It was May 6, 2022, in Grenivik, in the rural north of Iceland, where one-time Aberdeen loanee Jeffrey Monakana, at only 28, suffered the left knee injury which would end his football career.
The winger/attacking-midfield journeyman was signed to third-tier Magni Grenivik, based five hours by road from capital Reykjavik.
After a 2021 season where he helped the club push for promotion, ultimately finishing fourth in the table, Monakana and his team-mates were training on the eve of a new league campaign.
There was plenty of cruel irony in what happened next, with the Englishman not only believing he was – finally – “feeling and playing” his “best” football after a nomadic few years, but having also just spent a period away from training to protect his other knee.
Monakana had exacerbated the problem with his right leg during a 2-0 Icelandic Cup victory over KF a couple of weeks earlier.
“I’d felt my right knee before from pre-season training. Nothing major, but I just felt a little bit of pain,” Monakana recalled to The Press and Journal.
“I said I was going to take it easy… but we had a cup game that we really needed to win, so I was like: ‘I’m gonna play because I want to win, and also it’s good for the club.’
“My knee was killing me through the whole thing, and it even went to extra-time.
“But with me on the field, teams would double up and there was more space for others, so I knew I had to stay out there.
“I rested up again after the game, and then the (league) season was starting.
“I decided I was going to train – and train hard – the day before, on the Friday, so I was ready for the first game.
“I did a few stepovers and I was going to shoot with my right, but then another player was coming, so I chopped the ball on to my left foot to shoot, then another player was coming, so I chopped the ball from my left back on to my right foot and shot.
“But, as I did that, I’ve twisted my standing leg – my left knee.
“I went down, and I just knew instantly. I went: ‘Aw nah’.
“I should’ve done an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), really and truly, with how I did it.
“But what I’d done was worse than an ACL. You’d much rather just rupture everything, as it’s kind of like having, like, a clean break, but what I did is called an articular cartilage tear – it’s basically the shock absorbers in your knee.”
Monakana tried to run through pain
Having netted eight goals (and made 16 assists) in 19 games for Magni, Monakana was also an older mentor figure in the lower-league Icelandic club’s side, and spent a month desperately trying to overcome the tear in his left knee so he could return to action.
He said: “Even though I felt the pain, I would go out and run.
“Without me, the team was losing every single game – the first game of the (league) season, we lost 1-0. The second game of the season, we lost 5-0.
“The owners are messaging me: ‘Please, we need you to play.’
“And I was like: ‘Look, even if I’m 30%, I will try, but, right now, I’m not even 5%. I’m in pain. I can’t move!’
“After the month, I just said: ‘Look, maybe it’s best if I go back to England, and the money that you’re paying me, you can hopefully get someone else.'”
Doc looked at knee MRI and said: ‘Yeah, this is done’
Back at home in London, Monakana continued to try to rehab the damaged knee.
However, a trusted medic confirmed his own fear, telling him he would “never be able to run like before again”.
Monakana said: “I came back in, like, August, and I was trying up until December to come back.
“In the back of my mind, I felt: ‘I think I’m done’.
“And then, yeah, in December, I got a second opinion from a doctor that I respect. And he looked at my MRI, and he was just like: ‘Yeah, this is done. Even if you can get an operation, you’ll never be the same again.'”
Despite having his trade (literally) torn away in his late-20s, Monakana felt he quickly accepted what the doctor had said.
He added: “At least I went out in the best way.
“That was how I wanted to go out: playing my best football, scoring a whole heap of goals, assisting, helping the other boys, playing overseas.
“I was at peace with it. I wasn’t upset.
“It was just: ‘Yeah, all right, no problem. Let’s see what’s next.’
“Like, I’ve been able to experience so much – I made my (Aberdeen) debut at Celtic Park… I never thought I’d be doing that!”
Signing for Aberdeen
Little more than a decade ago, a 20-year-old Monakana joined Derek McInnes’ Aberdeen on loan from Brighton and Hove Albion for the first half of the 2014/15 season.
He was added to the Dons’ squad for a notable two-legged Europa League qualifying tie against Real Sociedad, and still now, remembers being in awe of the “immense, unbelievable” support of the Red Army during the second leg under the lights at Pittodrie.
He recalls it as “one of the best atmospheres” he “ever experienced” in football – despite the Spaniards ultimately getting the better of Aberdeen over the two games.
Having already played a solid 2012/13 season of first-team football with Preston North End in England’s League One (before falling out of favour at Deepdale and joining Brighton), former Arsenal youth Monakana remembers also being impressed during training with McInnes’ side – who were League Cup winners the previous season.
He said: “It took me time to adapt to the standard at Aberdeen. Everything was just fast tempo – like super fast – and there were some very, very good players there.”
Back cyst derailed Monakana’s Dons debut
Despite signing in July, bad luck – a theme of Monakana’s career – prevented him actually taking to the field for Aberdeen until a substitute appearance at Parkhead in late September.
He had developed a polynidal cyst in his back.
Monakana explained: “The next game was against Dundee United (3-0 home league defeat on August 10, 2014).
“I was on the bench, and I was geared to come on, but as I’m sitting on the bench, yeah… I just felt something in my back.
“I remember Derek McInnes telling me to warm up, and I was trying to run, and I was like: ‘I can’t come on like this – there’s something wrong with my back.’
“Training was on the Monday and I tried going for like a warm-up, and I couldn’t move.
“So I went to the doctor came and I had a polynidal cyst in my back, basically – in my lower back.
“It’s very rare. It just paralyses you almost. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit down. I had to lie down.
“I waited for maybe like three weeks or something, and it still didn’t go, so that’s when we decided to have an operation.”
The surgery lay-off meant Monakana, once cleared, had to go through a mini pre-season to get back up to the required fitness levels.
