How the Dumfries of Inter challenged the chances of reaching the Champions League final
Baetrecht, Netherlands – It’s a warm Saturday in May, the day before the Eredivisie final round, and the seven locations of VV Smithoek, south of Rotterdam, are wrapped. Children of all ages play football, at different levels of competitiveness.
Inside, one of their youth teams celebrates the victory of their league: tradition indicates that they have given a large fried set, followed by a photo with a trophy. They have 1,275 members and the teams include players ranging from 6 to 65, the older generation playing football that walks in an area 80 years ago was agricultural land.
10 minutes by car is BVV BANDERCHT. Their nine locations are also wrapped; The clubhouse is also lifted with some of their 2,300 members. It is only a small snapshot of the amateur football scene in the Netherlands, and it is here in the suburbs of Rotterdam where Inter Milan and the back of the Netherlands Denzel Dumfries have mastered his job.
On Saturday, Dumfries, 29, will start for Inter Milan in the Champions League final, then to the World Cup qualifications in June. But while his Dutch teammates passed through the ways of the Academy from an early age, shaped by the best brains in sport, a decade ago, Dumfries was only one of the children enjoying football on Saturday morning in this part of the world with his friends, having slipped through the net of the Academy.
He joined Smitshoek at the age of 7 and played there until the age of 16, telling his teammates from a young age that he would one day play for the Netherlands. They made fun of him, but he never doubted himself. “He was a child who really stands behind his dream and who is ready for anything,” said Peter Van der Pennen, his first coach in Smithoek, Espn.
It is through hard work on the scene of amateur football and the immense self -confidence that he has progressed towards one of the best rear in the world. But it started in this corner of the Netherlands, on the old agricultural land, just south of Rotterdam.
On the wall of the clubhouse of Barerendcht, there are shirts of the Dumfries graduates, Anwar El Ghazi and Eagles Forn forn Stokkers. Smitshoek, who also has the former back-Iswich, Fabian Wilnis and Dylan Sale of Pec Zwolle among their former, have two Dumfries shirts in their consulting room, one from Inter Milan and another from PSV Eindhoven. In 2025, he was a unicorn. “We have often looked at him, the debate, but we didn’t think it was good enough,” Volkskrant in 2018 from Feyeno Scout Maup Martens told DE 2018.
“It probably has to do with its technical qualities and its size at that time,” said Van der Pennen, responding to these suggestions. “But he had other qualities that they ignored. He was fast and impressive. Each opponent was afraid of him.”
Dumfries, named Hollywood Superstar, Denzel Washington, played for Smitshoek from 2002 to 2013 (bar two years when he played for Spartaan’20 nearby, to return to Smitshoek). He then went to Bandrerecht from 2013 to 2014.
The Dumfries room was in the attic of his parents’ house, and on the inclined walls, he draws his own XI expected for the weekend match. “When we have formed a specific skill and that did not work quite, he always wanted to do it again until it works,” explains Van der Pennen. “He has also never been satisfied when he was substituted; he always thought in himself that he was better than the one who replaced him. But with a sulky face, he came out of the way.”
Van der Pennen remembers a match where they already had the championship linked and won, but Dumfries has always driven out a passage. “He failed to keep the ball and fell on his knees, slamming the grass, even if the match was already easily won,” said Van der Pennen.
“He has never been a guy like Messi, but he has always been so sure of his own abilities and confident that he would arrive at the top,” his Bandarercht coach told Espn Lesley Esajas. “He was hyperactive, he never stopped running. If he took a corner, he was trying to enter the box himself.”
Dumfries used to regularly visit the Esajas house for dinner during the week, but Esajas remembers about 17 years old when he refused fries and mayonnaise – the basic food on Wednesday – when he started taking nutrition seriously. “He said,” No, no, I need vegetables. “” His teammates at the time talked about the way Dumfries would jump the weekend celebrations, rather focusing on her physical form.
Jordi Dekker, which leads to the under 14 of Smitshoek, played alongside Dumfries from 10 to 14 years old. The team played a total 3-3-4 attack, with Dumfries at the central back.
“There was a match where we won 5-4, then conceded a late late equalizer,” said Dekker. “Denzel was furious; he grabbed the other defender by the skin of the neck and crumpled his shirt.” On another occasion, when he was 14 years old, Dumfries wore an Ajax kit for a session – this is the country of Feyenoord, remember. Dekker adds: “His coach was unhappy and said he was cleaning up the training ground, but Denzel was immediately on his bike, returning home.”
