“The level is higher here”

Vincent Janssen is having a lot of fun in Mexico. The CF Monterrey striker became the national champion for the first time in his life in December and tells the opposite VTBL that the level in Liga MX is high. “It’s better than the Eredivisie, at least that’s my opinion,” said the seventeen-year-old orange international.

Janssen, who was taken from Tottenham Hotspur for € 9m last summer, is an important basic strength in Monterrey: the 25-year-old attacker has so far scored 11 goals in 28 official games for the best Mexican club. “I’m having a good time,” says Janssen. “I’ve had a lot of great experiences recently. Experiencing my first championship in Mexico after five months was something special.”

According to Janssen, the level in Mexico is therefore higher than in the Netherlands, where he became the top scorer of the AZ Eredivisie in the 2015/16 season with 27 goals. “It is a very good competition. Here there are many internationals coming from this region of the world. There are only one or two European players, including myself. It is a completely different way of playing soccer, but there are many quality.”

“Our team includes many internationals from Mexico, Colombia and Argentina,” says Janssen, referring to Mexican internationals like Jesús Gallardo and Carlos Rodríguez and, for example, Dorlan Pabón from Colombia. “It is not always football that we are used to in Holland. There are a lot of physical boys and the game goes up and down quickly. As a result, there are spaces.”

Janssen is satisfied with his own performance in Monterrey. “I was able to do my part and I was quite important to the team, also in the playoffs. It was very nice to feel that again,” the center forward refers to his stay in Tottenham, which ended in major disappointment. Spurs He made less than € 22m to AZ in 2016, but Janssen failed to impress London from the start.

“It wasn’t the period I expected in Tottenham. As a 22-year-old from Arizona, this was a big step, but I didn’t get the minutes I expected. I didn’t get to my level there, either. Play again, be a footballer and be appreciated.” . Janssen made a total of 42 appearances for Tottenham, scoring 6 goals. In the 2017/18 season, he played for a year on a rental basis with Fenerbahçe, where he represented 5 hits in 19 games.

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