Chalobah at Como as examples. “It gives you hope. It gives you motivation that, if you’re doing well abroad they’ll give you a look and they’ll give you a chance,” he says. Angel Gomes won his England debut while at Lille, and Ethan Nwaneri trained with the England squad over the summer after a difficult loan spell at Marseille last season.

Cresswell says he has “come on leaps and bounds as a player” in France and still sees room to grow. “I feel like I’ve got so much more to improve on, which is exciting.” Esteban Lepaul pushes him hardest in training. The forward was Ligue 1’s top scorer last season, tops the charts again this time and recently won his first France caps. “I call him the Jamie Vardy of France,” Cresswell says, a nod to Lepaul’s route from a Lyon academy exit through amateur football in his mid-twenties. “He’s always ready for that chance. I see it in training as well. He hits the ball so hard; he’s a killer in front of goal.”

No Rush to Return

Cresswell does not talk about league positions or a spell back in England. “I don’t really think about where we’ll finish,” he says. “I think about what’s going to happen at the weekend and how we need to go about doing our best against the next game and then the next game.”

A move home might come one day, but he says it does not cross his mind. “I’m not rushing back at all,” he says. “I’m here to work and I’m here to win.”