Suirside to Suriname

Over the next week, Navajo Bakboord will hopefully become an exotic addition to the list of players capped at international level while playing with Waterford. We’ve never had a South American international before and the right back will be looking to add to his five caps for Suriname when they play two games against Martinique in the coming days – at home on Friday and away next Tuesday.

Navajo (pronounced Nav-eye-oh) was born in Amsterdam and represented the Netherlands up to Under 20s level, but made the switch to Suriname in 2023, qualifying through his family. Travelling there is a big commitment as the flight from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport takes nine and a half hours.

Suriname is the smallest nation in South America. It is located north of Brazil, a little above the Equator and facing onto the Atlantic Ocean. Over 90% of the land is rainforest with tourists drawn to its wildlife and waterfalls. Approximately half of the country’s population of 625,000 lives in the capital city Paramaribo. 

It gained independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and Dutch is the main language spoken there. It is known as one of the most diverse populations in the world for ethnicity and religion. Different parts of Suriname were colonised by the Dutch, English and Spanish. The British swapped their land to the Dutch in return for little New Amsterdam (now New York).

 

 

Football is the most popular sport there. Suriname doesn’t allow for dual passports, but relaxed their rule in recent years to permit Dutch players of Surinamese roots, like Navajo, to represent them. They’ve seen some legendary footballers born in Suriname choose to play for Holland. That list includes Edgar Davids, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Clarence Seedorf. Other players who would have qualified to play for Suriname through ancestry are Virgil Van Dijk, Gini Wijnaldum, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, and many more.

Bakboord joined Ajax as an eight-year-old and was at the club for twelve years, but had to be realistic about his chances of breaking into the first team. He trained with them and went on preseason camps, but Holland’s most successful club made it to the Champions League semi-finals in 2019 and he took the opportunity of a move to Heracles Almelo for regular football.

Heracles immediately made him their starting right back in the Dutch Eredivisie for the first four months of the season, but his luck took a horrible turn. A cruciate ligament tear that November ruled him out of football for the whole of 2020 and most of the following year.

He made it back into the team and was starting regularly in the top flight last season against Ajax, PSV and the rest. This time last year, Navajo was facing Arne Slot’s Feyenoord. The last of his 65 appearances for Heracles was in a playoff defeat to Excelsior in May that saw his team relegated and he was released by Heracles in the summer.

 

(Courtesy of Alan Robinson Photography)

On the international front, Navajo amassed 48 caps for Holland across every grade from Under 15s to Under 20s. He played alongside Justin Kluivert, Cody Gakpo, Donyell Malen and many other high-profile teammates for the Dutch national team. In 2015, Bakboord even captained the Netherlands at Under 16s level in a 4-0 win against Ireland, featuring Waterford’s Jayson Molumby.

'Nav' got his first call-up to the Suriname squad in June 2023 under previous manager Aron Winter. He made his debut, playing at left back, in a penalty shootout defeat away to Puerto Rico in a Gold Cup qualifier that month. Back in his natural right back spot, he played four CONCACAF Nations League games that autumn against Cuba, Haiti and twice against Grenada (managed by ex-Ireland assistant Terry Connor).  

Prior to signing for Waterford in January, Navajo hadn’t played since May last year and was without a club for six months so he has yet to add to those five caps. However, he was quickly back on the radar of new national coach Stanley Menzo (Ajax goalkeeper in both the 1987 European Cup Winners Cup final and 1992 UEFA Cup final wins) this year. 

Navajo told the Irish Independent recently that Menzo “saw I was signed by Waterford. He texted me to say he’s happy I found a club and he will check our games.” The manager must have been happy with seeing Bakboord start all six league games for Waterford so far as he brought him straight back into the international fold.

 

 

There’s no guarantee, of course, that he will get into the team for these matches with Martinique. Much of the squad plays in the top divisions of Holland and Belgium. Kenneth Paal of QPR and Ridgeciano Haps of Venezia, both full backs, are regular starters in the Championship and Serie A respectively.

Unusually, for the return leg in Martinique on Tuesday, Navajo will (technically) be back in Europe. That’s because, despite being in the Caribbean, Martinique is part of France and the European Union, with the Euro as its currency. That means the little island in the West Indies cannot join FIFA, but it is still a member of CONCACAF so they can play in the Gold Cup, but not in World Cup qualifiers.

With that game finishing at 1am on Wednesday morning (Irish time), and with the long return journey to Ireland via Paramaribo and Amsterdam, it is hard to imagine the right back being available for next Friday’s Waterford match against St Patrick’s Athletic.