Daniel Parejo – Valencia
Still just 23 years of age, Madrid-born midfielder Dani Parejo has already enjoyed more than his fair share of footballing limelight.
Having joined the prestigious Real Madrid youth setup aged 14, Parejo was earmarked early on as a potential star of the future. Head coach at the time Bernd Schuster certainly echoed the sentiments of Parejo’s Castilla coaches, offering him the invaluable experience of training with a first-team littered with Galacticos Casillas, Raúl and Robinho to name but a few.
Offered the taste of first-team action with 4 appearances during the 2006-07 season, many would have expected Parejo to go on to fulfil the expectations many in the know had of him from a young age.
But alas, as with many modern-day footballing prodigies, Parejo was subsequently starved of further opportunity to flourish in the company of those that could have taught him so much, and was loaned to English side Queen’s Park Rangers in a bid to culture the still-raw, stuttering flame of talent Parejo undoubtedly possessed.
A relatively nondescript loan in London was followed by the anticlimactic part-exchange with Getafe’s Esteban Granero in July 2009. Many would have seen this as the ideal platform for Parejo’s career to finally take off, relieved of the pressures that come with being part of a side of Real Madrid’s magnitude, without the need to move from his native Madrid, Getafe’s Coliseum Alfonso Pérez just a short distance from the Bernabéu.
Parejo’s time in West London failed to ignite his career.
Getafe enjoyed a fine season in Parejo’s maiden year with the club, qualifying for the UEFA Europa League for just the second time in its history. With Parejo’s stock slowly back on a positive incline, the following season represented an individual breakthrough for the midfielder, playing 36 matches as Getafe narrowly avoided relegation in a difficult campaign.
It was his growing influence in the heart of the Getafe midfield that prompted current employers Valencia to launch a successful €6m bid to bring him to the Mestalla. 27 league appearances later, it is Parejo’s performance in tonight’s UEFA Champions League Round of 16 game against Paris St. Germain that has placed the tireless midfielder back on my radar.
In a fast-paced game in front of an expectant Valencian crowd, Dani Parejo was assigned the unenviable task of sitting behind fellow midfielders Éver Banega and Tino Costa, and keeping tabs on the vastly interchangeable and highly dynamic attacking ensemble of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Lucas Moura and Javier Pastore. A big ask for a young man still on the periphery of the Valencia team on a week-to-week basis, Parejo did not disappoint.
Despite PSG’s 2-0 lead at the interval, Parejo’s vigilant and disciplined work in tracking the runs of the aforementioned trio was invaluable to his team’s desperate attempts to not allow the tie to slip out of reach before it had really begun. Perhaps the most memorable moment, facing his own byline with the ball in the corner, was the former Madridista’s composure and calmness in finding fullback Joao Pereira, epitomising the great strides made by Parejo over the last 4 years following his departure from the Bernabéu.
Parejo tussles with PSG’s Ezequiel Lavezzi.
The game culminated in an eventual 2-1 loss, an industrious performance in a role notorious for its lack of glamour and recognition will have no doubt pleased manager Ernesto Valverde, with repeats of the job carried out tonight bound to be noticed by the ever-circling ‘bigger clubs’ of European football.
For a player whose footballing life to date has been one riddled with turbulence and forged through old-fashioned hard work and persistence, Parejo hardly looked out of place sharing a pitch with a team of opposition players whose accumulated transfer fees smashes the €200m barrier. Perhaps his refusal to be outshone by the sparkling array of millionaires in blue had a part to play in Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s late dismissal for an incident involving Parejo, but one thing is for sure; the Valencia man can be more than proud of his display on an evening that threatened much with Lavezzi’s early goal.
It is easy in this day and age to forget the tender years of football’s biggest stars, and indeed many fall in to the trap of expecting too much, too soon. Yet, at 23, Parejo’s prime still beckons, and with their uncanny habit of buying players back having deemed them surplus to requirements prematurely, don’t be surprised to hear whispers of Real Madrid seeking a newer model of the ‘Guti role’, with Xabi Alonso 31 and still the subject of rumours linking him with a return to England with Liverpool.
Born in to the unfortunate era of Spanish international dominance, any designs Parejo has on the international stage will be those of unattainable dreams for now, but with solid appearances in the U19s, U20s and U21s under his belt in the past, a steady progression on his current trajectory would do this young footballer no harm at all. La Rojita will have educated him well for such a call-up, were it come.