Dutch professional footballers can be found in all corners of the world, from the spotlights of the major European leagues to the more adventurous jobs on other continents. In the section Across the Border speaks Football zone weekly with a player who is active outside the national borders. This time, attention is paid to Guillermo Montero, the international from Bonaire who became a professional in Romania through Dutch amateur football.
By Chris Meijer
Guillermo Montero had only spent a few hours in his new hometown of Pascani, before his new club immediately organized a training camp. An hour’s drive from the city in the northeast of Romania, the selection of CSM Pascani was prepared for the resumption of the Liga III, the third tier of Romanian football, with a rigorous training regime. “We went for a run to another city today. When we got there we had to sprint up a mountain. Then you train two more times on the field. Yes, that is quite heavy”, says Montero with a laugh. He shrugs. “I’m fit, I live for football. So I don’t mind training all the time.”
“If it gets too dangerous, all foreign players have to go home”
Pascani is located just 100 kilometers south of the border with Ukraine. Ukrainians fleeing the war are now massively crossing the border in the area towards Romania. “They told us that when it gets dangerous, all foreign players have to go home,” Montero said of the situation in the Ukraine-Romania border area. “There is quite a good chance that the competition will eventually be stopped by the war. But hey, we hope for the best. You see a lot of people from Ukraine in this area, because Poland and Romania let all the refugees in. It’s really close, yes.”
In the Netherlands, Montero was on the football field every free moment he had, doing everything possible to make his big dream come true: to become a professional football player. That is no easy task for someone who was born and raised on Bonaire, a Dutch island in the Caribbean. “You have to work four or five times harder to make it to professional football when you come from Bonaire,” says Montero. He made his debut on behalf of SV Vitesse at the highest level at the age of fifteen, was top scorer in the Bonaire League several times and already made his debut in the national team at the age of seventeen. But all that no longer counted when he came to the Netherlands when he was nineteen, initially to follow a course at the Sport College in Amersfoort. “In the Netherlands you start from zero again, so the chance is very small that you will become a professional football player. Ten percent, maybe.”
“On Bonaire, you come to the field, put on your shoes and play a game. All the time. So you don’t get proper training or education. I tried to train for myself before and after training with the squad on specific things, such as dribbling. As a result, I was somewhat prepared when I came to the Netherlands, but of course it takes some getting used to,” explains the 25-year-old attacker. Montero had never been to the Netherlands before, missed his family and had to get used to the language and especially the weather in the first months. With a smile: “At first I went out every day without a coat, but it was much too cold for that.”
His football dream always prevented him from going back to Bonaire and eventually made him decide to stop his education. “But yes, if you tell someone in the Netherlands that you were top scorer and international on Bonaire, they look at you strangely. That is nothing. I had no connections, didn’t know anyone,” Montero sighs. He started in the Netherlands at VSV, a fourth-grader from Utrecht. “I scored almost in every game there, everyone asked: ‘Why do you play in the fourth division?’ After that I went to Elinkwijk, a first division. But when you say there that you still have the ambition to make it to professional football, you are laughed at. It was said that I had to score 25 goals to be in the spotlight, but that is not true. Even if you score 30 or 40 goals, you won’t be scouted. If you haven’t played in a youth club for a professional club, it is very difficult to become a professional footballer. Unless you have someone behind you who wants to help you. So I had to find another way to turn pro.”
Montero chose to exchange Elinkwijk for Kozak Boys, where he had to join the second team. “At some point I had to go to work, because I couldn’t live like that. I deliberately chose to work a night shift at PostNL, so that I would always be available to play football during the day. From work I went to sleep, train for myself in the afternoon, have a quick meal and then train with the team.” There was no breakthrough in the first of Kozak Boys, partly because the corona pandemic stopped amateur football twice just when he was allowed to join the main force. A year ago he was advised by Kozak Boys to look for another club.
