Player Watch Player Watch: Micky van de Ven

[Pochemon94]

This weekend is going to be a different beast than lasts.

Having to deal with Salah/Gakpo/Nunez is going to be intense. All I can ask is to be brave and no stupid mistakes.

 

[GMI]

I really like Lee Dixon on commentary. Clearly a Gooner but can take the red specs off and has a very dry, subtle sense of humour . I'd rather have him over every one of Sky's offerings.

Dixon is ok actually but I’ve never heard him doing commentary and not mention something ‘Arsene’ would do or say..

I think he’s a Man City fan.

 

[HNIM]

I will say in the US we are blessed with our pundants for the most part. NBC got it bang on since the beginning and the only downside is Tim Howard. They tend to be super fair in pre/post/haltime talks. The only thing that is brutal is our commentators, half of them are ex Arsenal or Arsenal fans so whenever we play they just give backhanded compliments all match

Tim Howard isn’t bad, just not all that insightful, and rather boring. Also, just my opinion that Rebecca Lowe is the best studio host in sports. She’s really good at keeping discussions focused and on topic.

 

[SpursSince1980]

Tim Howard isn’t bad, just not all that insightful, and rather boring. Also, just my opinion that Rebecca Lowe is the best studio host in sports. She’s really good at keeping discussions focused and on topic.

I like the woman on CBS/Paramount who covers all the European games. She's annoyingly smart, and speaks multiple languages, and her biceps are twice the size of mine!

But seriously, she's a great host and also very knowledgeable. But I do have a soft spot for Lowe. She has great chemistry with the two Robbies.

 

[SpursSince1980]

Dixon is ok actually but I’ve never heard him doing commentary and not mention something ‘Arsene’ would do or say..

I think he’s a Man City fan.

Le Saux is really good too. Comes out with some sardonic zingers. Sad that Arlo is no longer commentating with them, as the three worked well together. The new chap is okay, but is weirdly obsessed with the word 'delicious'.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

My 2nd favourite spurs player atm after Madison & Sonny who are joint 1st, absolutely love Micky, proper player and seems like a really good lad.

 

[tevezito]

My 2nd favourite spurs player atm after Madison & Sonny who are joint 1st, absolutely love Micky, proper player and seems like a really good lad.

So third then.

 

[mark87]

 

[chas vs dave]

So third then.

No he's second. The other two are both 1st....

 

[Timbo Tottenham]

No he's second. The other two are both 1st....

Judas is my second favourite Spurs player of all time… Everyone else is equal first.

 

[easley91]

Watched this car ride interview and I loved it. He speaks very well. Hopefully they're going to do more of these.

 

[npearl4spurs]

View attachment 132641

"he is in my back" Classic Romero, can't contain his aggression even with his own teammates

 

[mark87]

 

[npearl4spurs]

There's no limit to his ceiling. He could be iconic. So good already and can dare to dream with how much more he can grow

 

[theShiznit]

I'm just loving the whole makeup and balance of our defence right now.
We have a young LCB who's performances are belying his years. He have a LB that "can't play LB", a RB that "can't play RB" and a crazy RCB that "only pays for his country."

And long may it continue!

 

[Frank Blank]

View attachment 132641

"When I came (to Tottenham), he was really nice to me and showed me 'here is the kitchen and where you can get this'.....

Was he brandishing a big knife at the time?

 

[Johnny J]

So third then.

Maddison count as one.

 

[robotsonic]

Quite a bunch of rando interviews from him this week have popped up, and wonder whether that's just him or the club putting him forward. Good sign whichever to be honest.

You get the sense from his media as to why he's previously been made a captain at levels below. Sensible and calm demeanour and exudes the right mentality. Imposing figure but the right kind of person underneath it. EuroLedders vibes. Not overawed as he's proved, and speaks very eloquently. Could absolutely see him as a Tottenham captain in a few years on this trajectory for the team and himself.

