England's players abroad: Kane and Bellingham are blazing trails
English footballers have typically been associated with playing in the Premier League.
If we think of famous players from the England national team who have played in other countries - names such as David Beckham or Michael Owen come to mind - and yet these men stopped playing a while ago.
In the recent history of football, such instances hardly happen.
There have been a few more before, with Kevin Keegan playing in the Bundesliga, Gary Lineker scoring goals at Camp Nou, and Chris Waddle, Trevor Francis and David Platt achieving success in other leagues. At the same time, however, the English are still associated closely with the Premier League (and the old English Football League).
Think of Alan Shearer. What shirt is he wearing in your imagination? Probably Newcastle. And Wayne Rooney? Probably Man Utd. As well as Steven Gerrard, Liverpool, and Frank Lampard, Chelsea.
In recent years, we have seen individual leaps to other leagues by English footballers, after all, with Chris Smalling moving to Roma and later being joined by Tammy Abraham, who highly praised the change of environment playing in Italy.
Callum Hudson-Odoi, on the other hand, collected his dozen or so Bundesliga appearances. However, let's be honest, these are not the names on the front pages of global newspapers.
The situation has changed dramatically in this transfer window. Among the 26 players called up by Gareth Southgate for the World Cup, there was only one name from outside the Premier League. That was Jude Bellingham, who was plying his trade at Borussia Dortmund.
In the summer, however, he entered an even higher level, as Real Madrid spent 100 million euros (£85 million) on the young Englishman's talents.
A few weeks later, another shock, as England's captain Harry Kane decided to leave the domestic league for Bayern Munich.
One might be tempted to say England's two best footballers are currently playing outside the world's best league.
Bellingham's case is interesting in that he plays for the national team, has trained with English clubs, Transfermarkt values him at 120 million euros (£105 million) and he... has not played a single game in the Premier League. He ended up making 41 appearances in the Championship.
After three games in La Liga with Real, he has four goals to his credit and is a real revelation in the Spanish competition.
In football, we can always expect the unexpected, and things can turn upside down from week to week, but it is safe to imagine a situation where Bellingham arrives at the next Euros and 2026 World Cup as a Real Madrid player.
And he will be blazing a new trail for English footballers; after all, Beckham moved to Real after a brilliant career at Man Utd and was arguably not in his prime in Madrid.
The situation is completely different for Kane, who established himself in England as one of the best goalscorers in Premier League history, but who, due to a lack of team success, has opted for new challenges.
Not much has changed in his results so far - after two games in the Bundesliga, he has three goals to his credit - and in his statements, he encourages other English players to make a similar move.
"Perhaps my change of environment will inspire younger English footballers to do the same and decide to make such a move," said Kane.
"I remember when David Beckham moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid. I was a kid at the time and I thought to myself, this is something great."
Will we see more departures of English players? Will the national team leaders blaze new trails in their careers?
On the one hand, it's hard to expect that, after all, most footballers would like to play in the Premier League because it's where the most money (not counting Saudi Arabia), most competition and the highest level are currently.
However, the cases of Bellingham and Kane show that there is life outside England for English footballers.
