Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 2:31 PM• Yvo van Dorst • Last update: 15:27

Ismaïl Aissati will train with NEC in the coming period to keep up his condition. According to the Gelderlander training the midfielder at the club is a favor of technical director Ted van Leeuwen, who worked with him at Vitesse in the 2010/11 season. There is not yet a contract for Aissati in Nijmegen.

Aissati is no stranger to the Netherlands. At the start of his career, the midfielder played successively for PSV, FC Twente, Ajax and Vitesse. In 2012, he went abroad to play for Alanyaspor in Turkey. After that, Aissati played for several clubs in Turkey and another three years in Russia for Terek Grozny. He played football for Denizlispor last season. At the club, which plays at the second level in Turkey, he provided 4 assists in 22 games.

Aissati managed to become champion of the Netherlands five times, of which twice in a row with Ajax and no less than three times in a row with PSV. The 33-year-old Utrechter opted for an international career with Morocco, where he eventually won two international matches. Aissati was seen as a great talent, as evidenced by his second place in the top fifty talents that World Soccer compiled in 2007. With this second place, the right leg was above well-known names such as Gareth Bale (6), Sergio Agüero (7), Ángel di María (11) and Karim Benzema (15).

NEC was in the news earlier this week when the club announced the arrival of Oussama Tannane. The ex-player of Vitesse comes transfer-free from the Turkish Göztepe. Aissati, who previously played for Vitesse, is also on the training field of the rival from Nijmegen. At the beginning of last season, the relations between the two Gelderland ruffs were already sharpened by the arrival of ex-Vitesse player Wilfried Bony. The Ivorian played only forty minutes for NEC last season and is leaving on a free transfer.