Dani Parejo: The wonderkid shining on the biggest stage
By Tiago de Veth
Since joining the Yellows back in the summer of 2020, Dani Parejo has helped Villarreal CF to reach heights the club had never seen before — namely, winning the 2021 UEFA Europa League, the first ever major trophy for the Yellow Submarine. He may only have played two seasons for Villarreal so far, but Parejo will go down as a club legend for his amazing achievements to date. And may they continue!
Dani Parejo: “Feliz en mi puesta de largo como groguet… Ahora, a seguir trabajando que esto no ha hecho más que empezar! Endavant!”
Dani Parejo: “Happy with my first time dressing as a ‘groguet’… Now to keep on working since it has only just begun!”
Dani Parejo joined Villarreal CF on the 12th of August 2020 from Valencia CF on a free transfer and signed a four-year contract. He previously played for Valencia CF since 2011. Francis Coquelin came with Dani Parejo from the same team in the same transfer.
Coming from Valencia CF as the captain for many years and going to the local rival club, made it difficult for Dani Parejo to process the media’s opinions, especially as he played for them for almost a decade. There were definitely some people against him but he was very happy to start a new challenge at a new club, and letting the pressure of the former club and its fans go away. It also helped him to join a nearby team since it was not a big change for him. Also being a LaLiga legend, having played only 14 games for a club outside of a LaLiga team in his whole career, it was not going to take long for him to get adjusted to Villarreal CF.
Villarreal CF was very happy to have acquired him, knowing that he is one of the most underrated midfielders to have ever played and being criticised and not appreciated for everything he had done for his previous team, especially as he was the captain for the club for so many years. Upon joining the Yellow Submarine, Parejo said, “ I used to wake up thinking about what would happen today or tomorrow because every week there was a problem. I’ve freed myself a bit, and I’m enjoying it.”
Dani Parejo’s name first started going around the media when he joined the youth academy team of Real Madrid at the age of 14. He quickly started to rise to the top and big players started to say that he will become one of the greatest players in football. People were excited to see him play for theReal Madrid B team, but his magic and connection with the team slightly drifted away. He still got the chance to play five games with the first team of Real Madrid in LaLiga matches, but the club was not pleased with his performance and therefore loaned him to Queen Park Rangers where he played his only 14 games in a club outside of Spain in his whole career so far.
After the short loan, he quickly joined Getafe CF for three million Euros in hopes to get more playing time and be able to show his skills. The two seasons with Getafe CF were not the best since the team was fighting for relegation and it was difficult for him to perform against much better teams. He finally joined his dream team Valencia CF which quickly became a nightmare, not only by having difficulties adapting to Unai Emery’s coaching, who is also his current coach, but also because he was not playing at his full potential and fans started targeting him as the fault for the team’s bad season.
Slowly but surely he managed to show what he was capable of. Shortly after this spell, he became one of the best players in the team and then was made captain. The team management was very poor and with Parejo being the captain he soon started to get all the blame for the team’s bad performances, especially because Valencia CF was fighting for relegation! This soon finished when Dani Parejo started to play like when he was a kid, standing out and leading Valencia CF to a fourth-place finish in LaLiga two seasons in a row, winning the Copa del Rey in 2019 vs FC Barcelona and getting his first call to play for the national team in his career. A year later Dani Parejo joined Villarreal CF.
Dani Parejo has already shown the world that he can still perform at the highest level of football. He truly went far and beyond in his first season at Villarreal CF playing a total of 53 games, taking Villarreal to seventh position in LaLiga by playing 36 out of 38 games but most importantly winning his and the club’s first-ever European Competition, the UEFA Europa League in which he played in all the games. Dani Parejo didn’t stop there. In the following season, he helped Villarreal CF to get their second semi-final of the UEFA Champions League in their history and finished seventh in LaLiga.
He finally managed to prove to the world what Alfred Di Stefano said about him when he joined Real Madrid’s youth team at the age of 14 — “He is the best player the Real Madrid youth academy has ever seen.”