Finally, after a month of running, the wideman was “so fit”, and he started to feature off the bench for the Reds – going on to make 10 substitute appearances in total.
Even first-choice wingers Jonny Hayes and Niall McGinn, Monakana says, began to make the case to McInnes to reward the loanee with a starting opportunity.
“I started to pick up in training,” Monakana said. “I started competing and I was pushing Hayesy and and Niall McGinn and I wanted to take their spot – that was my mentality
“I was just training as hard and every time I was coming on I kept making an impact.
“It gave the gaffer a headache, and it came to a point now where they went into his office, and were like: ‘We need Jeff to stay to help us win the league – so drop one of us, so he can start a game.’
“But Derek McInnes was very superstitious, so he wanted to keep it the same, where I’d come on after 60 or 70 minutes. We would always win doing that, so he felt like there was no reason to change that.”
Broken promises over Aberdeen starting chance became ‘awkward’
As January and the end of Monakana’s loan deal approached, he had a choice,
The options were: stay on at Pittodrie and keep pushing for a place in McInnes’ starting XI in a season where the Dons were threatening a league challenge, or go back to English Championship Brighton and convince the Seagulls’ new manager to elevate him from a development team recruit to their first-team.
Monakana said: “He (McInnes) spoke to my agent, and was like: ‘Look, there’s five young players who I truly believe are going to be the future of the club, and they are going to play eventually.’
“It was Ryan Jack, Lawrence Shankland, Scott McKenna, Scott Wright, and me. I was the fifth.
“He said: ‘We want to give Jeff a three-year deal in the summer.'”
“(But) Chris Hughton just got the job (at Brighton), and he was like: ‘I do want to see Jeff, but it’s his decision.’
“Derek kept saying to me, after I would perform and the fanbase would sing my song and all this stuff: ‘Yeah I’m going to start you in the next game’… But then I wouldn’t start.
“That was going on for months, so it was like: ‘Do I risk listening to that and not start? Or just go back to Brighton and try to prove myself to Chris Hughton?’
“We played Motherwell (2-0 away win, January 4, 2015), and he (McInnes) told me that I was going to start. And I didn’t come on… and what made it worse is that the fans were singing my song for the whole game.
“So I was like, no, this is just becoming so awkward – they’re singing my name, and I’m on the bench, and it’s almost like Derek McInnes is trying to make a point.
“It felt maybe I just needed to leave. So I just, yeah… I packed my things and drove back to London.”
‘I really should have just stayed’
Reflecting on his experience at Aberdeen – including the hero-worship of the fans around the city (“I felt the love”, Monakana said) – he knows he made the wrong call.
“They (the club) thought I was going to stay,” Monakana added.
“I should have stayed – just saw out the season. We were like four points clear at the time.
“I don’t know how long it took me (to realise he had made a mistake in leaving). It wasn’t straight away.
“I remember Adam (Rooney) – once I left – messaging me telling me to come back.
“Lawrence Shankland as well, was just like: ‘Come back’ and gave me a real nice message.
“I was helping him a lot. Because when I wasn’t starting, I would go play with the reserves, and me and Lawrence’s partnership was, like, perfect.
“So I think maybe that after – two years – I was looking back, and I was like: ‘Yeah, I should have just stayed. I really should have just stayed.'”
Inside track on scouting for QPR
After a playing career which also included a short stint in Romania with FC Voluntari (“killed” by early ankle ligament damage in another example of the wideman’s dire luck), as well as English non-league play-off drives with Welling United, Wealdstone and Dulwich Hamlet, plus a pre-Magni Covid-wrecked spell in the “very technical” Icelandic top-flight with Fjolnir in 2020, Monakana has transitioned into scouting for English Championship outfit Queens Park Rangers.
Monakana admits he knew “nothing” about talent ID during his playing career, but now says: “I mainly do the 12s to 16s (age groups), basically, and I cover West London – but I end up covering the whole of London.
“One day, I’m here, then I’m watching a training session, then I could be meeting a parent, meeting a coach, meeting a one-to-one coach, seeing their training sessions, then going to a game… it could be anything!
“My phone’s literally constantly going with like people in the community or wherever saying: ‘I’ve got a boy here, he’s really good and you have to go out there and check if he is that good.’ 90% of the time he’s not at that standard yet, but 10% percent of the time he is.
“It comes down to your network – with a good network, you’ve got people that you can trust out there.”
Monakana added: “The flip side is knowing the boys in other academies… For example, yesterday, I was watching West Ham’s 15s.
“You just keep an eye on what’s coming through the whole academy system.”
Monakana uses pathway sales pitch in ‘friendly’, but ‘crazy’ fight for young talent
While battling to secure the best young capital talent in “friendly” competition with London Premier League giants like Chelsea, Tottenham, Crystal Palace and his former clubs Brighton and Arsenal can be “crazy”, Monakana thinks the background of his truncated playing career gives him an edge.
The now-31-year-old – who remains pals from his Gunners academy days with bonafide footballing superstars, like World Cup-winning Argentina goalkeeper Emi Martinez and Bayern Munich Champions League-winner Serge Gnabry – said: “A lot of the parents and the boys, they seem to communicate with me well, because I know where they’re coming from.
“I came through the academy at Arsenal. I went through ups and downs. I had to go on trial (at Preston).
“The key thing I sell is just facts, basically.
“Pathway is one of the biggest things in football.
“When you’re coming into a club like QPR, you’ll get more of a chance, and you’ve seen it with like the likes of Eze (the former Arsenal academy player Eberechi Eze, who went on to make his breakthrough at QPR and who is currently starring in the Premier League for Crystal Palace) and it goes on and on and on with how many boys that have gone through there. That’s how I would sell it.”
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