E
uropean club football
is bursting with a
sudden explosion of
young African talent,
but few have had the
dramatic journey or
shown the resilience
and promise of teenager MusaJuwara.
The18-year-old from The Gambia
made a sensational entrée in Serie A
during lockdown at the belated end
of the last season with Bologna, and
much is expected from him in the new
league campaign after joining Boavista
on loan on transfer deadline day –
even if the Portuguese club are
expected to nurture his progress
with patience and caution.
Plus, he will soon get a chance to
go home with The Gambia national
team for the resumption of the Africa
Cup of Nations qualifiers after leaving
the small west African nation aged just
14 and undertaking a perilous journey
across the Mediterranean in a dinghy
among the flood of Africans seeking
economic opportunity in Europe.
Juwara was among the luckier ones,
plucked from the sea by a German
NGO rescue ship, but docking in
Messina and sent to a reception
centrefor unaccompanied minors
in Ruoti. It was there, kicking a ball
around, that local amateur team Virtus
Avigliano gave him an opportunity to
play and after a while, the coach
Vitantonio Summa and his wife
Loredana Bruno, became his legal
guardian. At the end of the 2016-17
season, Virtus Avigliano won their
regional championship with the young
Gambian the centre point and his
reputation quickly extending beyond
the south of Italy.
But there was still a legal stumbling
block that had to be overcome before
he could move to Chievo and play in
their Primavera side. Initially the Italian
federation would not let him play,
citing new anti-exploitation rules for
young illegal immigrants, but after a
legal battle he was allowed to move,
along with his adopted family to the
north, where his new club also offered
a chance at some education.
Juwara has not looked back since,
dominating the juniors, and on the last
day of Chievo’s latest Serie A stay in
May 2019 made an Italian top-flightdebut in the latter stages of the game
against Frosinone, with both clubs
already relegated.
Bologna did not hesitate to sign
him soon thereafter, for a reported
€500,000, and he continued to bang
in the goals at junior level, while being
integrated into first-team training by
coach Sinisa Mihajlovic. Last December
he made his debut in the first team in
the Coppa Italia at Udinese, and in
February, just before lockdown, a brief
run late in the league game at Roma.
But it was a first Serie A goal inJuly
that thrust the teen into the worldwide
spotlight, coming off the bench to
equalise in Bologna’s eventual 2-1
victory at third-placed Internazionale.
“It’s a dream come true for me and
I will remember this for the rest of my
life,” he told TV viewers straight after.
Now more regular first-team football
in Portugal’s Primeira Liga and a
promising international career await.
When The Gambia’s Belgian
coach Tom Saintfiet went to meet
him inJanuary, he was impressed by
not only his talented ability but his
desire too. “His speed, qualities and
skills are all heightened by a sense
of motivation,” he said.
Juwara, ironically, is not the only
refugee from The Gambia who has
broken through in Italy in recent
times. Ebrima Darboe,19, has been
elevated to Roma’s first-team squad
this season and his story will have a
similar resonance when he makes his
expected breakthrough, while Catania
defender Kalifa Manneh has been
playing in Serie C and also overcame
much danger and peril to travel to
Europe in an effort to live his dream.
Mark Gleesonsupporting teams good enough to
make occasional appearances in the
national first division. And further
inland there is Chapeco – whose local
team were state champions in1977,
1996, 2007, 2011, 2016 and 2017.
A repeat performance looked
unlikely earlier this year. Chapecoense
got off to a poor start, and only scraped
into the knockout stages. But after the
pandemic shutdown, it was clear that
coach Umberto Louzer had got the
balance of his team right. His side hit
form at the right time, and a compact
defensive unit made them very hard
to score against. They kept clean
sheets in both legs of the final, against
surprise side Brusque, winning 2-0 at
home and1-0 away to be crowned
state champions for the seventh time.
Chapecoense, then, are the kings of
Santa Catarina. But this is a little club
that has learned to have big ambitions.
The priority now is to get back to the
first division, and in the early rounds
of the Serie B campaign, Louzer’s
men have retained their defensive
meanness and made a sound start.
There are new chapters to be written
in the Chapecoense story. The mouse
would love to roar once more.
Tim Vickery
Bundle...Juwara
is swamped by his
team-mates after
scoring v InterMusa Juwara
The incredible rise of Africa’s next big thing
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