Opinion – The World is a Ball: Onana’s version

André Onana will remember November 2021 well.

That month, he was able to return to playing games after a doping suspension.

He played twice for Cameroon, in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, and once for his club, Ajax, from the Netherlands.

The 25-year-old goalkeeper will never agree with the punishment given to him, months earlier, by UEFA.

In a statement to The Players’ Tribune, Onana detailed his version of history, rejected by the entity that commands football in Europe.

More than that, he reported the disgust and the penury of staying away from the lawns.

12-month ban. No football. Dutch Championship? Dutch Cup? Champions League. African Nations Cup? [suspenso] for a football player? It’s like years old. It’s an eternity.”

Onana will remember February 2021 well.

He was surprised when he got a call from the Ajax doctor that he had tested positive for furosemide.

It is a drug indicated for hypertension and other disorders and also acts as a diuretic for weight loss. It is on the list of banned substances by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The reaction of the goalkeeper –who has been in the Netherlands since 2015, after passing through the youth teams at Barcelona, ​​and came very close todisputing the Champions League decision in 2019– was one of absolute astonishment.

“Is this a joke? Doctor, I’ve done many tests and it’s never been a problem. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I’ve never had any contact with drugs. I’ve never heard of furosemide. I only use drugs prescribed by the team’s doctors or of the selection. What is this story?”

Not understanding what could have happened, he discovered, while talking to his girlfriend, that a domestic distraction would put him in the dock.

She told him, “André, furosemide is in the medicine for pregnancy that the doctors gave me.”

The chip fell to Onana. “I went to take some headache medicine and got the wrong one. I took the one prescribed for Melanie. Damn! The packages were practically identical.”

A small 40-mg pill was enough, he concluded, for his test to come back positive.

The Ajax shirt 24 hoped that, with this justification, Uefa would understand and give him just a warning.

After all, the argument for having furosemide at home was pretty convincing, he thought: “My partner was having a baby, it was her pills. I didn’t make it up, I’m not a cheater, it was just a stupid mistake.”

To no avail. “I thought they would show me a yellow card. But no! They gave me a straight red.”

The “eternity” that Onana referred to – a year away from football – turned out to be “less eternal” because he appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which, in June, reduced the punishment to nine months, coincidentally the period of one pregnancy.

The sanction obviously jeopardized the athlete’s career. It was not allowed to train with Ajax, nor to attend matches, even as a spectator.

The goalkeeper was then sent by the club to Spain, where he began to exercise daily, in order not to lose all form, with a team of coaches. “I trained like never before. Like a machine,” he declared.

On the way back, Onana discovered that when you were away some things changed. In Ajax, he is now a backup. Veteran Pasveer, 38, hired during his absence, won the position.

In the Cameroon selection, however, Onana is a starter. And reducing his sentence will give him the chance to fulfill a dream: to participate, in his country, which is home to this year’s edition of the African Nations Cup.

In a summary of his tough experience in 2021, the 6-foot goalkeeper said: “Everyone takes blows. Everyone falls. I learned that year how to get back on your feet.”

He concluded: “I want to represent my country. I want to win the Nations Cup and become a legend forever. I want to be the best goalkeeper in the world.”