Ajax will meet a vulnerable Benfica next Wednesday in the first leg of the eighth final of the Champions League. The 37-time champion of Portugal is experiencing a somewhat disappointing season and seems to be able to forget the national title, a nine points behind leader FC Porto, but in the inconsistently performing team of interim coach Nélson Veríssimo, Darwin Núñez is an obvious bright spot. Benfica is convinced that the 22-year-old Uruguayan striker will soon become the most expensive-selling player in club history.
By Chris Meijer
The fact that Benfica is working towards the first meeting with Ajax with a hungover feeling is partly due to Kenji Gorré. The attacker came in on Friday evening at a 0-2 deficit and with an assist ensured that Boavista came back to 2-2 in the final phase. “It could have been 0-4 or 0-5 in the first half. We were not there, lost all second balls: it was just really not good,” says Gorré in conversation with Football zone about the duel between Boavista and Benfica. “After the break, there was a completely different Boavista, with a different spirit. The fans stood behind us and gave us the spirit to keep fighting for a result. It’s pretty crazy how that went, we got a boost, started creating chances and should have won the game. We had more possession, more shots and created more chances.” Boavista also managed to neutralize the most dangerous man in Benfica – or even the Portuguese fields – with Núñez.
Child of the favela
El Pirata. The name of the favela in the northern Uruguayan city of Artigas alone reveals that it is no fun living there. What little people have there is under constant threat from the Rio Quaraí. When the river – which forms the natural border between Uruguay and Brazil – overflows, the entire slum is flooded. It’s not even the residents’ worst concern. Every day it is a challenge to put bread on the shelf. Núñez’s father was a construction worker, his mother worked as a cleaner. And when there wasn’t enough money coming in, she scoured the streets of Artigas collecting bottles and earning a little extra. More than once, Núñez and his brother Junior went to bed hungry.
Football was a way out. José Perdomo once caught a thin striker during a youth match between San Miguel de Artigas and Bella Unión. Peñarol’s scout was charmed by his movements, explosiveness and way of working his way past opponents. He reported to the parents, whose eldest son Junior also played in the youth academy of the Uruguayan top club. “The mother said to me, ‘You already took Junior away from me. But Darwin, no. You won’t take him away. Let’s wait a little longer, he’s still young and I don’t want to lose him. I already miss Junior a lot’. It was a difficult situation,” Perdomo told the BBC† “It took three or four months to convince the mother. And when she finally did, she wasn’t very friendly to me. She got very angry.”
Núñez moors on behalf of Peñarol during the Copa Libertadores match against Club San José.
Mother Núñez saw her youngest son back in Artigas within a few months. “They put me in a small house with the other guys who came from outside Montevideo. I don’t know what happened, but I went back to Artigas. A year later I returned to Peñarol. Juan Ahuntchaín (then head of youth education, ed.) promised that he would take me under his wing,” Núñez said in an interview with El Observador† Soon after, the eldest scion of the Núñez brothers returned to the family home. Family problems forced Junior to give up his football dream and go to work. “When he left Peñarol, he said: ‘Stay, you have a future here’. He gave me the chance.”
fate
At the age of sixteen, Núñez first appeared on the training field with the main force of Peñarol. A stormy breakthrough at a very young age seemed imminent, until disaster struck. “A ball fell in between, I jumped and fell completely through my knee. I saw everything go up in smoke,” Núñez said of the moment he tore his cruciate ligament at the age of 17. Normally, there is a rehabilitation period of six to nine months for such an injury, but Núñez was out of circulation for a year and a half. He initially returned to the field with pain and made his debut in professional football, but eventually had to undergo a second operation on his kneecap. More than once, it haunted his mind to stop and go back to Artigas. The thought of lifting his parents out of poverty kept him going.
