Ibrahim Afellay’s career has been a line of injuries punctuated by moments of magic, the latest coming during Olympiakos’ impressive Champions League win over Atletico Madrid last week.
Sent on loan to the Greek outfit by Barcelona, whom he joined from PSV Eindhoven in 2011, Afellay took just 13 minutes to help the hosts to an early lead against the La Liga champions—his delicate reverse finding Arthur Masuaku, whose daisy-cutter beat an outstretched Jan Oblak inside the far post.
Then, shortly after the half-hour mark, the Dutch midfielder found the back of the net, himself.
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Having launched a counter-attack from deep in his half, the Dutchman made a well-timed run up-field, waited for Alejandro Dominguez’ cross to pass through the legs of Kostas Mitroglou and then patiently slipped the ball past the Atletico goalkeeper.
Euphoric, the goal-scorer flailed his arms about in frantic celebration before collapsing to the surface.
"I didn’t expect this when I joined the club," he later told Voetbal Primeur, whose headline exclaimed, "Afellay is back."
Back for now, anyway.
Afellay, who hardly fills out his five-feet-eleven-inch frame, first fell victim to the injury bug nearly 10 years ago when he suffered a broken toe—a knock he’d sustain a second time in 2008.
Between the fractures, he experienced a series of minor muscle problems that typically kept him out of the PSV line-up for a handful of matches at a time. But when playing, he continued to enhance his reputation as an intelligent midfielder with something of a tenacious streak.
Perhaps he was overcompensating for his obvious, physical frailty, or maybe his occasional ferociousness was a survival instinct born out of his upbringing in the hardscrabble neighbourhood of Overvecht—the Utrecht district to which his parents immigrated from Morocco.
Whatever the case, the midfielder’s strong will and dogged determination earned him the trust first of former PSV manager Guus Hiddink and then of Fred Rutten, who named him team captain in 2010 following a season in which he played a career-high 44 games.
The next January he joined Barcelona for €3 million, and it was at Camp Nou that injuries halted his development.
Expected to challenge Pedro for regular minutes in Pep Guardiola’s squad, Afellay went down with a pre-season hamstring injury and played just a pair of matches before a cruciate ligament rupture effectively ended his 2011-12 campaign.
Guardiola’s exit and Tito Vilanova’s arrival at Barcelona signalled a diminished role for the then-26-year-old the following summer, and a loan to Schalke was arranged. But a series of thigh injuries limited his tenure in Gelsenkirchen to less than six months, and by February—with Schalke having acquired Raffael and Michel Bastos during the winter transfer period—Afellay went home to Utrecht to continue his rehabilitation.
Eventually, the Barcelona doctors advised surgery on the troublesome thigh, and it wasn’t until January 2014 that the midfielder finally made his comeback. A second-half replacement for Alexis Sanchez, he played just three minutes in a 3-0 win at home to Malaga—his first competitive action in 14 months.
"It’s a great day for me," he remarked after the match. "I only got medical clearance a few days ago…I’m getting better every day."
He also thanked manager Gerrardo Martino, who had supported his recovery and provided encouragement during the process.
"It’s great to have coaches who give me a chance," he said.
Four months later, after losing the title to Atletico Madrid on the final day of the season, Martino departed the club. Afellay’s relationship with Barcelona essentially ended with the appointment of Luis Enrique as manager.
Enrique, a former Blaugrana playmaker, brought Rafinha back to Camp Nou from Celta Vigo, and the likes of Ivan Rakitic and Munir El Haddadi were always going to be handed debuts in the new-look squad before another chance was presented a player such as Afellay who has an injury-marked past.
But while one door closed another opened, and in August Afellay was loaned to Olympiakos.
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Now 28, he’ll see out the remainder of his first and only Barcelona contract with the Greek champions, although the Piraeus-based club will have the option of extending the pact a further two seasons.
In other words, he won’t be returning to Camp Nou. And that’s just as well, given that he seems to have settled into a team that wants him. Manager Michel—a six-time Spanish Champion with Real Madrid—has kept his playing time limited to one match per week, and already he’s strung together his best sequence of performances since the early days of his Schalke loan.
He’s also rediscovered what it means to be appreciated.
"I heard beforehand the positive stories about our supporters, but what I experienced tonight was unexpected," he exclaimed after the Atletico win. "I feel great here; the people have taken to me. Later we shall see what the future holds for me."
At present it includes contention for a league title, Champions League football and a return to the Netherlands national team, where he has been reunited with Hiddink.
And moments of magic—the type of which he produced last Tuesday, has always produced when healthy and will, with any luck, turn into a line only occasionally interrupted by the difficulties that have striped the last decade of his career.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter