The Norwegian national team player's standing abroad is growing.
VG reports from Bruges, Belgium
The short version
- Hugo Vettelsen (24 years old) has become a regular at Club Brugge in less than a year and will be fighting for the league title and the Europa League.
- Football journalist Thomas Tyche boasts of Vetelsen as a leader on the pitch and in the dressing room
- Vettelsen has already played more than 50 matches and scored two consecutive goals for the Belgian club
- He has a strong connection to Belgium, having been born and raised in Waterloo
- Tyche believes Vettelsen should stay in Belgium a little longer before making the move to the big leagues
In less than a year, Hugo Vettelsen (24) has become a central figure at Club Brugge, and next month he will be fighting for the league title and last place in the Europa League.
– When you ask the team's players who they raise their voices in the locker room, Hugo is the name that comes up again and again.
– In the dressing room, he is not among the top leaders, but he is just below the top leaders already, which is a bit surprising because he has not been here for a year yet. Also on the pitch, he is a leader by the way he fights, and Thomas Tyke does the 24-year-old proud.
For 12 years, Taiki has worked as a football journalist for the largest Belgian newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws, and uses every working day to follow the club as closely as possible.
Football journalist at the largest Belgian newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws.
Vetelsen recognizes himself in the football journalist's descriptions:
– Yes, I think I was myself from the beginning and obviously good performance on the field and more time at the club makes it easier to get a place in the group.
– It's natural for me and something I did in all the clubs I visited. Whether it's in Belgium, Norway, or elsewhere, I take the space I need to make myself feel more comfortable.
In the last match, Vettelsen distinguished himself by more than just scoring goals:
– How would you summarize your first year that you will soon spend in Belgium?
– I would say well. “I have improved from the first second since I arrived and I have already played 50 games this year,” responds Vetelsen.
– Hugo was rotated a lot in the first months, was in and out of the starting lineup a bit and was used in one Role He is not necessarily his strongest, as football journalist Taiki points out, and continues:
– Now playing higher up the pitch, he is increasingly finding his place in the team and with scoring goals in two consecutive matches, he is at the top of his game. The goal against St. Gillio's was varied and interesting.
Watch the goal here:
In addition to his play on the pitch, Vettelsen's somewhat unknown background has given him extra attention.
It was Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that published an old photo of four-year-old Vetelsen wearing the uniform of Club Brugge's arch rivals Anderlecht.
But the Norwegian has a good explanation:
– When my father gave me a suit when I was four years old, I had no choice but to wear it. “When you were a kid, you used to do stupid things, and this is one of the things I did,” Vetelsen says and smiles.
-Are you happy that things ended this way?, VG asks.
– Yes, yes, are you crazy? Club Brugge is the biggest club in this country, so I don't regret it for a second.
– In other words: I am happier playing for Club Brugge than Anderlecht.
What many people don't know is that Vetelsen actually has strong ties with both neighboring Belgium and France.
-I was born in Belgium and grew up in Waterloo because my father worked there. I lived here for the first four years of my life, but of course I don't remember much, says the national team player, who speaks fluent French because of his French mother.
do you remember this?
– In Norway, we always talk about Belgian football as an intermediate step before one of them The Big Five Championships. Can he manage it?, asks VG football journalist Taiki.
– Absolutely. But it needs more time. It would be unwise of him to think about the next place now.
-But Hugo is a smart guy and I met smart parents. Maybe he knows he needs at least another year, says the man who has seen one youngster after another leave Bruges for clubs bigger in the football hierarchy.
“Infuriatingly humble internet trailblazer. Twitter buff. Beer nerd. Bacon scholar. Coffee practitioner.”
