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 Valentino Vermeulen, who has emerged as the scoring leader. wingback from FC Eindhoven.
By Chris Meijer
Valentino Vermeulen tries to maintain a fixed ritual after every goal. Even before the ball hits the net, the twenty-year-old defender is already checking where the cameras are. Vermeulen then searches for the camera lens as quickly as possible to form the letter ‘W’ with his fingers. The ‘W’ of Woensel-Zuid, the Eindhoven neighborhood where he grew up. “That’s more for friends from my neighborhood, who grew up in the same place as I did. I’m going to try to keep that in, I’ll do my best. But I can’t always remember it,” grins Vermeulen. After his goal against Excelsior he seemed to forget. With a smile: “I always have trouble finding the camera. But if I find it, I will.”
With already three goals and five assists, Vermeulen is a revelation this season at the surprisingly well-performing FC Eindhoven. “It all goes a bit more automatically and then you can focus on other things, such as scoring”, explains Vermeulen with a laugh. It is a reward for the patience he had to muster in recent years. FC Eindhoven picked him up from the amateurs in 2017, after he was sent away from Willem II six months earlier because of his behavior. “I was fourteen or just fifteen and thought: it’s done now. Pretty stupid, because I was still very young. But it did cross my mind. I had to go back to the amateurs and that is quite annoying when you come from Willem II. When I heard that I was allowed to go to Eindhoven, something blossomed again.”
Vermeulen still had a ‘young brain’, as he calls it. That sometimes bothered him in his first two years at FC Eindhoven. Vermeulen was only sixteen when he joined the first selection, but had to wait two years for his official debut. “I had a lot of trouble with that. That makes sense, I guess. You’re young, you get involved and you don’t play. Then you start to think differently, because you are young. I’m a bit more mature now.” In the previous two seasons, Vermeulen shuttled between the starting eleven and the reserve bench. “It’s difficult when you only get the chance every six games, when someone is suspended. It is difficult to prove yourself as a substitute, with only training. You hardly get into rhythm, so I struggled with that.”
Rob Penders – who directs Vermeulen in the foreground – has been at the helm of FC Eindhoven since last summer.
Everything is different this season. In his own words, he felt confidence from Rob Penders from the first moment, who took over from interim coach Jan Poortvliet at FC Eindhoven last summer. “That does something to you. Then it will get better step by step.” What worked even more in Vermeulen’s favor is that Penders switched to a 5-3-2 formation halfway through the first half of the season. As a result, Vermeulen – by nature a center defender – came as wingback to play, a position that turned out to be just right for him. “No, I really never expected this. But it worked out well in the end. You could say that the wingback position suits me very well. I like it very much. I wouldn’t want to play in any other position right now.”
“In the beginning I had to get used to the new position, because different things are being asked. As a centre-back, I was very focused on defending. Now football has changed, backs are more active offensively. I have learned that in recent years. I do enjoy it, yes”, Vermeulen continues. It’s a position where conditional content is perhaps most important. “Yes, you must have content. I do like to work out, so I’ve never really had any issues with fitness. Together with our assistant trainer Mike (van Dijk, ed.) I regularly stay on the field after training to work on my development points. No problem for Vermeulen, who likes to put on the boxing gloves during his holiday. He was born with Thai boxing from his father. At a young age, however, Vermeulen chose football over Thai boxing.
Vermeulen and Maarten Peijnenburg celebrate the 0-6 victory over Jong FC Utrecht with the drums of the accompanying supporters.
“It wasn’t all that serious yet. I was still young, had to choose what I liked more and what I wanted to focus on. I played football outside with friends every day, so that choice was easy. Now that it’s starting to get better, I’m still behind it. Of course Thai boxing is nice to do every now and then, to stay fit during the holidays. You can also use the character you need in Thai boxing in football, but I think you have to have something like that in you.” Vermeulen’s character and perseverance are good. It is not for nothing that he is better known as Dirk Kuijt in the vicinity of the Jan Louwers Stadium, although that may also have something to do with his appearance. “I didn’t make the comparison with Kuijt myself, but my teammates did. He may not have been the best in the world football technically, but he has had a brilliant career by never giving up. That’s how I put it together, you’ll never see me forsake. So I kind of get the comparison.”
Does one even exist wingback whom Vermeulen likes to mirror himself to? “To be honest, I don’t pay attention to that at all. I want to have my own style and not be the same as the right-back of Liverpool or something. How would I describe my own style? Very dynamic with a lot of kilometers in a race. I can often be found in the opponent’s penalty area, but I do keep an eye on the defensive aspect,” he replied. “You notice that you need competitions to take steps. Of course you occasionally play lesser matches, everyone has that. You have to learn from that and keep going. There’s nothing I can’t improve on, you can never have enough. I also try not to enjoy it too much, because it can suddenly go less. That’s why I want to keep taking steps, we are far from done. I am happy with the steps I have made so far.”
Vermeulen played 26 official games this season, in which he was good for 3 goals and 5 assists.
Vermeulen, in his own words, notices that it ‘will come to life’ in his environment now that he plays an increasingly prominent role at FC Eindhoven. “I get a lot of compliments, also at the club. Other clubs are interested. That motivates me extra, I need a little pressure to perform. This allows me to rise above myself,” says Vermeulen. His contract with FC Eindhoven expires at the end of the season. Talks are underway about a longer collaboration, while a next step could also be a possibility next summer. A number of clubs have reported to his agent Bilal Achenteh. Vermeulen shrugs. “If I start thinking about that, it won’t help my game. Every now and then I get something, but I said to my agent: I don’t want to deal with that. I just want to fully focus on football and my agent will take care of the rest, then we’ll see at the end of the season.”
Vermeulen’s focus is now on ‘scoring more, being important to the team and helping to make it to the play-offs’. Although FC Eindhoven is sliding through an excellent series – already unbeaten in eight games – secretly towards the direct promotion spots. “It is indeed still in our sights, but we have to look match by match”, Vermeulen responds with a smile. “It’s going well, we have a close-knit team. It actually feels a bit like family, even off the field. That has grown more and more as the season has progressed. Promoting with FC Eindhoven would be very special, we do talk about that every now and then. Then we are fantasizing. Yes, that would be very nice.”
Name: Valentino Vermeulen
Date of birth: July 20, 2001
Club: FC Eindhoven
Position: right back
Strengths: content, speed, tackling
Voetbalzone is the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division
Click here for exclusive interviews, talent scouts, current positions and the program on our Kitchen Champion Division page.