As of 2018, Núñez needed just 21 appearances for Peñarol to earn a move to Europe. Almeria paid seven million euros two and a half years ago to bring him to Spain. “He can become one of the best players in the world if he continues to work as hard as he does now. Physically and technically he is great. Fast, powerful, a real winner and very hungry: a very talented player. He is determined to give his family a better life, that makes his potential enormous,” said José Gomes, then coach of Almeria. Sport† The Segunda División turned out to be the perfect stepping stone for Núñez in Europe. With a total of sixteen goals, he helped Almería make the play-offs for promotion to LaLiga, in which Girona was too strong in the semi-finals.
Luis Suárez tipped Núñez in the past to Barcelona to no avail.
The season turned out to be enough for Núñez to take the next step. “I have fifteen years of experience in international football, so I know a thing or two about strikers. At Barcelona I said: keep an eye on him, he is very good and has very interesting qualities,” Luis Suarez revealed. Barcelona scouts already saw Núñez at work in Uruguay and the Catalans negotiated after being impressed by his first season in Europe in an informal setting with Almería, but missed out on Benfica’s vigor. The Portuguese top club was willing to pay 24 million euros, an amount that in Spain only Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid will pay for a player from the Segunda División.
really shining
Núñez’s first year in Portugal was not spectacular with 14 goals in 44 matches, but this season he is the absolute eye-catcher at Benfica with 23 goals in 27 matches. “At the moment he is really shining, he is really important to Benfica. You can see his progression. It didn’t go well in the beginning, but you can see that he really plays with confidence now. He’s really starting to become the player he can be. I think we will be hearing a lot more from him,” says Gorré. The international from Curaçao – who exchanged Nacional for Boavista six months ago – played five times against Benfica and Núñez in the past two seasons. Earlier this season, the striker personally gave Benfica a 3-1 victory over Boavista at the Estadio Da Luz with two goals. Did Boavista now have a specific plan to defuse him?
‘I was having breakfast every day with guys like Giggs, Pogba and Scholes’
Football Zone previously spoke to Kenji Gorré when he was loaned out to Estoril by Nacional.
“Not really specific. We know what his qualities are and what kind of player he is. For us it was a matter of concentrating on ourselves”, Gorré answers. Boavista has held Benfica to a draw twice this season after defeat in the first half of the season: 1-1 last month in the Allianz Cup semi-final (3-2 loss on penalties) and 2-2 last Friday in the league. “What are we going to do with the ball? What are we going to do to win this match? It had nothing to do with specific players per se. Of course Benfica will have a problem if they can’t reach Nuñez, but they also have top quality in midfield and defense. Otamendi and Vertonghen have a lot of experience, the team can build on that. I also think João Mário and Adel Taarabt are top players, they can really influence the game. But we also have top players. Javi García was solid in defense and that gave us a good base.”
It would not have been close, or Ajax would not have had to take Núñez into account. West Ham United were concrete in the market for the striker during the last transfer window and even made an offer of 48 million euros, but Benfica had no intention of cooperating with a transfer. Benfica thinks it can leave a multiple of this amount to Núñez. “He was Benfica’s most expensive purchase. If there is no new pandemic, he will also become the most expensive-selling player in club history. He’s going to be a world-class player. Unfortunately, we will lose him soon,” Jorge Jesus – fired from Benfica in December – said last season in conversation with SportsTV† If Núñez is indeed to become the most expensive-selling player in Benfica’s club history, he will have to dig deep for him. The record is provisionally held by João Félix, for whom Atlético Madrid paid 126 million euros in the summer of 2019. With Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, AC Milan, West Ham United, Newcastle United and Barcelona already emphatically following him, that is certainly not impossible.
The diptych with Ajax is a good opportunity for Núñez to continue playing in the spotlight. Gorré expects a exciting game† “We decided at halftime to put more pressure on. The wingers had to put pressure on the centre-backs, so I did that at Otamendi. As a result, they started to make mistakes,” Gorré says. “Ajax plays with pressure up front anyway, so I think they will control the match. But what matters is that you attract the competition to you. Benfica is not going through its best period, but everything can change very quickly when you have so many qualities in the squad. You never know, but I think Ajax will continue.”