While Arsenal have had many great players from huge footballing nations—Bukayo Saka from England, Thierry Henry from France, and Dennis Bergkamp from the Netherlands come to mind—some rarer countries have also had their players represent Arsenal, too.
An obscure country, in this case, refers to a nation ranked outside the top 100 in the FIFA rankings at the time of writing, so no Argentina, Turkiye, Greece, or even Vietnam.
This list will contain only one player from each respective nation, and go from highest-ranked country to lowest, although sadly, there have been no Gunners from San Marino, who are ranked 211th and last in the world.
With that said, here are the five greatest Arsenal players from some smaller footballing countries.
5. Mart Poom (Estonia)
Mart Poom is a name that a lot of supporters at the Emirates might know, purely down to the fact that he has a memorable name.
Only ever making two appearances for the club, he was the team’s third-choice goalkeeper behind Jens Lehmann and Miguel Almunia from 2005-2007—but his greatness was witnessed outside of his time with Arsenal, enjoying an illustrious six-year career with Derby County in the Premier League in the late nineties and winning 120 caps for his country, Estonia.
4. Igors Stepanovs (Latvia)
Perhaps more infamous than iconic at Arsenal, Igors Stepanovs is most well-known for starting in defense when Arsenal experienced an embarrassing 6-1 defeat to Manchester United in the 2000-2001 season, the same year that Stepanovs joined.
Regardless, his time at Skonto Riga and the impressive performances he had in the Champions League, which prompted Arsenal to sign him for £1 million, as well as 100 caps for Latvia, meant that he had a lasting impact on football for almost two decades.
3. Justin Hoyte (Trinidad & Tobago)
Justin Hoyte joined the Arsenal academy at nine years old, eventually making his debut at Highbury in 2003.
He would, by pure chance, become a squad player on both wing-back positions in 2006 thanks to an injury crisis, but a £3 million move to Middlesbrough in 2008 would signal the end of his Arsenal career. Following six years with Boro, Hoyte played for Millwall, Dagenham and Redbridge, and eventually retired at FC Cincinnati.
2. Emmanuel Adebayor (Togo)
Emmanuel Adebayor joined the Gunners in 2006 from Monaco, and played 142 matches under Arsene Wenger before leaving for fellow Big Six club Manchester City in 2009.
His 24-goal haul in the Premier League for Arsenal in 2007-08 is fondly remembered by fans of the club, even though he would play for arch-rivals Tottenham in the mid-2010s after a short spell at Real Madrid.
1. Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Armenia)
Henrikh Mkhitaryan enjoyed a rise to prominence in the early 2010s at Shakhtar Donetsk, before spending his prime years at Borussia Dortmund, Manchester United, and Arsenal.
He would make 59 appearances for the Gunners over two-and-a-bit years, from 2017 up until he left for Roma on loan in 2019, and eventually joined the club permanently. The Armenian’s best season in North London came in the 2018-19 season, where he scored six goals in 38 games for the Gunners.
