A teenage Patrick Dorgu was cycling in the pouring rain on the Danish island of Bornholm.
He had already covered 25 kilometres (15 miles), jumped from a significant height into a lake and was now pedalling hard to complete the return leg. The 50km ride was one of the team-building tasks, designed by the military, set for FC Nordsjaelland’s (FCN) under-17s players during a training camp.
But on that homeward journey, Dorgu was struggling.
“To be honest, he was not the best at cycling,” recalls Alexander Riget, FCN’s technical director. “He crashed three or four times.”
Riget, who was travelling alongside the young footballers in a car to monitor their progress, offered Dorgu a lift. He politely declined and managed to cycle all the way back.
“It says a lot about Patrick, because he did not complain,” Riget tells The Athletic. “He’s not a quitter. Throughout the whole trip, he just kept going and going and going.”
That never-say-die attitude has been a thread throughout the life of Manchester United’s new left-back.
The 20-year-old Dane has moved from Lecce of Italy’s top-flight Serie A, signing a five-and-a-half-year contract that is set to pay him around £40,000 per week.
From childhood, he has needed to work hard pursuing his football dreams. Born in Denmark to Nigerian parents, he joined Husum, a team in Copenhagen, as a seven-year-old and played two years above his age group as he wanted to be in the same games as his older brother, Gabriel.
That was unusual but Iben Johnsen and Simon Svendsen, the married couple who were manager and coach of the team respectively, made an exception. The coaches at Husum recognised Dorgu’s talent and the club eased the burden on his father Paul and mother Clara. Their three sons played there when their youngest daughter Annabel was only a couple of years old.
Dorgu comes from a hard-working and humble Christian family. Paul had two jobs, including running his own clearing company. Supported by Clara, he worked around the clock so his children could go to private school and get the best possible start in life. Today, their youngest son, Ifenna, is an 18-year-old prospect at Genoa, another Serie A club, Gabriel is a footballer in Denmark’s lower leagues and Annabel plays handball.
Dorgu playing for Lecce last year (Ivan Romano/Getty Images)
“They made a massive effort to bring Patrick and his siblings to where they are today,” says Riget.
At school, however, Dorgu could not sit still. He used to scrunch up pieces of paper into a ball, such was his desire to play. As he got older, when his peers were on social media or playing video games, he had a football at his feet even when he had a day off from training.
“He just loves it,” says Johnsen, who helped the family with the children’s Danish citizenship applications and contributed financially to allow the boys to travel to tournaments around the country. “It would never be a duty for him to play. It’s very nice for him to secure his future but it’s not for the money. It’s the only thing he wanted to do.”
Dorgu’s deal at United seems worlds apart from when the three brothers rode their bikes, huge smiles on their faces, to Husum, just 10 years ago. The middle son was polite and shy, and looked up to the club’s older boys.
“He was small but very fast,” Svendsen tells The Athletic. “His size was a bit of a problem, but if he was tackled or pushed, he just stood up and continued working hard, always with a smile. He never complained about anything.”
Dorgu was officially unveiled at Old Trafford last weekend (Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Whereas Gabriel was a goalkeeper, Patrick, a childhood Chelsea fan, loved watching Eden Hazard and played as a striker or on the left wing.
“He was always in the right place at the right time. He scored a lot of goals and was always thinking forward. He wasn’t so good at coming back and defending. He always stood still up top and waited for the ball to come to him,” Svendsen chuckles.
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At the age of 10, Dorgu moved to Akademisk, a club based near the Danish capital, where FCN’s scouting department identified him because he was still playing a year above his true age group.
Johannes Hoff Thorup, now manager of Norwich City in English football’s second-tier Championship but FCN’s under-14s coach at the time, and Riget travelled three hours from the club’s hometown Farum, north of Copenhagen, to Jutland in western Denmark to watch a three-day tournament and Dorgu impressed, scoring several goals.
Dorgu joined FCN at 12, with his physical attributes being his biggest strength. “His endurance to run back and forth was already quite impressive,” says Riget, who became Dorgu’s under-15s coach. He played as a striker, as a winger on either side or as a defender but from around 15, he was primarily the full-back or wing-back on the left — the position Ruben Amorim is likely to use him in at United.
“He can run at high speed several times, which fits well for the positions he’s playing,” says Riget, who also points out Dorgu’s robustness. “During his seven years at FCN, he never got injured. You can really trust him from a physical perspective.”
“Mentality, it’s the most important thing,” Dorgu told Unted’s in-house channel MUTV upon signing from Lecce. His single-mindedness was evident to Riget even during those team-building trips on Bornholm.
As well as preparing their own food, sleeping on roll-out mats in a sports hall and designing a football training programme, the boys had to complete different challenges. One of these tasked Dorgu and his team-mates, including Conrad Harder, now in the first-team at Portugal’s Sporting CP, with rescuing an effigy of a man, a picture of then-FCN first-team head coach Flemming Pedersen stuck to its face, from an imaginary burning house.
“He was so focused on winning the competition but some of his team-mates were not fast enough to follow him,” says Riget. “His team-mates really liked him, he was not an egocentric player, but he forgot about the other aspects. Patrick really likes to win. He does not scream or shout, but it means a lot for him to win. He can get very upset if he doesn’t.”
Dorgu received a well-rounded education at FCN, which included travelling to the Ghana-based Right to Dream academy, which bought FCN in 2015, twice as a teenager.
“Part of FCN’s programme prepares the boys to be human and football players,” explains Riget. “Not only staying in five-star hotels when they are 15 years old.”
Dorgu never made a first-team appearance for FCN. In July 2022, he moved to the academy at Lecce, in the far south of Italy, at 17. There were older players at FCN such as Martin Frese, now 27 and playing in Italy for Verona, who was recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury, and Daniel Svensson, a now-22-year-old who has just moved to Borussia Dortmund of Germany on loan, ahead of him at his position.
“You were the only club that truly believed in me, and I am very thankful for the player you have helped me become today,” read Dorgu’s post on social media after his two and a half years at the Danish club.
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“Lecce came at the right time,” explains Riget. “In the development of footballers, getting senior playing minutes at a young age is key. The opportunity to play in a top-five European league speeded up his development, for sure.”
Dorgu made his senior debut in August 2023 and he had been an integral part of Lecce’s 2024-25 season, starting 21 league games despite this being just his second campaign in senior football. He made his first appearance for Denmark’s national team last September and had an instant impact, scoring 42 seconds after being introduced as a late substitute in a Nations League match against Switzerland.
Dorgu on the ball for Denmark earlier this season (Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
“His defensive work has improved a lot,” says Riget. “He has grown, built muscle mass; that’s key for him to take the next step. He is good at dribbling by moving the ball around the opponent’s feet. He can improve his consistency with his first touch and his one-v-one defence.”
Dorgu has maintained contact with his former coaches and Riget even spoke to his mother recently, regarding the work permit needed for her son’s move to England. He did not return to Denmark often while he played in Italy, but he has never forgotten the people who helped him along the way. They care about his future — FCN also has a sell-on clause in place — and hope he may one day come back to either play or coach at the club and pass on his experience to the next generations.
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He did show up on one trip home to watch FCN train and also gifted Husum one of his Lecce shirts. “You have to work hard and listen to your coach,” he told the club’s youngsters when asked how to follow in his footsteps.
Nobody can prepare a player for such a big step up to a club of United’s global stature, but Johnsen sent him a message on Sunday congratulating him on the transfer and also saying: “Don’t change who you are because of the money. Please keep your feet on the ground.”
“I will remember that,” Dorgu replied, with several heart emojis.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
