Juninho Bacuna (born 7 August 1997) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for club

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Sin ...

. He began his career in his native Netherlands with Groningen before moving to English football with

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. Th ...

. After one season in the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

and two in the second-tier

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

, he spent six months with

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottis ...

club Rangers and then joined Birmingham City in 2022. In international football, he played for the Netherlands up to under-21 level before switching in 2019 to represent Curaçao, for which he qualified by descent.

Club career

Groningen

Bacuna is a Groningen youth exponent. He made his

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...

debut on 5 February 2015 against Heracles Almelo replacing Yoell van Nieff after 79 minutes in a 2–2 away draw. He came off the bench to help the Green-White Army win the KNVB Cup in the 2014–15 season against defending champions

PEC Zwolle PEC Zwolle is a Dutch football club based in Zwolle, Netherlands. They play in the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of Dutch football, following relegation from the Eredivisie in the 2021–22 season. They have played in the Eredivisie for a total ...

. It was their first major trophy and they qualified for the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. ...

Huddersfield Town

Bacuna signed for

team

on 20 June 2018, for an undisclosed fee for three years, with the club having the option for a further season. On 27 October 2018, Bacuna made his debut in the Premier League in a 3-0 away defeat to

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and ...

, coming on as a 78th minute substitute. On 16 March 2019, he scored his first goal for Huddersfield in a 4-3 defeat at

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancient ...

. After relegation from the Premier League, Huddersfield started the 2019-20 season in the EFL Championship badly, only amassing two points from their first nine games. Bacuna scored the only goal in the game in Huddersfield's first win of the season over Stoke City on 1 October 2019. On 11 May 2021, Huddersfield exercised the option to extend Bacuna's contract until the end of the 2021–22 season.

Rangers

On 19 August 2021, Bacuna signed for

team Rangers. The player was paraded to the club's supporters during the half-time interval of Rangers' Europa League play-off game against Alashkert.

Birmingham City

On 27 January 2022, Bacuna returned to England when he joined Championship club

on a three-and-a-half-year deal for an undisclosed fee. He scored his first Birmingham goal in a 3–0 win at home to

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...

on 12 February.

International career

Bacuna represented his native Netherlands at under-18, under-20 and under-21 levels. He played eleven matches for the under-20s, and three for the under-21s, and scored twice in a 4–1 win against Bolivia. He switched to represent Curaçao, for which he qualified by descent, in 2019. He played four matches in that year's CONCACAF Nations League A group stage, and once international football resumed after the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, continued as a regular in the team. In September 2022, Bacuna played two friendly matches for Curaçao against the Indonesia national team in Indonesia. In the first, he scored in a 3–2 defeat. In the second, he was

sent off In sports, an ejection (also known as dismissal, sending-off, disqualification, or early shower) is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending ...

after receiving a second yellow card for a bad tackle on

Marselino Ferdinan Marselino Ferdinan Philipus (born 9 September 2004) is an Indonesian professional footballer who plays as a attacking midfielder for Liga 1 club Persebaya Surabaya and the Indonesia national team. He is the younger brother of Oktafianus Fernan ...

. He reacted to the dismissal by kicking the ball towards spectators, who retaliated by throwing water bottles onto the pitch. After the match, Bacuna was targeted on social media with abusive messages, some of a racist nature. His club issued a statement condemning the abuse and confirmed that it had been reported to the social media platforms.

Personal life

Bacuna is the younger brother of Leandro Bacuna, also a footballer.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Curaçao's goal tally first; score column indicates score after each Bacuna goal.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacuna, Juninho 1997 births Living people Footballers from Groningen (city) Curaçao footballers Curaçao international footballers Dutch footballers Netherlands under-21 international footballers Netherlands youth international footballers Association football midfielders FC Groningen players Huddersfield Town A.F.C. players Rangers F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Eredivisie players Premier League players English Football League players Dutch people of Curaçao descent Dutch expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Scotland Dutch expatriate sportspeople in England Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Scotland