Two days after Netherlands exited the World Cup on penalties in the quarterfinals against Argentina, Wout Weghorst was back home in Borne. It’s a small town to the east of the Netherlands, near the German border.
There was a match on in town.
His brother Twan was playing up front for Wout’s first club, the amateur side RKSV NEO, who play in the fifth tier of Dutch football. Without any fanfare, and just two days after riling Lionel Messi & Co., Wout was there supporting his local side — another face in the small crowd.
– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)
In a career that has already taken him from playing amateur football until the age of 17 and being written off, to proving his doubters wrong by succeeding in the Bundesliga and having spells in the Premier League and Turkish Super Lig, the town of Borne remains his home. NEO president Edwin Zeevalkink says Wout turning up at his old club just 48 hours after scoring both goals in a World Cup quarterfinal displays the nature of his character. “He’s a beautiful person,” Zeevalkink tells ESPN.
And while there are already detractors saying his short-term move to Manchester United will end in failure — Dutch greats Marco van Basten and Wesley Sneijder have already questioned the loan move to Old Trafford — those close to him are unwavering in their belief that he will succeed. Weghorst is used to shoving critics’ words back in their faces.
PSV Eindhoven manager and legendary Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy knows what it takes to succeed in the Premier League at Manchester United, having scored 150 goals for the club from 2001-06.
“I think Wout has so much character and qualities that he will stand there,” Van Nistelrooy said in a news conference when asked about Weghorst by ESPN. “I experienced him at the Dutch national team. He’s just a great guy, with an incredibly competitive character. We also saw that at the World Cup. Wout is ready for such a step. And he will make his contribution there, I am 100% convinced of that. He has the qualities to make an impact at United.”
That United journey began on Wednesday in their 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace. He started up front alongside Marcus Rashford and Antony and put in 69 minutes at Selhurst Park, meaning he saw Michael Olise‘s stoppage-time equaliser from the bench. United manager Erik ten Hag — who grew up in Haaksbergen, about 12½ miles from Borne — wants Weghorst to be a pressing menace and was pleased with the striker’s debut, admiring his linkup play with midfielder Bruno Fernandes and his ability to draw defenders out of position.
Bos adds: “He was such an unprecedented winner at a young age.” He recalls that when Weghorst trained with the first team aged 15, club pros Niels Oude Kamphuis and Dmitri Shoukov frequently tried to put Weghorst in his place in training, but he kept on bouncing back.
“Wout is a pain in the ass on the field for his opponent,” Bos says. “Not everyone appreciates that. But he was also like that when he was young. He always had that drive to succeed in the football world. It even got to the point that people found it annoying. He’s gotten really good. He can be an arrogant player on the field, but that is only visible when he is playing football. Off the field he is not an arrogant person at all.”
When Weghorst turned 19, he joined lower-league side DETO Twenterand and after a move into Willem II‘s system, Dutch second division side Emmen picked him up in 2012. Two years later, the Eredivisie’s Heracles Almelo signed him. Even as one of the youngest in the squad, he didn’t have much of a filter.
“Sometimes he went against the grain,” Jeroen Veldmate, a teammate at Heracles, tells ESPN. “I remember in one training session where we going up against each other, he said to me: ‘Can’t you handle the level already?’ He’d just come from a club in the second division where he was sitting on the bench. But his commitment to improving was not normal. He asked the trainer what his plan was for making Wout better. He is afraid of nothing, and I have huge respect for him.”
On Sept. 13, 2014, he scored his first Eredivisie goal in Heracles’ 2-1 defeat to Ajax. Though they lost, that date of him realising his dream of scoring in the Dutch top flight is tattooed on his body. Two years on, AZ Alkmaar signed him for a fee of around €1.5 million and he continued to be a pest in front of goal.
