Former Leeds United midfielder Vurnon Anita is far from the first footballer to dabble in the world of music.
If you fancy watching Petr Cech try his hand at a drum cover of a Rihanna hit, then the former Chelsea goalkeeper’s YouTube channel is the place to be. Perhaps Jackson Martinez’s lyrics were inspired – like Adele post-breakup – by his disastrous stint at Atletico Madrid.
And who could blame Jese Rodriguez, the one-time Real Madrid wonderkid, from taking a few eggs out of one basket and placing them in another; ‘Jey M’ splitting his focus between the football pitch and the studio after his career dwindled dramatically.
Vurnon Anita appears to be laying the foundations for a rather musical post-playing career, himself. The now-35-year-old, one-time Leeds United stalwart Anita – or ‘JR’, as he is known by his contemporaries in the rap game – is clearly putting some thought into what life holds for him after football, the Curacao international laying the foundations to make the transition to a different kind of stage.
Yet, the mic hasn’t quite dropped on his sporting career just yet.
Former Leeds United man Vurnon Anita set for Dutch return
Anita, alongside former FC Twente talent Jerson Cabral, is set to begin training at second-tier Dutch outfit FC Volendam, according to their technical director Patrick Busby.
Anita is currently a free-agent after a brief stint in Saudi Arabia with Al-Orobah. The vast experience of a player with Newcastle, Ajax, CSKA Sofia and Leeds United on his CV could come in handy, too, at a Volendam side topping the Eerste Divisie table and looking to secure an immediate return to the Dutch top-flight.
“We’re going to see how they’re doing. Our selection is well-staffed, but we’re going to see if we can help each other,” Busby tells RTV Love.
Anita played 22 games for Leeds in the 2017/18 campaign. He fell out of favour soon after, however, his arrival unfortunately coinciding with the difficult final season before Marcelo Bielsa rode in on a white steed to liberate the Yorkshire giants from their Championship shackles.
Leeds underwhelmed under Paul Heckingbottom and Thomas Christiansen, with Anita loaned out to Willem II before his contract was terminated by mutual consent in September 2019.
When asked why Anita had not been given a chance under Bielsa, meanwhile, the enigmatic Argentine launched into one of his typically detailed explanations.
Marcelo Bielsa felt there was no place at Elland Road for Vurnon Anita
“When a professional player has a history as a football player, for example Anita, [Eunan] O’Kane and [Caleb] Ekuban have history, one way to respect them is to keep them inside the team if they have the possibility to play in another position,” Bielsa would say.
“If we have one position and three players, it’s very difficult that the third player in the position gets time to play. I saw every game and every minute that they played last year and I also listened to the opinion of the club.
“We then built a group where we have two players for each position and if we had acted in another way it would have been counterproductive.
“For example, I have [Luke] Ayling, [Stuart] Dallas and [Jamie] Shackleton. Shackleton is a youngster who has time to develop in his career, but I can’t do the same thing with Ayling, Dallas and Anita.
“I would be doing something not very good to one of the three players, so when you take decisions you have to transmit them at the right moment and I think this is an honest behaviour.”
Shoved rather unceremoneously out of the door, is this the basis for a Bielsa-themed ‘diss track’?
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