More inspirational than Valdi. He has played in the amateur team for more than ten years and is now the absolute main player of Inter Milan.

Barondrecht, Netherlands, a warm Saturday in May, the day before the last round of the Eredivisie. Seven courts at Smitshawk Amateur Football Club in southern Rotterdam were packed. Children of all ages are playing football and their levels are also different.

Indoors, one of their youth teams is celebrating the league title: By tradition, they will be offered a large plate of fries and then posed for a photo with the trophy. They have 1,275 players, and the ages range from 6 to 65 years old. The older generation of players played "walking football" in a place where they were still farmland 80 years ago.

10 minutes drive to Barendrecht Amateur Football Club. Their nine stadiums are full of pits and valleys, and even the clubhouses are full of members, and they have 2,300 members. This is a microcosm of Dutch amateur football, where Inter Milan and Dutch national team right-back Denzel Dumfries honed his skills.

Since the age of 6, he has played in the amateur team for more than a decade. This Saturday, 29-year-old Dumfries will represent Inter Milan in the Champions League final for the second time, and will then represent the Dutch national team in the World Cup qualifiers in June. His Dutch teammates have been trained by the best coaches in football since childhood through the youth training system, but ten years ago, Dumfries was just one of the children in this suburb of Rotterdam who enjoyed football with his friends on Saturday mornings, and he did not enter the youth training system.

Dumfries joined Smitshawk Amateur Football Club at the age of 7, where he played until he was 16 years old. When he was 17, he joined Barondrecht because of moving. Dumfries told his teammates since he was a child that he would play for the Dutch team one day. Teammates laughed at him, but he never doubted himself. “He is a kid who really sticks to his dreams and is willing to give everything for it,” said Peter Vanderpennon, Dumfries’ first coach at Smitshawk.

It is precisely with his hard training and strong confidence on the amateur football field that he was able to be among the top defenders in the world. And all this began with this ancient farmland in southern Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Barendrecht club hangs the jerseys of Dumfries when he played here, including Cardiff City winger Anwar Elgarzi and Advance Hawks forward Finn Stokes. Former Ipswich defender Fabian Vilnis and Zwolle's Darren Vent are Durfries' teammates in Smitshawk. Their boardroom houses two Durfries' jerseys - one from Inter Milan and one from Eindhoven. By 2025 standards, Dumfries' performance on the court is a unicorn, but he was not favored when he was a child. “We often follow him and discuss him, but we think he is not good enough,” Feyenoord youth scout Mopp Martens said in an interview in 2018. “There are too many doubts about his football strength. Some people may be very strong at the age of 15, but this advantage often disappears when he is 18.”

"It may be related to his technical ability and height at the time," Van der Penon said in response to these statements, "but he has other neglected qualities. He is fast and impressive. Every opponent is afraid of him."

Dumfries' name Denzel comes from Hollywood superstar Denzel Washington, who played for Smitshawk from 2002 to 2013 (two years between the middle of the Spartan 20 teams, and then returned to Smitshawk). He then transferred to Barondrecht in the 2013-14 season.

Dumfries' bedroom is in the attic, and he often draws his expected starting lineup for the weekend game on the sloping walls. "When we train a specific skill and the result is not very effective, he always wants to do it again until it succeeds," Van der Penon said. "He was always dissatisfied when he was replaced, and always felt that he was better than the player who replaced him, but he would still walk to the sideline in a slump."

Van der Penon remembered that in one game, Dumfries's team had already secured the championship, and seeing that the game was about to win, he still tried hard to catch a missed pass. "He didn't catch the ball and fell on the grass, even though the game was easily won," Van der Penon said.

"He was never a person like Messi, but he had always been confident in his abilities and believed that he could reach his peak," said Dumfries's coach at Barent Dorrecht. "He was very active and ran and never stopped. If he had a corner kick, he would even try to enter the penalty area and compete for the top."

Dumfries used to go to Essajas's house for supper in the middle of the week, but Essajas remembered one day when he was 17, he turned down fries and mayonnaise and began to take nutrition seriously. “He said, ‘No, no, I need vegetables.’” His teammates were often talking about why Dumfries didn’t go to weekend parties and focused on fitness.

Jody Decker is the coach of Smitshawk's U14 team, bringing Dumfries from 10 to 14. The team adopts a 3-3-4 full-strength offensive formation, with Dumfries serving as the central defender.

"We led 5:4 in one game, but we were equalized at the last moment," Decker said. "Dumfries was furious. He grabbed another defender's neck and almost tore his jersey." Another time, 14-year-old Dumfries was wearing Ajax's jersey to train - remember, this is Feyenoord's world. Decker said: "His coach was unhappy and asked him to clean the training ground, but he went home on his bike." He joined the professional team and grew into a top star in 2014, when Dumfries was 18 years old, the Spartan Club of Rotterdam conducted an inspection (he also represented the Aruba national team in two friendly matches against Guam). If their physical condition allows but their skills are not enough, they will lose their way. What makes Dumfries different is his confidence and mentality, which is so rare. ”