 

[Marty]

Long read from the Athletic today

The fittingly rapid rise of Micky van de Ven

How the rapid Dutchman has developed into one of Europe’s most exciting defenders

theathletic.com

“Holy s**t. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Ruben Jongkind is sharing his first impressions of Micky van de Ven as a footballer.

Van de Ven was 17 at the time, playing for FC Volendam Under-19s, and Jongkind, who had previously overseen talent development at Ajax, was about to join Volendam in a similar role. “I’d seen fast players but this was crazy. ‘What could happen if we combined this speed with his dribbling and technical quality?’.”

Watching with Jongkind was Wim Jonk, the former Ajax, Inter Milan. Sheffield Wednesday and Netherlands midfielder, who was about to take over as manager of the then second-division Dutch team. Jonk had also worked with Jongkind as a coach at Ajax, where the pair led the way on executing the Cruyff Plan, based on the principles of the legendary Johan Cruyff, in the 2010s.

Jonk was similarly awestruck watching a young Van de Ven. “He was dribbling past five or six players easily,” Jonk says. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Jongkind and Jonk formally joined Volendam a few months later, and instantly offered Van de Ven a new contract. He had been told by the previous regime that he was surplus to requirements.

Van de Ven has barely looked back since. He had only just turned 18, but was quickly promoted to the reserves, and then the first team. Two years later, in the summer of 2021, he joined German top-flight side Wolfsburg for £3million. Another two years on from that, Van de Ven moved to Tottenham Hotspur for an initial £34.5m ($42.1m at current rates) this August, with the fee potentially rising to £43m.

It’s been a fittingly rapid rise for the 6ft 3in (193cm) Dutchman, who was the fastest centre-back in the Bundesliga last season, with a top speed of 22.4mph.

Those sorts of numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, but Van de Ven’s speed is not in question. Jongkind, who has worked previously in athletics, laughs as he remembers once seeing how quickly Van de Ven could run the 60-metre dash: “It was a standing start, after training, and he ran a flat seven seconds. Incredible.”

Van de Ven has been quick to settle in north London too, impressing again in Sunday’s derby draw at Arsenal, and being serenaded by the Spurs fans minutes into his debut last month against Brentford.

Next up is Saturday’s visit of Liverpool, the club Van de Ven supported growing up. They also looked at him this summer before opting against pursuing a centre-back.

Ahead of that game, this is how Van de Ven, a tennis enthusiast and the son of a celebrity father, developed into one of Europe’s most exciting defenders.

Van de Ven grew up in Wormer, around 15 miles from Volendam, it’s a fishing village and handball hotspot with its own dialect, music and customs, 18 miles north of Amsterdam.

He joined the Volendam academy aged 12, initially as a striker, before being converted to a centre-back a couple of years later. Van de Ven only ever wanted to be a footballer, and reckons now that the alternative would be finding a job such as a personal trainer. In his spare time, he attended Ajax matches with his dad, which included watching a young Jan Vertonghen, and witnessing Spurs’ 3-2 Champions League semi-final win in 2019.

He has always been close to his father Marcel, who was an undercover agent in a secret unit fighting serious crime. He has since become a national celebrity as the lead detective in the Dutch version of the game show Hunted, where contestants try to evade their pursuers. Marcel has also written several books, including a bestselling autobiography last year.

Van de Ven’s path to a comparable level of success was not straightforward. “The bigger I got, the slower I became,” he told German football magazine Kicker in June. “I felt really slow when I was 15 or 16. Every turn, every sprint was difficult.”

Things changed dramatically a couple of years later when 49-time Dutch international Jonk, who started his career at Volendam, his hometown club, and his colleagues arrived.

“I owe almost everything to him,” Van de Ven said of Jonk earlier this year.

In their first meeting, Jonk recalls saying to Van de Ven that he had to never be satisfied and to develop step by step. “And by the end, you will have 80 international caps. We’ll work on everything but you must work hard every f***ing day.”

Luckily, Van de Ven was as determined as he was talented. “He has a very strong mindset. He’s a fighter, a killer,” says Jongkind.

