One year an Eagle: Daniel Muñoz on finding home in South London

In celebration of his first full year in South London, read the full-back's recent matchday programme interview on making the journey from the stands to the pitch, and looking back at a series of lifelong dreams that have become reality...

This interview was initially published in the Crystal Palace v Manchester City programme - you can buy the matchday programme by clicking HERE.

Sometimes in football, there is very little to look at – other than your watch. Two centre-backs might be exchanging passes on the halfway line, the result has been beyond doubt for half-an-hour, the skies are grey and a quarter of the fans have already made their way out to avoid the rush at the train station.

There are other times when the experience is quite the opposite. The senses are overwhelmed, the emotions at bursting point. The tension, the excitement, the release; the noise, the colours, the bodies, the fists in the air and limbs out of sync.

Saturday, 30th November afternoon was one of those moments.

As the Holmesdale shook with celebration, as the manager Oliver Glasner – usually the calmest man in the room – was sent streaking down the touchline to dive into the huddled Palace players by the corner flag, one man was at the centre of attention, knowing that his goal had sparked this carnival of human exuberance and joy.

The best part is, he knew exactly what each and every one of those supporters were thinking, feeling, yelling. He knew because he had been there himself. “These emotions you can’t buy,” Glasner said after full-time that day. “You have to deserve [them], and everyone here today… deserved these emotions.”

Daniel Muñoz certainly did. Every supporter, if they are being honest with themselves, dreams of making it from the stands onto the pitch. A rare few make that journey, and Muñoz is one of them. It allows him a special relationship with the fans.

“I think that relationship arises because I lived for so many years encouraging the team,” Muñoz says.

“I know how fans suffer, how they think, how they feel, and that’s how I feel on the field. Every time, I always try to give my best to the fan because when I was encouraging the team, when I was watching football, I always wanted the players to give their best to win.

“I have that connection with the fans and I always try to give my best. Many times things won’t go well, but I always try to give my best 100 percent, playing well, always without saving a drop of sweat, and I think that’s what the fan likes: that his players give their best, that they don’t give up. That they never give up even if many times things don’t go the way that they want.”

It will be music to the ears of any South Londoner. Muñoz earned his spurs in the stands following boyhood club Atletico Nacional, helping them earn their reputation as some of the most passionate and loyal fans on the continent.

“Nacional fans are one of the biggest in Colombia, one of the biggest in South America – the [club] are characterised by that,” he explains.

“I think that a big club always has fans behind it that make it bigger, and I think the Nacional fans have made the club bigger.

“A fantastic fan is always there day after day, always supporting whether it goes well or not. They are fans who are always encouraging, always shouting, who never lower their voice, and that makes them special.

“I have been in stadiums where the fans of teams only applaud when there is a goal, they only shout when there is a goal, when there is a beautiful play. But [Nacional] have the fans that are supporting whether there is a goal or not, and as a player that is always great.”

No wonder he found himself at home at Selhurst Park. The similarities with the Palace fans are obvious to Muñoz. “It is support game after game, the stadium is always full whether we work well or not,” he says. “The fans are always there.

“We prepare every day to deliver the best for them, to give them a good show and to win, because I think this is the most important thing: to always prepare to win and to deliver to the fan, no matter what game it is. Whether they are visitors or local, they are always there and they always want you to deliver your best.

“I think [the atmosphere] is very similar to the one in South America. That is what caught my attention the most, that they are always cheering or always screaming.

"The truth is that in other stadiums where I have been, perhaps it is not the [same] atmosphere. It is an atmosphere where people are always there, intensely supporting, screaming, and as a player to feel that support is important.”

There are similarities, too, between Muñoz’ journey to the Premier League and the journey made by so many South Londoners to the top of the game, most notably in the ‘cages’, be they in the capital or thousands of miles away in the streets of Medellin.

“It’s something that I don’t know if it has been lost today, but in our childhood we ate football for breakfast,” Muñoz remembers.

“We ate football and we dined on football, because all the guys from the neighbourhood all day had a ball.

"With two stones we made the goals, and we played in the middle of the street, as the cars passed. It was the childhood my friends and I had, because we didn’t play on the field but in the street.

“It gives you [perspective], because to play on the street with two stones and then with 80,000 people [watching], you say: ‘Wow’. You transport that dream from when you played on a street to when you play on the field, and you play like a child.”

It’s some motivation, and goes some way to explaining why he never stops running.

Muñoz joined the club in January 2024 – a year ago today – and as he celebrates that milestone, he can look back on becoming a crucial member of the side – and learning to love London as a place to call home. “

When I arrived I was very impressed,” he remembers. “I had already spoken with Jefferson [Lerma]. He had spoken very well of the club, the people, the fans. It was such a warm welcome, I did not expect it.

“It is always difficult to enter a group when you don’t start from the beginning, but they received me as if I had already been part of the club for years. It was a very special treatment and that was what helped me to enter the dynamics of the team.

“The players, the staff, the administration gave me the best treatment, to my family and me. That’s what made me learn quickly the football, but also a new life in a new city.

“The first thing [I noticed about London] is its typical weather! Rainy weather – sometimes sunny, but sometimes it rains. But I like it; it’s a city that has practically everything.

“The first time I went [to a Colombian neighbourhood] was with some Colombian friends. Here you find everything: Colombian food, products you want to eat. We went to eat with people with your own roots, and that is always cool. You feel as if you were, for a very short time, in Colombia, and then you leave there and return to reality, but it’s always good to have those spaces.

“The truth is that where I live here in South London there are very kind people. My family feel like we have been living in London for a long time. Here we find diversity, and it’s always great to get to know multiple cultures.”

When Muñoz looks back on his career, the journey from the stands to the pitch is a marker of years of hard work, of target after target being met, and ambitions being widened.

“I always fought to get to the national team,” he says. “First it was to fulfil the dream of playing in the team of which I am a fan, and it was achieved. Then it was to step into Europe, and it was achieved. Then it was to play in one of the best leagues in the world, and it was achieved.

“Then it was playing in my national team, and it was achieved. We got to a final [in the Copa America this summer] that unfortunately I could not play in [through suspension], but I participated in it, so that was achieved.

“So today I can be here sitting and look back and say: ‘Wow, what I have achieved and what I can achieve if I keep working, if I keep dreaming, if I keep visualising it, dreams do come true’.

"You can achieve what you set out to do as long as you work for it.”

It’s a message every Crystal Palace fan can get behind – as is Muñoz’ appraisal of his new home, which applies to supporters and players alike.

“For me, I think that we are always fighting. Even though there are difficult moments where everything does not go well, we always fight for each other. I think that is the most important thing."