His boots are on fire, and not for the first time. When Samuel Chimerenka Chukwueze was a boy growing up in Umahia, southeast Nigeria, all he wanted to do was play football but his mum had other ideas. The way he recalls it, Sarah was so determined for him to become a doctor, and for sport not to get in the way of school work, that one time he came home to find that she had burned all his kit. That day, he cried; on Saturday, he laughed his head off, live on TV. “It’s a mad golazo, isn’t it?” he said, and then he cracked up.
It certainly is, Samu. Ten minutes remained at the Santiago Bernabéu when he received the ball on the right one last time. Before him, poor Nacho Fernández, whose insides still hadn’t straightened out, unravelling the knots the Nigerian spent the evening tying them in, must have felt his heart sink. Chukwueze rolled the ball under his studs, headed for him, neatly evaded Eduardo Camavinga and gave it to Álex Baena, which might have been a relief to Real Madrid, except Chukwueze got it straight back and then broke them again. For good this time.
Dashing across goal, leaving Nacho on the floor and Thibaut Courtois too, the Villarreal winger sent a rocket flying into the far corner. Running to the touchline, Chukwueze raised his fingers to his head, near his ears. If he was wondering what they were saying, the answer was mostly: bloody hell! On the other touchline, the coach Quique Setién raised his arms. “I don’t know if some Madrid fans might have even celebrated,” he said, which was optimistic, but plenty clapped. It was a shot from a cartoon, all ka-pows and ka-booms, flames from his boots and vapour from the ball: vooosh.
It was also the winner. Twice Villarreal had been behind, twice they had come back to make it 2-2, and now it was 3-2. Victorious in January too, the first team to win at the Bernabéu this season, they had completed the double over Madrid. A wonderful and weird game with 35 shots and so much fun, had been won the way it deserved, with a mad golazo. And the really mad thing was that it might not even have been the best Chukwueze scored on Saturday night, let alone his best moment. It was more the culmination of a performance his coach didn’t just call complete but completisimo, superlative attached. No wonder he engulfed him in an embrace.
Chukwueze had, after all, scored two of Villarreal’s three and made the other. On the first, a drop of the shoulder and a swivel of the hips, a turn one way and the next, too fast and too smooth to be stopped, he had sent Nacho off up the Castellana and beaten Courtois. For Villarreal’s second, he had done up Dani Ceballos and Nacho to provide the ball from which José Luis Morales eventually scored. And on the third, he had done that. But it wasn’t only that; it was, as Setién put it, the “permanent threat”, the decision making, the passing, the timing: initially ruled out, VAR showed that he had actually judged his run for the second goal perfectly. It was the damage done: no visitor had completed as many Bernabéu dribbles in six years, levelling Messi back in 2017. Chukwueze had taken on his opponent eight times and won seven of those duels. Even Aurelién Tchouaméni going through his shins couldn’t stop him.
Setién was asked if this was the best individual performance he had ever seen here. The coach has some record at the Bernabeu with Las Palmas, Real Betis and now Villarreal – only one manager has ever won more times away at Madrid. Put on the spot, he couldn’t come up with a better one. “I couldn’t say,” he replied, “but it was an extraordinary game: he pulled two golazos from up his sleeve and did everything else too.”
Doing justice to just how good Chukwueze had been wasn’t easy, but they tried. “He danced where so few dance; this will be remembered for a very long time,” wrote Javi Mata in AS. He had won the “magicians’ duel,” the paper claimed, Vinícius outdone this time. Marca called him “irresistible”, putting on an “exhibition.” He was the milk, the consecrated bread. “He’s a step above us all,” Morales admitted. His performance “doesn’t make sense,” Villarreal claimed.
Only it does, especially lately. Chukwueze has always been able to play, even when he wasn’t always allowed to. Those who saw this kid on bad pitches say he was unbelievable. So popular in Nigeria now that his mum can’t leave the house, there’s a nice irony there: with school work coming first, he told the newspaper Mediterraneo that she would lock him in if she had to. Luckily, his grandmother wanted him to play like his grandfather had and sneaked him out for a trial. And he tells the story of how his mum was convinced to let him play a competition in Portugal which he had already turned down, thinking she would say no.
The support was there though: from his family and a mentor named Victor, a father figure, among others. There was also something about him: confident, bright, a personality. Exceptionally professional and ultra-enthusiastic, invariably cheerful, the connection with his community maintained. He sponsors an academy back home called Superstars FC, having played himself at the Diamond Football Academy. He was an under-17 World Cup winner in 2015 alongside Victor Osihmen, who is among his closest friends.
