OTD: LEON DAJAKU BORN

Born on this day in 2001 is Leon Dajaku. The forward hails from Waiblingen, Germany and made 37 appearances for the Lads, scoring four and assisting four.

Dajaku’s career began in local German football, starting with SpVgg Rommelshausen and his hometown club FSV Waiblingen before moving to Bundesliga side VfB Stuttgart, where he would make a name for himself in the youth teams - as well as making a few appearances for the Stuttgart II and the Stuttgart senior teams. Spending five years there, from 2014-2019, he would earn himself a move to Germany’s biggest football club, Bayern Munich.

Whilst he did make three appearances for Bayern Munich’s senior side, his impact was mainly made for their second team. Netting four times in 29 appearances for Bayern Munich II in the German third tier, as he helped them win the 2019/20 edition of the 3. Liga. His limited minutes for Bayern Munich would also earn him two major trophies; the 19/20 Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal also in that same season. He would then be loaned out to Union Berlin in the 2021 January transfer window on a short-term six month deal with an option to buy.

He was never really given a chance at Union Berlin, making just two appearances during his loan spell, a grand total of 35 minutes of football. However, he clearly had potential as once his loan spell expired at the end of the season, the Bundesliga side was willing to activate the option to buy clause for one million euros. He would then be immediately loaned out to the Lads, who at the time were looking to finally escape League One at the fourth time of asking.

There was much excitement on Wearside at the signing of a Bundesliga-winning German youth international and he had somewhat high expectations for a 20-year-old who had never really played senior football, and certainly not in the English pyramid. He would, however, score within a month of sealing a move to Sunderland, providing the fifth goal as the Lads ran rampant against Cheltenham Town in a 5-0 win.

In fact before Christmas he had scored four goals, most notably a beautiful solo run against Crewe Alexandra to cap off a 4-0 away from home. After Christmas his impact became more limited, failing to score again. His season was still a fairly good introduction to English football, with four assists added, Dajaku had managed eight goal contributions in 22 appearances and he certainly looked promising on paper. There were some doubts over him, he often looked a bit uncomfortable and erratic, he would miss chances you’d expect to be put away. However the common consensus was that he certainly had potential and perhaps a loan move would provide the experience needed to flourish on Wearside, as few believed he was ready to make the jump to Championship football with the Lads earning promotion via the playoffs.

Whether the club agreed he had potential or not was irrelevant, as SAFC were forced to make the loan permanent. Leon reached the appearances threshold required to trigger a clause in his contract automatically signing him onto a two year deal. He did make some limited cameos at the start of the 2022/23 season, 10 appearances (only 187 minutes altogether though) and his previous struggles seemed to become more exaggerated as the opponents became more difficult. Luton Town away springs to mind where he really should have scored a couple of times. Clearly he wasn’t ready to make the jump to Championship football and the club decided a loan move to Europe would be beneficial. St Gallen of the Swiss Super League took him.

Dajaku had a very difficult time of things in Switzerland, somehow managing to be sent off twice in just 13 games played whilst also failing to score even once and contributing no assists. As a result of this, when he returned to Wearside he pretty quickly made a move away on a permanent basis.

He joined Hajduk Split in June 2023, making his debut in the Croatian Super Cup (which Split lost) and overall he managed just four goals and four assists in his 38 games for the Croatian side. Dajaku has since left Croatia for the UAE, joining Pro League outfit AL Sharjah in March 2025.