Lto hecatomb of Barcelona in Lisbon against Benfica In the match on day 2 of the Champions League group stage, it started with a name of its own: Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro. Start from the left leaving Eric García sitting and goal after three minutes. An action that they know well in another corner of Spain.
And is that the 22-year-old Uruguayan striker played a season, the 2019-20, at Almería in LaLiga Smartbank. He went through the promise radar that Turki Al-Sheikh always has on and became the most expensive signing of the Indálico club, who paid Peñarol about 8 million euros.
The season was ‘movidita’ in the Andalusian team, which came to have three coaches (Pedro Emanuel, Guti and Mario Silva), but Darwin did not care. Marked a whopping 16 goals, He was the undisputed leader of the team and began to attract the attention of teams with much higher heights.
There appeared the Benfica, which put on the table 25 million euros and broke all records, making the striker the most expensive transfer in the history of LaLiga Smartbank .. and also in the most expensive signing of the Liga NOS in Portugal.
I promised myself that the first thing I would do as a professional would be to buy my parents a house
In his first campaign he began to gain a foothold over the months in the starting eleven, and ended the 2020-21 with 14 goals Scored between all competitions. And this course, again with Jorge Jesus at the controls of the bench, He has already 6 targets. All this even made, coincidences -or not- of fate, Barça came to probe his signing the last winter market. “Darwin Núñez would be magic medicine for Barcelona”, his former president Turki Al-Sheik said.
Beginnings in Peñarol and his almost retirement due to an injury
Darwin Nunez tI have to row more than necessary to reach the Uruguayan team and European football. “My father was a laborer, and he worked all day so that he could bring us food and shoes to walk with. My mother was a housewife, and she would go out looking for bottles in the street and then sell them“, declared a few years ago the now Benfica player.
My father was a laborer, and he worked all day so that he could bring us food and shoes to walk with. My mother was a housewife, and she would go out looking for bottles in the street and then sell them
His football beginnings were in Peñarol, with whom he debuted in 2017 without having reached the age of majority, but shortly before he was close to leaving the ball forever. It was in the second team, playing in Third, when a ligament injury stopped everything. A year and a half stopped, with doubts whether to continue or not, but the strength of those around him made him stronger. “My family was very supportive of me, and I promised myself that the first thing I would do as a professional would be to buy my parents a house.”
In his debut, in fact, the ‘ghosts’ of the injury reappeared when he entered the field of play replacing Maxi Rodríguez in the Closing Tournament of 2017 and ended the match sore with tears in his eyes. Some tears that, years later, turned to happiness, as when He made his debut with a goal in the Uruguayan absolute on October 16, 2019.
Darwin has already fulfilled his first great dream, he gave his parents the house they deserved … but he still sees many more on the horizon. Its clause is 150 million. And with only 22 years.