In 2014, when Dumfries was 18 years old, Sparta Rotterdam took him a shift. (He also represented Aruba twice in friendly matches against Guam.) He played there in the reserves – where he learned the winner of the Ajax Champions League and the Netherlands in the back Michael Reizer – before being signed with a senior contract. “It is much stronger than me and has much more pulmonary capacity. It can go far,” said Reiziger at the time.
Dumfries quickly received admired looks elsewhere. “He has a lot of conditions to reach the absolute summit,” said Sparta coach Alex Pastoor at the time. “Just look at her physique. If you can come 80 times a half … These are things that ultimately do the biggest clubs in the world.” Heerenveen then signed it in 2017 for an amount of € 750,000. A season later, the PSV paid 5.5 million euros for its transfer, which saw Bandrerecht and Smitshoek win € 90,000 (compensation for the work set up by amateur clubs for professional players). Smitshoek spent this windfall to reorganize his clubhouse.
DUMFRIES has progressed to become captain of the PSV. “Denzel was not the player with a velvet technique, but he had a plain mentality and perseverance,” explains Van der Pennen. In 2021, Inter Milan recovered for an amount of 14.25 million euros. He represented the Netherlands at two euros and the 2022 World Cup won the Scudetto with Inter Milan last year and helped them in the Champions League final this quarter, especially by marking twice in the semi-finals against Barcelona. But he did all this despite the academic system, which guides and shapes young players in a professional environment. Matthijs de Ligt came by De Toekomst (Ajax’s Academy), where he was educated and received full -time expert advice on each facet of his development as a player. Meanwhile, Dumfries would train twice a week after school and play on Saturday without any help on nutrition and fitness, just knowledge of the volunteers who help him.
Dumfries himself declared in an interview of 2019 with Voetbal International: “People who did not see it in me were limited in their vision. They only looked at me at the time, but they should have looked further. They should have thought:” How can he develop? “I think everyone should have this prospect, and not limit yourself to something so small.”
Dumfries still holds its roots. His parents live near Smitshoek. He works with the brother of Lesley Esajas, Errol, on the formation of movements – Errol visits him in Milan every two weeks. Dumfries invited them to Feyenoord-Inter Milan as guests and the return leg of Milan. “He still works on himself,” said Esajas. “That’s why he did.”
The day after his beginnings in the Netherlands against Germany in October 2018, he opened the field n ° 9 to Bandrerecht. After their team under 16 won the League this year, he sent a video message, wishing them well in their careers. “I always understand goosebumps [goose bumps] Watching him play, “said Esajas.” He did everything to be a star. “”
At the end of this season, 10 players aged 9 to 17 will pass from Barererecht in professional clubs, with Sparta Rotterdam by taking three. There are generally five scouts present in Smitshoek and Bandrerecht on Saturday morning. They look at players as young as 6 years old, seeking to keep them away from their friends and amateur teams at one of the pro eredivisie games. The two clubs have links with Feyenoord, but that does not stop Sparta Rotterdam, Ajax, PSV and countless others from the sending of eyes and ears to find the next star of the Netherlands.
It is the arms race for football. Some scouts, according to sources, use sneaky means to go around how happy ways, who says they must first approach the club before talking to the parents to attract their sons and their daughters to join the academies of their attached team. But among all these talented young people, only a pinch will do so, many will be thrown.
“The fact is that with these young players, there is no natural progression – some peaks early, certain peaks late,” explains Leen Vos, director of the Bandrerech facilities and acting youth chief. “They need space to grow.” Even then, with each contribution, the scouts ignore a lot of them in favor of game leaders. “These guys forget things like the importance of power and win the mentality”, explains Esajas. “There are a lot of players like Denzel, who just need time, but the scouts will not see that. They just look for players like Jong Frenkie. Denzel needed space to do his own thing.”
In 2022, during the National Football Day in the Netherlands, the Dutch players wore shirts from their first football club. Dumfries opted for Smitshoek orange. The club’s youth program is now called “Oranje à Oranje”, reflecting the trip of Dumfries de Smitshoek to the Netherlands, according to the representative of the Club Marcel Van Den Eijnden. In Bandrerecht, they always use dumfries as an example to motivate the children who play there every weekend.
But those who saw the incredible late rise in dumfries of amateur ranks at the height of the Champions League do not think that we will never come back from him. The haste to bring talented children into academies, and what they are looking for, means that Dumfries will remain an aberrant value.
“Children do not have the space they need to grow in football,” said your. “If they are technically talented, they will be brought to an academy, then they are in the system. Any bad step, and they are released. If they have physical attributes but not yet the competence, they will be lost. What distinguishes Denzel was his self -confidence and his state of mind. It is so rare.”