Van de Ven was promoted to the reserves (Volendam II) straight away and was only there very briefly before moving up to the first team. It was too quick a rise for some journalists covering the club. “I spoke to him after he made his debut for the second team and when the interview came out a few weeks later, he was already in the first team,” says Sander Berends, editor of ELF Voetbal magazine.

His manager for that short period with Volendam II was Berry Smit, who says of Van de Ven: “He was a machine. You put a quarter (coin) in him and he stopped when you told him to stop. Everyone said he would be a star. He was a winger, he was a central midfielder, he did everything.”

Jongkind and Jonk knew they had a special talent on their hands and, after their half-decade spent executing the Cruyff Plan that revitalised Ajax, wanted to take him to the next level. Based on Cruyff’s teachings, player development for Jongkind and Jonk was about individual coaching programmes and focusing on strengths as well as weaknesses.

“There were things missing, but we saw a Cruyffian defender — risk-taking, incredibly quick — with huge potential,” Jongkind says. “In 2020, we said this was a potential left centre-back for the Dutch team.”

It helped that Volendam’s Ajax alumni could benchmark Van de Ven’s progress against the level of defenders such as Matthijs de Ligt or Noussair Mazraoui (both now at Bayern Munich) at the equivalent age.

Working with nutritionists, data analysts and “seven or eight other specialists” at Volendam, Jongkind and Jonk sought to maximise Van de Ven’s strengths, principally his extraordinary speed. Jongkind, using his athletics background, noticed that Van de Ven’s range of motion was too big, and so he wasn’t being as efficient as he could have been with his running.

They made small changes to his gait and made his range of motion a bit smaller, which they believe reduced potential issues with his hamstrings and meant he could keep sprinting for a whole game (a skill that is coming in useful for Ange Postecoglou’s hard-running Tottenham team).

The challenge with keeping Van de Ven’s speed and improving his efficiency was that he also needed to bulk up. Thanks in part to being put on a nutrition programme that included basics such as cutting out sugar and consuming the right amount of carbohydrates and protein before and after training, Van de Ven put on 10 kilograms (22lb) — crucially without compromising his speed.

On the training pitch, Jonk worked with Van de Ven on various small details relating to his heading and distribution. Positionally as well, Jonk insisted that Van de Ven needed to sharpen up because he wouldn’t be able to rely just on his pace once he was playing in a top European league.

They didn’t tinker with everything — for example, Van de Ven’s seemingly self-taught skill of holding off attackers with his arm. “Watch him,” says Jongkind. “Especially when he turns away from an opponent. He uses his arm in a particular way that blocks them from getting to the ball.”

Jonk also occasionally put Van de Ven in midfield because he felt it would improve his scanning, press resistance, and overall understanding of the game. This was also part of the plan to constantly challenge him, without which he could be a bit lazy and complacent.

“Sometimes he needed a push but his winning mentality was crazy, one of the best I’ve ever seen,” says Jongkind. “Winning a duel, winning a match. He can’t stand losing. He taps into some kind of invincibility. He’s like, ‘You will not pass me! I will get that ball or I will die.’ He’s a warrior on the field.”

Van de Ven’s mentality was part of the reason Jonk made him Volendam captain at age 19 and in only his second season of senior football. Jonk also created an environment, much like at Spurs now, where it was OK if the kid made a mistake.

Another key figure in Van de Ven’s journey was his then agent Mino Raiola, who the defender credits with discovering him and overseeing his move from the Dutch second division to the Bundesliga at the end of that second season. Van de Ven said of the late Raiola in June: “I owe him a lot. Mino always said: ‘You have to decide what you want, listen to your feelings’.”

That move to Wolfsburg in 2021 was agreed following a dispute between Raiola and Volendam, who the agent believed were holding out for too high a price. It went to court, but the arbitration committee of the Dutch Football Association ruled in Volendam’s favour and the club ultimately received a €3.5million fee, as well as a healthy sell-on percentage of his next transfer (earning them a few million euros this summer).