English clubs were interested, Arsenal finally unable to reach an agreement with the academy, and there was a brief spell training at Red Bull Salzburg, while a deal to go to Porto was scuppered by a change of administration there. Villarreal were suggested as a solution, agreed at 17 years old and ready to join at 18, in 2017. From the U19s via the B team, he was in the first team within months. Five seasons have passed – he has one year left on his current deal – but Chukwueze is still only 23 and, if consistency and opportunity were not always apparent, he is flying now.
He has 13 goals and 11 assists in all competitions this season. Eleven of those 13 goals have come since Setién took over. Injury-free, a regular starter now and playing in a system that suits him, one in which he gets possession in positions that bring out his best, recent weeks have been extraordinary. Five goals and three assists in his last seven league games, two goals and three assists in his last six in Europe, plus four goals and two assists in four Copa del Rey games. “Samu is in a moment of inspiration,” Setién said.
Asked if this was the best moment of his career, Chukwueze shot back: “No, the future is.” There was a smile but also something in it. There’s a sharpness there, a studiousness from his family: his mum got a degree in medicine in the US, his sister studies in the UK, and if he’s still not sure about medicine, he would like to be a lawyer. Setién described him as “a lad who wants to improve: you see that every day.” He watches games back, analyses, applies. The second was a mad golazo, sure, but it was also something they had practiced repeatedly. “He’ll continue to get better because he’s not just a great player, he’s a kid with a huge desire to learn,” Setién said. “He’s tremendously receptive, he works so hard, and the reward is seen in days like today.”
Friday: Sevilla 2-2 Celta Vigo. Sat: Espanyol 1-2 Athletic Club; Osasuna 2-1 Elche; Real Sociedad 2-0 Getafe; Real Madrid 2-3 Villarreal. Sun: Almería 2-1 Valencia; Rayo Vallecano 1-2 Atlético Madrid; Real Betis 0-2 Cádiz; Valladolid 3-3 Mallorca.
Monday fixture: Barcelona v Girona.
The reward was a day off, Villarreal’s players laughing and dancing about when they were told, inspired by what Carlo Ancelotti had done with his players four days earlier. If for Madrid the importance was relative, Ancelotti admitting that motivation can’t be the same when the league is as good as gone, and you’re between the Copa del Rey semi-final against Barcelona and Chelsea in the Champions League quarters, for the visitors it was significant. Historic, in fact. “It’s a dream to score two here,” Chukwueze said having joined Diego Forlan as the only Villarreal player to ever do so. On the night Pepe Reina became the oldest player to win at the Bernabeu, aged 40 years 220 days, his club did so for only the second time in their 100-year history. In a statistic that might be included here for reasons of shameless bias, only Barcelona and Real Oviedo have twice come from behind to beat Madrid in the last thirty years.
Unbeaten in six, Villarreal have now picked up 16 of the last 18 points, moving above Betis into fifth, just four points off the final Champions League place. Not that it was all about the numbers. It was about something simpler, purer: about fun, about Samu’s shot, the mad golazo that made him laugh and the performance that made everyone else look, his boots on fire again. “This is what we all want to see: moments like this from great players who make you buy a ticket, even if it’s expensive,” Setién said. “This is what football is.”
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barcelona | 27 | 44 | 71 |
| 2 | Real Madrid | 28 | 35 | 59 |
| 3 | Atletico Madrid | 28 | 25 | 57 |
| 4 | Real Sociedad | 28 | 11 | 51 |
| 5 | Villarreal | 28 | 11 | 47 |
| 6 | Real Betis | 28 | 5 | 45 |
| 7 | Athletic Bilbao | 28 | 9 | 40 |
| 8 | Osasuna | 28 | -4 | 38 |
| 9 | Rayo Vallecano | 28 | 0 | 37 |
| 10 | Celta Vigo | 28 | -3 | 36 |
| 11 | Girona | 27 | 0 | 34 |
| 12 | Mallorca | 28 | -5 | 34 |
| 13 | Sevilla | 28 | -11 | 32 |
| 14 | Cadiz | 28 | -17 | 31 |
| 15 | Getafe | 28 | -9 | 30 |
| 16 | Almeria | 28 | -14 | 30 |
| 17 | Valladolid | 28 | -24 | 29 |
| 18 | Valencia | 28 | -4 | 27 |
| 19 | Espanyol | 28 | -12 | 27 |
| 20 | Elche | 28 | -37 | 13 |
