As a player of BVV Barendrecht B1, Denzel Dumfries sometimes crossed the entire field to score. At the time, no one could have imagined that he would play in the Champions League final ten years later, even though he lived like a top footballer. “I sometimes thought: Denzel, it doesn’t have to be right now.”
Het is 29 april 2013. Een handjevol toeschouwers staat langs het hobbelige veld van Spijkenisse als een grote, sterke verdediger in een wit shirt met rugnummer 3 op eigen helft de bal krijgt. Hij fopt een tegenstander met een schijnbeweging, om daarna met grote stappen naar voren te rennen.
Geen speler van Spijkenisse kan hem bijhouden. Teamgenoten ziet hij niet staan. Als hij in de buurt van het strafschopgebied komt, schiet hij met zijn zwakkere linkerbeen. De poging eindigt in de reclameborden.
Het moment bij Barendrecht B1 is typerend voor Dumfries, zegt boezemvriend Daniël Esajas, die als stagiair in de dug-out zit. “Hij draafde altijd over het veld, was groot en sterk. Hij was niet heel gespierd, maar pezig. Eén bonk spier. Geen vet.”
Toenmalig hoofd jeugdopleiding Jack van den Berg: “Als we een doelpunt nodig hadden, liep Denzel overal, van achteren naar voren. Maar hij had zo veel power en energie, dat zijn techniek het niet altijd kon bijhouden.”
‘Denzel was on every workout’
The fairytale story of Dumfries begins in 2012, when he moves from Spijkenisse to BVV Barendrecht. Barendrecht is the largest club in the village of the same name, the best youth teams play in the highest leagues in the Netherlands. Dumfries likes that. He is then sixteen years old. “He was completely unknown to us,” says Van den Berg. “He was definitely not Messi.”
Dumfries will have to deal with the three years older Esajas in the B1. De Barendrechter has to do an internship with a sports team for his sports and exercise training and he ends up with the best sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in Barendrecht, partly because his father Lesley Esajas is an assistant trainer there.
Esajas and Dumfries quickly grow closer. “I enjoyed him. The energy always splashed off. Denzel was on every training, every match, every second. He wanted to be the best at everything, whether it was a game or a pass and kick.”
“I sometimes thought: Denzel, it’s not necessary right now. We have very different characters: I have much less discipline. Even with the sprints in the warm-up, he turned it into a competition, while it was intended to be in a competition or come training…”
CV Denzel Dumfries
Positie: rechtsback
Geboortedatum: 18 april 1996
Clubs: VV Smitshoek (2002-2012), BVV Barendrecht (2012-2014), Sparta Rotterdam (2014-2017), sc Heerenveen (2017-2018), PSV (2018-2021) en Internazionale (2021-heden)
Interlands: 43
Reach out to the top amateurs
A year later, Dumfries is allowed to train with the first team of Barendrecht as a first-year A-junior. The team competes in the Topklasse, the highest amateur level, and is led by Van den Berg.
Esajas, a deserving amateur striker, takes him there in tow. “I tried to put him at ease. The pace was high. The top class was a serious level. He really had trouble with that. The ball sometimes bounced off his foot.”
Van den Berg receives laughing reactions from some players about Dumfries. “Such a trainer, he has enough energy,” I heard, for example. They did not think he would come up higher.
Dumfries is not guided by it. He dreams of the Dutch national team, even though he never says it out loud. He is called up as an A-junior for his homeland Aruba, but refuses to play binding international matches because he will then no longer be able to play for the Dutch team.
It will not come to a debut in Barendrecht 1, even though Van den Berg says he would have dared with Dumfries. In 2014, Sparta Rotterdam will be on the doorstep for the eighteen-year-old defender. They see him as a reinforcement for the team of promises.
Dumfries initially still has doubts about the switch to professional football. Van den Berg: “He said he was having a good time at Barendrecht. ‘If I get into the selection next year, I want to stay.’ I thought he should try it at Sparta, because at Barendrecht you can play all your life. He did that.”
‘Denzel can’t move’
Esajas does not lose sight of his good friend afterwards. The two even team up when Esajas’ uncle, the renowned running coach Errol Esajas, happens to see a Dumfries match at Sparta. Daniel Esajas then works as a treadmill trainer at his uncle’s movement center.
“My uncle trained goalkeeper Warner Hahn and went to see Sparta-Heerenveen. He came to the office here on Monday and immediately asked me: ‘Isn’t that Dumfries a friend of yours?’ He hated to look at him. “He can’t move, he looks stiff and he’s in bad shape,” he said.
“Then he asked me if I wanted to call him. I got stressed because Denzel came on slowly then. My uncle then completely blasted him over the phone. I thought, oh god, Denzel is going to hang up, he’s never coming again. But when the conversation was over, my uncle said he would come over the next day, and he was sold right after that.”
Dumfries is constantly working up a sweat in the warehouse, which lies under the smoke of De Kuip. He jumps over hurdles, dribbles past posts and throws tennis balls, purely to improve his motor skills and content.
Esajas: “I’ve had a lot of athletes here, but I’ve never seen such a drive as Denzel. He wanted every day.” Stefan de Vrij and Kiki Bertens, among others, preceded Dumfries. A huge photo of Dumfries hangs on the wall of the room.
Occasionally Dumfries eats with the Esajas family. “Every Wednesday we eat fries. Then he did participate, but he didn’t add any sauce or snacks. ‘That’s bad for you’, he would tell us. Yes, potatoes were still fine.”
‘I will soon be paid by Denzel’
Whether Dumfries then moves to Heerenveen, PSV or Internazionale, the extremely strong bond with Errol and Daniel Esajas will never be lost. Not even now that he has been playing abroad for years. Every two weeks Daniël Esajas travels to Milan to train Dumfries and also Stefan de Vrij. They speak to each other daily.
As a token of appreciation, Esajas has been invited by Dumfries to attend the Champions League final in Istanbul on Saturday. That completes the circle for Esajas, after his pupil and friend made his debut for the Dutch national team in 2018.
“My friends laughed at me two years ago. They said: no, Denzel is not a top. I was told so many negative things that I still had to be convinced. But now I’m not surprised if he ever goes to FC Barcelona or Real Madrid leave. He has amazed everyone every time. It makes him such a good example for the youth.”
In the event of a top transfer, the club greenhouse rings at Barendrecht and Smitshoek. Van den Berg, currently technical manager at Smitshoek, closely follows Dumfries’s performance: “Maybe I will be paid by Denzel later, haha.”
Internazionale moet topfavoriet City bedwingen
Als underdog begint Internazionale zaterdag aan de Champions League-finale tegen Manchester City. De club bleef afgelopen seizoen ver verwijderd van titelprolongatie in de Serie A, terwijl City domineerde in Engeland en Europa.
Het duel in Istanboel begint om 21.00 uur en staat onder leiding van de Poolse scheidsrechter Szymon Marciniak, die gewoon mag fluiten ondanks ophef over zijn toespraak bij een bijeenkomst van een extreemrechtse partij in Polen. Marciniak betuigde spijt daarvoor.
2023-06-09 03:01:44
#Barendrecht #balls #jumped #foot #Dumfries #finalist #Football