Despite the way things ended, Van de Ven remains on excellent terms with the players and coaches at Volendam, since promoted to the Eredivisie. He is a regular visitor, including earlier this month, and is in contact with, among various others, Jongkind and Jonk.

Van de Ven endured a difficult start to life in Germany, making just five first-team appearances in his first season — partly because of injury. While unavailable he went back to Volendam and spoke to Jonk, who told him to “stay patient, calm and focused.”

Season two was much more successful, with Van de Ven playing almost every minute of Wolfsburg’s Bundesliga campaign — mainly as a centre-back. He put his versatility to good use as well, though, playing a handful of games at left-back and impressing with his bursts forward.

He established himself as one of the division’s best central defenders, thanks in part to his electrifying pace. You’ve probably all seen the moment in the DFB-Pokal (Germany’s FA Cup equivalent) against Union Berlin when he ran the length of the pitch, Forrest Gump-style, to make an impossible-looking goal-line clearance at the end of a game Wolfsburg were about to lose anyway.


Van de Ven’s intensity, solidity and ability to drive forward made him very popular at Wolfsburg. “Incredible development, extreme speed, plays every second,” said their managing director for sport Marcel Schafer.

“Micky is a great boy, a really good footballer,” added Wolfsburg manager Niko Kovac.

Thomas Hiete, a reporter from Kicker who covers Wolfsburg, says Van de Ven was the club’s “shooting star”. “He’s a bit old-school, which I like, and seemed like a smart guy when I interviewed him.”


Stylistically, as the smarterscout chart above shows, Van de Ven was quite passive last season when it came to trying to win the ball. Similarly, he has only committed two fouls in the Premier League so far this season, and the hope is that he will complement the more aggressive Cristian Romero for Spurs. Van de Ven told the Press Association this week that he and Romero get on well off the pitch and bring out the best in each other on it.

When it came to leaving Wolfsburg this summer, Liverpool were touted as a possible destination, partly because their new sporting director Jorg Schmadtke was the man who had brought Van de Ven to Wolfsburg. And the player had made no secret of his admiration for Liverpool in that June interview with Kicker, which included a reference to a trip he had made with his father to watch them at Anfield.

But Liverpool opted against signing a centre-back, and after weeks of negotiations Tottenham eventually got a deal over the line, at last bringing in a top-class left-sided centre-back.

Van de Ven meanwhile was impressed by Postecoglou and attracted to the idea of playing in a team with a high defensive line that would suit his pace. He also had a connection to Spurs having enjoyed watching Vertonghen play for Ajax growing up and being a fan of countryman Rafael van der Vaart, whose chant he has inherited from the supporters.

The Dutchman has settled in well, helped by the captain Son Heung-min taking him under his wing. James Maddison has also been a very welcoming presence, and the pair share an interest in darts. Watching tennis is another way Van de Ven likes to unwind (Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz are his favourite players) and he’s a keen gamer, especially Call of Duty and FIFA (now EA Sports FC).

He’s a naturally friendly person and suits the Spurs dressing-room dynamic. There’s a feeling that this summer’s signings have all been good cultural, as well as footballing, fits. Van de Ven spoke after the Arsenal game of already seeing his team-mates as “brothers” and Postecoglou as “a dad”.


Soon after joining Tottenham, Van de Ven received his first senior Dutch call-up — though he is yet to make his debut. He still has plenty to work on, including his footwork when attackers are running at him, and a tendency when making tackles to be too forceful.

Back in the Netherlands, Jongkind and Jonk keep a close eye on his performances and text him messages of congratulations. Jongkind says he doesn’t have time to see all of every game but watches all of Van de Ven’s actions on the scouting platform Wyscout.

For Jonk, should Van de Ven still be aiming for 80 caps, as he told him all those years ago?

“Yes,” Jonk says, laughing. “But first of all, starting against Liverpool on Saturday, he has to keep getting that little bit better every day. It’s a never-ending story.”

 

[bubble07]

I've got a man crush on him. Spurs are really pushing him on the media front and he comes across so well. Just seems like such a likeable bloke