Villarreal pro Arnaut Danjuma
The rocky road from homeless to dribble king
By Constantine Eckner
4/11/2022, 8:33 p.m
In the Champions League first leg between Bayern Munich and Villarreal, Arnaut Danjuma is one of the best on the Spanish side. The Dutch international shines with playfulness and speed. However, the road to the international stage was a rocky one for him.
Ignorant reporters and commentators like to call Arnaut Danjuma by his last name: “Groeneveld”. However, the Nigerian-born Dutchman decided a few years ago that he wanted to be called “Danjuma” – which means “born on a Friday” – by his middle name. It is a sign of the bond with his former homeland, which he left at the age of four. At that time, the family moved from Lagos to the Dutch industrial town of Oss with Arnaut and his siblings Reinier and Lisette. The parents divorced that same year. What followed was a nightmare.
“There was a short time when we had no place to live, which of course was very hard for us,” Danjuma told the British daily newspaper The Times last year. For a while, the three children had to sleep in the car with their mother Hauwa. “In retrospect, and this may sound strange, I’m grateful for what I went through. […] It was very difficult for my mother, but she is a strong woman. I have never met anyone else who is so strong. You come to a country like the Netherlands, which is very different from Nigeria, you don’t speak the language, you’re a stranger. Its hard. She had three children to look after.”
However, because Hauwa saw no other way out, Arnaut and his siblings were given to foster parents. Under their supervision, his footballing career could have ended at the age of six or seven. Because football, to which he had lost his heart as a small child in Nigeria, was not given any importance in the new family. Then his biological father Cees suddenly reappeared. “He luckily came all the way to my foster family, took me, took me to training and then took me back to them and went to his home,” recalls Danjuma.
Via detours to the top
So the training grounds in Oss became his own little home. At the age of eleven he went to the youth academy of the local second division club TOP Oss. A little later, a court ruled that he could leave his foster parents and live with his father. Shortly thereafter, top club PSV knocked and brought Danjuma to Eindhoven. It went in quick succession. This time steeled him, he says: “There are many players who enjoy great luxury at a young age and that destroys them. I’ve seen so many talented players who didn’t make it in the end because of the luxury.”
Even after he became a professional soccer player, not everything went smoothly for the quick-footed dribbler. In 2018, Club Brugge was joined by Italian giants AC Milan, who promptly informed Brugge that they intended to leave. But Bruges officials refused. Instead of playing in the traditional San Siro in Milan, his path led him to the English coastal town of Bournemouth. AFC Bournemouth was relegated to the second tier in 2020. Now the lively dribbler found himself in the tough “Championship”, as the league is called.
Not infrequently, Danjuma drove coaches and teammates up the wall when he got caught up in one-on-one duels and played for the gallery rather than the score on the scoreboard at first glance. But his talent on the ball was undisputed and, despite the brutal streak of many opposing defenders, he became one of the stars of the league. This was followed by a move to Villarreal in the summer of 2021. After Belgium and England, I went to a new country again. However, he needed little adjustment time and Danjuma was already one of the offensive cornerstones of head coach Unai Emery. His 14 goals and four assists in 30 competitive games prove that statistically.
Bayern Munich was also able to experience the offensive danger Danjuma emits in the quarter-final first leg against Villarreal in the Champions League last week. In cooperation with his neighbor Gerard Moreno, he brought the defense of the German record champions to a halt time and time again. Villarreal coach Emery no longer uses the 25-year-old on his former wing position, but mostly in the center of the attack, from where Danjuma should push through the gaps with speed and agility.
The well-known dribbling in one-on-one he is more and more often, because it would only slow down the game of his team too much. Here, too, Danjuma has learned and matured. The immigrant son, who had to sleep in the car with his siblings, has become an internationally renowned footballer who is now paid a salary in the millions a year and of course also enjoys a number of amenities.
But Danjuma does not forget his roots, neither when it comes to his name nor the challenging days of his childhood.