The Kitchen Champion Division has been a nursery for national and international talents for decades and this season too, many football players with potential are walking around on the second level. Voetbalzone, the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division, highlights one of these talents every week, this time focusing on Simon Janssen, the child of VVV-Venlo who has conquered a permanent base place as a left back.
By Chris Meijer
During the first league match of the season against NAC Breda (2-2) Simon Janssen was on the reserve bench at VVV for ninety minutes. After that game, trainer Jos Luhukay came to him. Would he be interested in trying in the left back position? ‘As long as I could make minutes, I think it’s a good option’, was the answer from 21-year-old Janssen. Since then, he has started in all thirteen games of VVV and missed only 25 minutes. “Actually, I didn’t expect that at all,” says Janssen. “After a few games I saw that it was getting better and better as a left back. Of course it takes some getting used to, you end up in one-on-one situations and that’s tough when you’re against a fast, agile winger. Then your legs are very sour. Last year we defended quite a lot and I collapsed as a midfielder, so I regularly played games in which I had to defend a lot.”
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Luhukay told Janssen to pay a lot of attention to Daley Blind. “He’s not the fastest, neither am I. But he is very good on the ball. He also played in midfield in the past, so that was a good example to cite”, Janssen nods. The Kitchen Champion Division is a quick learning experience. “I definitely notice that I am making quick steps. You feel more and more confident on the ball as you play every week. If you commute back and forth between the base and the bank, you don’t build security. It is better for your development to play matches in succession, then you will see yourself developing more and more. In that regard, this definitely feels like the year of my definitive breakthrough. Breaking through at the tourist office has always been my dream. That feels special, I always have a good time here.”
The native Venlonaar has been playing in the youth academy of VVV since he was ten. At the age of eighteen he made his debut in the first team in the 4-1 lost away game against Feyenoord. “That was not normal. I had never been to De Kuip before and was allowed to make my debut there. I walked around there with some fear in my legs. Very nice to be able to debut there”, beams Janssen when he thinks back to that December evening. In the two and a half years that followed, however, he had to be patient. “Of course you want to play as much as possible, but VVV had a nice team in those years. It was hard to get into that. I’m realistic enough to see that you have to be patient. In recent years I got more and more minutes.”
Janssen played a total of 27 games for VVV in the Eredivisie.
The last year and a half of VVV in the Eredivisie, Janssen was already part of the first selection. “I played a lot in the starting line-up last season in January, we had a good month and won a lot. At the end of the transfer window, the necessary new players arrived and after that I lost my place.” He shuttled up and down between the starting eleven and the reserve bench last season and as a substitute already experienced the most painful game of his career. “Yes, I have certainly experienced that. You mean the 0-13 against Ajax, surely? Then I came in at half time, after three minutes in the second half we got a red card and yes… I don’t want to say more about it, because that was terrible. We were suddenly world news, but not in the way we would like. I was ashamed to go outside, but then I kept my distance for a few days. Because 0-13, that is not possible.”
“I’ve been in quite a few matches. The Eredivisie was physically difficult, we often played from the second ball in midfield. If you are not very big and physically not very strong, it is difficult to show yourself,” Janssen continues about his experience gained in the Eredivisie. The fact that VVV eventually relegated from the Eredivisie had the necessary consequences. Little is left of the selection that was there last season: no fewer than eighteen players left Venlo behind. “But you knew that would happen as soon as you were relegated. Many foreign boys have left and youth players have moved on to the first team in their place. That’s actually nice, because I know all these guys from childhood. I was really excited to start this season again because it was a challenge to become a starting player and show myself.”
All in all, the relegation of VVV did not have a negative effect on Janssen. “It’s not nice to say, but it is true,” he agrees. Janssen calls weekly in the Kitchen Champion Division in the starting eleven ‘one hundred percent better’ than a reserve role in the Eredivisie. “I notice that the Kitchen Champion Division also has a very good level, where I can develop well. You have some good football teams, who are very strong. But there are also a number of clubs that are physically stronger. In the Eredivisie it sometimes happened that I didn’t play three games in a row, I feel a bit more important now. I hope to be able to be quick with goals and assists as well. You don’t have to be a left back, that’s true. But it’s nice to be able to celebrate that.”
While Janssen can personally look back on the past few months with satisfaction for the time being, the start of the season for VVV with the current sixteenth place in the Kitchen Champion Division is disappointing. “The results are a bit disappointing and then it is difficult to get into the right flow. The atmosphere is great, we have a young team and this is all new for a lot of guys. This season I’m only playing ten games in a row for the first time,” explains Janssen. What is the big dream of the child of VVV? Experience a promotion party on the Venlose Markt. “But yes, at the moment we first have to become a good team and start collecting points again.”
Name: Simon Janssen
Date of birth: September 25, 2000
Club: VVV Venlo
Position: midfielder annex left back
Strengths: passing, assumption, content
Voetbalzone is the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division
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