Roving centre back seizes opportunity to

After two years in Europe searching for playing time, a young defender has found a club in Ireland where he’s getting plenty of chances. By

Nando Pijnaker had an unusual year in 2021.

The towering centre back played every minute as the OlyWhites made it to the quarterfinals at the Tokyo Olympics in July.

And he played every minute as the All Whites returned to action with three friendlies after an almost two-year wait in October and November.

For both national teams, the 23-year-old showed why he’s been highly-rated as a defender coming through the age-group ranks.

Yet when it came to club football, he was able to tally up last year’s first-team action without running out of fingers.

Because it consisted of nine minutes of playing time – all of them off the bench for FC Helsingør in a match in Denmark’s second tier in October.

There was also a run of matches early in the year for the reserves at Rio Ave, the Portuguese club where he is under contract until 2024.

After missing a large chunk of pre-season while away at the Olympics, he found himself on the fringes of the Rio Ave squad, even though they had been relegated in 2020-21.

His last regular run of firstteam football had come at the end of 2019, when he played for Torslanda in the Swedish fourth tier, linking up with several alumni from Porirua’s Ole´ Football Academy.

Grasshoppers in Switzerland was his first destination after that, but after a pair of appearances in the middle of 2020, he moved to Portugal, where he signed a four-year contract in August that year.

Eighteen months on, it remains to be seen whether he will ever play a competitive match for Rio Ave.

His first loan move this season, to Helsingør, didn’t result in the playing time he had hoped it would.

But his second, to Sligo Rovers in Ireland, has resulted in him starting week-in, week-out, and he’s loving it, even though being there, for a season that runs from February to November, will keep him out of pre-season at his parent club for the second European summer in a row.

‘‘The most important thing for me was just to get games,’’ Pijnaker told the Sunday StarTimes.

‘‘Here, we play heaps of games ... so I want to play in every single game, and after that, I’ll see what happens.

‘‘I don’t like to look too far into the future because you never really know what’s going to happen. If things go really well here, then you never know, I could end up back there.

‘‘But first and foremost, I just want to play as many games as I can, and do as well as I can, and you never know.’’

Pijnaker made his sixth appearance for Sligo Rovers on Friday night local time, and yesterday he was set to be on his way to Qatar to link up with the All Whites, who began the Oceania World Cup qualifying tournament with a 1-0 win over Papua New Guinea.

They next face Fiji [kickoff Tuesday 6am NZ time] and Pijnaker said he would be ready to play if needed, even if the quick turnaround wasn’t ideal.

‘‘You’d obviously want more time to prepare for the game and