“I have sent a message to all clubs in the Netherlands from the first division to the Second Division, but they barely responded. If they did, I was told my resume wasn’t good enough. I didn’t even get a chance to train with it. At ASWH I was eventually allowed to participate in a competition in the second. I scored twice in that, which allowed me to stay.” During the same period, Montero met Shelton Spier. The former football player is now active as an agent and liked the international of Bonaire. “I just started this season at ASWH and didn’t expect anything more. Until Shelton suddenly asked if I wanted to go to Spain for an internship. I immediately said ‘yes’, I wanted to try it one last time. I resigned from PostNL, despite having a permanent contract. That was a risk, but I know myself: if someone gives me a chance, I give one hundred percent. I always knew I was good enough.”
The 24-year-old who left professional football to become an agent
Football Zone spoke to Shelton Spier a year ago about his switch from professional football player to agent.
Atlético Benidorm – which plays in the sixth level of Spanish football – became convinced. Montero speaks of a ‘good experience’ on the east coast of Spain. However, the arrival of a new sporting director changed everything at Atlético Benidorm: he decided rather to move on to Spanish players, which caused most of the foreigners to leave. Montero returned to the Netherlands and then completed internships with IJsselmeervogels, Italian Serie D club Nocerina and GKS Jastrzebie in Poland’s second tier. Up to three times it came to nothing. In the Netherlands because they thought they had players with a better CV in the selection. In Italy because an accommodation could only be arranged for him in June. And in Poland because he was blamed after a defeat in an exhibition game. Although the last rejection eventually opened a door to a new possibility.
“There was no one from Jastrzebie to pick me up at the airport, I had to go to the club myself. I hadn’t eaten anything and had to play right away, but it went pretty well. The trainer thought I was good enough, so they were busy with a contract. The sporting director only wanted to watch it for a few more weeks. After a number of training sessions, the next match was on the program. Out, far away. We had a five-hour bus ride and left at seven in the morning, but I couldn’t have breakfast at the hotel until eight. I told the coach that I couldn’t play like that, I had to eat something. “Yes, after the game we can have something to eat,” he said. Montero can laugh at the story with today’s knowledge. “After we lost that game, they got mad at me. I had to get out of the hotel right away, but I couldn’t go back right away. I said: give me one day to at least book a ticket.”
His luck turned out to be a scout from Pogon Siedlce – a Poland third tier club – to have seen him play. “That scout called Jastrzebie’s trainer: ‘If you don’t want him, I will.’ So they came to get me, put me in another hotel and told me I could play a practice match the next day.” It was his third race in three days, but he managed to leave a good impression. Montero would be offered a contract in eastern Poland within three days, but in the meantime Pascani came forward within a day with a better contract offer. “So in the end I chose that. The food and the fields are not like in the Netherlands, but it is a professional club. Everything is well arranged: the accommodation, the food, the contract.”
Pascani’s team.
“No, Pascani is not such a nice city. But I come for the football, so that’s the focus. I’m a person who doesn’t drink or go to parties anyway. After the training I don’t have the energy to walk through the city anyway. A little rest and then the next day will come quickly”, continues Montero. He hopes to earn the next step in his career in Romania. “I think I’m going to be a starting player here at Pascani. We will certainly take the next step. I had to perform and eventually I hope to end up in England or Scotland. Then I must have played a certain number of international matches first, you need that to get a work permit if you are not a professional.”
His next international match is due in June, when he returns to the Caribbean for a while to play with Bonaire in the Nations League of CONCACAF. “We are looking at which players they can call up. Anyone who comes from the Netherlands can also play for Bonaire. We can become like Curaçao, they are doing well in the competition. That’s going to be great, those matches have been in my head all the time,” he says with a smile. Has a permanent return to Bonaire never crossed his mind during the past few years? “I was always focused on football, so that always kept me in the Netherlands. When it came to school, I would have gone back to Bonaire long ago. Life there is good, but football is not for me. Everyone is trying to break you, but my ambition was to make it work anyway. And in the end we succeeded.”