New Tottenham Hotspur striker Vincent Janssen has admitted he almost quit football three years ago when he was released by Feyenoord.
- By Michael Bell
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Janssen spent three years in the Feyenoord academy, but the Rotterdam club came to the decision to release the 19-year-old striker in 2013, who decided to drop down a division to join Almere City.
The forward’s career rose rapidly from that point, with the striker having two productive years with Almere City before joining AZ last summer and going on to the Eredivisie top scorer and the Dutch national teams number one. This summer Tottenham nabbed the now 21-year-old for £17 million.
Ahead of Spurs’ match against Juventus in the International Champions Cup on Tuesday, Janssen stated to ESPN he was close to giving the game up after leaving Feyenoord.
He said, “I had to make a decision: am I going to go for the football or make another choice.
“When you play in the Dutch second division, it’s not like you can live off that for your whole life. I said to myself: ‘I’m going to invest, I’m going to try it one more time.’ And I got a really good club, a really good coach and pushed myself.
“It’s gone crazily fast. It’s happened. I always trusted myself. I said to myself: ‘Ok, I’m going for it now and I’m going to do everything for it and if it’s not going work, I can say I did everything for it.’ It was going very well at Almere City, so I could make a big step in two years.
“I liked football too much to quit it, but at that moment it was now or never. And if it wasn’t going to be what I wanted, I had to make a choice. I said to myself: “One time more I’m going to give everything for it”, and you can see what can happen.
“My feeling at Feyenoord was not that good. I never felt really comfortable. Feyenoord made a choice at that moment and I made a choice to go on. Sometimes, it not always going how you want it to go is helpful.
“I was not feeling comfortable there, so I had to fight for myself. That’s what I learned there. Sometimes when it doesn’t go well, you have to fight. So that’s what I did.
“The past has happened and you have to look to the future. You have to go on, and that’s what I’m telling myself every game. To play a good game every game, you have to stay there again. I don’t look back on history. I want to look forward to the future.”
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