Darwin Nunez put injury hell as a teenager behind him to become Uruguay’s latest superstar

Nunez’s form at Benfica has been recognised with a £85million summer switch to Liverpool

Darwin Nunez, the most expensive signing in Liverpool’s history, nearly gave up football as a 17-year-old prodigy in Uruguay after having difficulty recovering from a catastrophic knee injury.

He will remember former Uruguayan international and Penarol youth team coach Jose Perdomo, who found him and later assisted in persuading him to continue, as he dons a Liverpool shirt for the first time.

To Fabian Coito, the former Uruguay U-20 coach, who selected Darwin for the national young team despite concerns from others, including Darwin himself.

He told his mother Silvia that he intended to take him to Montevideo, but she objected, saying, “Not Darwin too!” Having watched her son Junior relocate to Penarol in an attempt to make it, she stated.Nunez initially found it difficult to adjust to life away from his little community, where his father was a builder and his mother cleaned houses. He moved 400 miles south and first resided in the busy capital in shared quarters with other young aspirants.And when competing in the national league’s second division, he tore the cruciate ligament in his right knee, just as he was starting to adjust and progress to Penarol’s B-team.Every advancement came to a standstill, and every promise was questioned.He underwent surgery in February 2017 to address the injury, but the recuperation process was so difficult that he almost decided to go back home with his parents, who had by then joined him in Montevideo.By now, brother Junior, an attacking midfielder, had given up on his professional football career and was set to become a police officer. Darwin started to worry if he would have the same destiny.Although he had first projected to recover from the injury in six months, it took him more than eighteen months to return to regular action.

Nunez (right, pictured playing for Penarol) struggled to cope with the transition when he was first plucked from his small home town of Artigas to live and play out of Montevideo

Having been convinced not to turn his back on football, Nunez soon became a hot prospect

After seeing enough of him as an international colleague, Luis Suarez instructed Barcelona to sign Nunez as a long-term replacement at Camp Nou. They regret that the advice was ignored.

In the south of Spain, Núnez found happiness and used his earnings to purchase land for his parents. He told them, “It’s a gift for everything you did for me,” during an earlier this year UEFA interview.

Nunez came to Benfica after Barcelona and Brighton were unable to match Benfica’s salary offer. Nunez had a challenging first season before being fully supported by the Eagles in his second year.

He had gone from being questioned about his U-20 selection to becoming a well-known international by now.

Despite Nunez’s ongoing post-injury struggles, U-20s coach Coito selected him for the South American U-20 Championships at the beginning of 2019.

“It was difficult to remove the injury from his head,” he remarks. Injuries can also be difficult psychologically.

Nunez was among the stars of the U-20 World Cup in Poland a few months after Coito persevered despite his missed opportunities in that competition and the increased criticism on social media.

The striker, who is currently at Liverpool, will never forget the role his old U-20s coach had in supporting him.

When we played Uruguay, Coito remembers, “I went to coach the Honduran team and he came looking for me in our dressing room and we shook hands and he gave me an embrace.”

That’s fantastic since things may have turned so differently, I simply thought. I could have placed the blame and pointed the finger at him as the coach. But even though he didn’t score the goals, he still had good recollections of it.

How near did Nunez, in Coito’s opinion, come to giving up?

“I had the impression that it had crossed his mind at some point, even though he never said it to me,” he says.

Despite its small size, the capital city of Uruguay can sometimes seem far from home. Young athletes may become irate and want to leave the field right once, particularly if they suffer a serious setback like an injury.

Coaches needed to keep on top of Nunez as he would regularly doubt his own capabilities

He spent time in Spain’s second division before honing his talents even more when at Benfica

La Diaria’s Uruguayan football journalist Fermin Mendez has tracked Nunez’s ascent and comprehends how he started to question his own abilities.

“There was a real obligation to deliver in Penarol,” he claims. They might wait for you for a few games, but they won’t wait for you if you don’t score goals. The expectations may wind up holding the younger players captive.

He was called up to the Uruguayan senior team at the same time he moved to Almeria, and in October 2019, he scored his first goal five minutes after entering the game against Peru.

He had always wanted to play with Suarez, and now he is both his international teammate and the newest addition to Suarez’s previous squad.

Does Coito think any parallels exist? He claims that Suarez is more competitive. Darwin is more naturally athletic. He scores goals and moves quickly.

The figure paid for Nunez (right) surpasses the £75m the Reds paid for Virgil van Dijk (left)

The 22-year-old Uruguay international joins an extremely talented attack under Jurgen Klopp

To continue evolving, he had to travel to Europe. Learning how to maximize the available space and conserve energy is important since Uruguayan strikers run a lot—sometimes too much—despite having the intelligence to move swiftly and reach their maximum speed.

Journalist Fermin from La Diaria is a supporter of Liverpool. Not the Liverpool team from Merseyside, but the same-named club from Montevideo, who recently won the Uruguayan league. The guy reminds him more of Edinson Cavani, Suarez’s international teammate.

“His growth with Almeria was amazing,” he remarks. He now appears to be more like Cavani. He is extremely full.

Nunez, like he did with Almeria in Spain and then with Portugal, will have to adjust to Liverpool.

However, the knowledge gained while he was a teenager, away from home, and facing the uncertainty of a budding career, will only assist him in achieving that.