The story of the underappreciated magician Dani Pareja. What makes the “walker” so useful to Villarreal?

If you have ever seen Villarreal play, you must have noticed the central midfielder with the number 5 and the name tag Dani Parejo. A footballer who looks like he can’t make a quicker move in 90 minutes on the pitch, he can dominate and be a key player even in tough duels. How can he do that?

Football is moving immensely forward. The demands on players’ athleticism are constantly increasing, matches are played at a much higher speed, every year football is more aggressive, more emphatic, more dynamic. So when you look at Dani Pareja, you get the feeling that time has stopped.

Because the Villarreal midfielder is definitely not one of the fastest. Don’t go in with any big runs on him, on the pitch he looks like he can do the whole game at a walk. Still, the coaches don’t let up on him and he is a key player for the team. How does he do it?

Pareja is adorned with immense game intelligence. He knows when to speed up the game and when to slow it down. His feet may not be faster, but his brain is working at full speed. As a result, he rarely loses the ball and knows exactly how to handle every situation.

In Tuesday’s Champions League match against Juventus, he scored at 1-1 when he capitalised on a Capoue centre from a volley. His performance earned him the award for the best player of the match, which was more than justified. Parejo distributed 81 passes and had a 91% success rate. This was the most of any player on the pitch, the other Capoue had only 66 passes.

Passing is Parejo’s biggest strength. Like a true Spaniard, he has incredible technique and can release his teammates into good space with his accurate passes.

He is also extremely useful for the team by playing standard situations. As soon as Parejo is on the ball, defenders and goalkeepers declare a state of utmost emergency and it practically doesn’t matter where he plays the ball from. the 32-year-old midfielder has already racked up several goals or assists from these situations.

Coach Unai Emery has built an entire game around him. Parejo is a conductor, a director, but also sometimes a finisher, as he was against Juventus. This season he has collected 2 goals and 8 assists, in the last one he had a record of 3+7. Parejo is an extremely underrated player who deserves more respect and praise. But his career is riddled with it.

An underrated career

It all started very promising. Parejo joined Real Madrid’s academy when he was 14 years old. The legendary Alfredo di Stéfano even stated that he was one of the best youngsters he had ever seen in the academy. And that’s quite an honour. But the skilful midfielder made it to the B-team, where he gradually began to fade and with just three starts for the A-team, he left for Getafe.

There he played a decent two seasons, scored 7 goals and then came the transfer to Valencia, Pareja’s life club. He played 9 seasons for the Bats, played 383 games, scored 63 goals and added 64 assists. He became an absolute legend and an icon of the club, even though he didn’t always have it easy.

After a difficult start, Parejo became a key player for Valencia and a nightmare for Real Madrid and Barcelona, against whom he performed extremely well. In the 2014/15 season, he had a personal best season, scoring 12 goals, adding 5 assists and dragging Valencia to 4th place in La Liga guaranteeing the Champions League.

It’s just that Valencia have a management that is left to stand on its own. Fans have been fighting for the departure of Peter Lim for several years now, but to no avail. In 2015-17, he began to sell off the squad in a senseless manner and Parejo was left to fend for himself. As captain of the team, huge criticism rained down on him, even though he continued to be the best player on the team and the reason that Valencia stayed above the relegation abyss.

Fans saw him as the reason for Valencia’s decline, he was slow, there were opinions that you can’t achieve anything with a “walker” in the middle of the pitch.

Pareja was so hurt by the fans’ constant insults that he wanted to leave his beloved Valencia in 2017. But in came the great coach Marcelino, who got Pareja to stay, built a team around him at Mestalla and the technical midfielder began to shine again. Thanks to his performances, he not only won back the fans’ favour, but also his first invitations to the Spanish national team.

Valencia finished in the Top 4 twice in a row, the highlight came in 2019 when the eastern Spanish side beat Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final, winning their first trophy in 11 years and Parejo was there as captain.

Only that was when the world’s worst football club owner, which is without a doubt Peter Lima, stepped in again. The fans’ ecstasy that Valencia was back quickly faded. Lima fired coach Marcelino at the start of the new season after just three rounds and made an even worse move, shocking the entire football world.

He sent club captain and icon Dani Pareja to rival Villarreal for a ridiculous and insulting €2.5 million. Pareja’s value at the time had not dropped below €25 million. What he intended with this move, no one will probably ever know.

Villarreal, however, made a fantastic deal. In his first season, Parejo led the yellow submarine to victory in the Europa League and thus the club’s first ever trophy. In the final against Manchester United, he passed to Moreno for the goal, and in the shootout he safely converted his penalty.

Now he has helped Villarreal to qualify from the Champions League group stage, scored a goal for Juventus in the eighth-final and was named player of the match. And all this in his traditional “walk”. Parejo is living proof that you don’t have to be like everyone else. And even with a slight disability in terms of speed and mobility, it is possible to play at the highest level.

Source: Transfermarkt, UEFA