Jonathan de Guzmán

Jonathan Alexander de Guzmán (born 13 September 1987) is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Sparta Rotterdam.

Born in Canada, he represented the Netherlands internationally.

He replaced Ghaly in the 87th minute.

De Guzmán progressed through the Feyenoord Academy, making his first team debut in 2005 and has played over 100 matches for the club from Rotterdam.

On 15 September 2005, three days after turning 18, de Guzmán was part of Feyenoord's first team squad for the first time.

However, he remained on the bench in the UEFA Cup home match against Rapid Bucharest (1–1).

Three days later, on 18 September 2005, de Guzmán made his official Feyenoord debut in the Eredivisie home match against SC Heerenveen (5–1).

De Guzmán scored his first professional goal on 30 September 2005, in the Eredivisie away match against Willem II (1–3).

After his debut against SC Heerenveen, De Guzmán quickly became a first team regular.

On 11 December 2005, he received much praise after outplaying former Barcelona player Philip Cocu in a midfield battle at Feyenoord's Eredivisie home match win against PSV (1–0).

De Guzmán finished the Eredivisie season 2005–06 with 29 matches, scoring 4 goals.

On 29 December 2005, he signed an improved contract with Feyenoord until summer 2010.

At the beginning of the season 2006–07, Feyenoord sold their star players Dirk Kuyt to Liverpool and Salomon Kalou to Chelsea.

Management had high expectations of de Guzmán, who was ready to make the next step in his development.

However, the youngster couldn't prevent the club from finishing on a 7th Eredivisie place.

De Guzmán's disappointing season ended with a red card in the 21st minute of the first playoff match against FC Groningen on 10 May 2007.

Feyenoord lost the double confrontation and missed out on European football for the first time in 16 years.

At the end of the season, De Guzmán acknowledged there was perhaps too much pressure on him: "I was only 19 years old, I couldn't just tell everyone what to do. It was really a disappointing season. I didn't make progress as a football player, but I did grow mentally because of all the problems we had. It was a very tough season for me personally."

With the 2007–08 arrival of experienced players like Giovanni van Bronckhorst from Barcelona and Roy Makaay from Bayern Munich, Feyenoord created the perfect circumstances for de Guzmán.

The pressure on the youngster was taken away, however de Guzmán wasn't too happy with his new position in the team.

Where de Guzmán always played as a midfielder, new manager Bert van Marwijk placed him on the right wing position in a 4–2–3–1 system.

De Guzmán is Canadian-born, but made himself available for the Netherlands after he gained Dutch citizenship in 2008, having lived in the country since the age of 12.

He was capped four times for the Netherlands U21, scoring three goals and was active on the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

His old contract was set to expire in 2008.

In the summer of 2010 de Guzmán signed a three-year contract with RCD Mallorca following a free transfer.

The following summer he was purchased by Villarreal.

In 2014 De Guzmán was described as a player with good technique, vision, and shooting ability from distance; he is also known as a free-kick specialist.

De Guzmán was born in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario and is of Jamaican and Filipino descent.

His father Bobby, from the Philippines, and mother Pauline, from Jamaica, came to Canada when they were ten years old and have three children: a daughter Jenelle and the two sons Jonathan and Julian.

De Guzmán's older brother, Julian de Guzman, is also a former professional football player who retired as the most capped player for the Canada men's national soccer team and was the general manager at Ottawa Fury from 2017 until 2019.

Julian was the first Canadian to play in the Spanish La Liga.

De Guzmán's childhood was completely focused on football.

His father first wanted his sons to play basketball, but due to the brothers' short height, they started to concentrate on other sports.

Once they started playing football, the brothers fell in love with the sport completely: "After school, all we did was playing football. That was pretty unusual in Canada, because almost nobody of our age did it. Canada is not a football country; we were exceptions."

He attended St. Rose of Lima in his early years.

Like his brother, De Guzmán started his youth career at North Scarborough Soccer Club in Canada, training six times a week to improve his skills.

Julian left Canada to join Olympique Marseille's youth academy and two years later, at the age of 12, Jonathan followed him to Europe, joining the Feyenoord youth academy in the Netherlands.

Upon his arrival in Rotterdam, de Guzmán was taken in to the home of an employee of the club; he later stated, "I was basically her son for three years."

At fifteen, he moved into a dormitory at Feyenoord, remaining there at weekends when his peers returned to their families in other parts of the Netherlands.

De Guzmán was not allowed to play for Feyenoord's first team before he was 18 years old.