Cyriel Dessers
Eredivisie top scorer targeting international recognition at new club
Cyriel Dessers wasted no time in beginning to pay back the investment made in him by Racing Genk with a goal on his debut at the start of the new Belgian season, following his €4 million move from Heracles Almelo in the neighbouring Netherlands.
With 15 goals from 26 matches, he had topped the Eredivisie’s goal charts alongside Feyenoord’s Steven Berghuis, firing Heracles to eighth place.
It proved a breakout campaign for the 25-year-old, something of a late bloomer but now with his sights firmly set on an international career.
Belgian-born Dessers received one call-up at Under-21 level for his country of birth but was an unused substitute. Now he is being earmarked for a debut with Nigeria, where his mother hails from.
“Before the 2018 World Cup I had some contact with them and they told me I had to go to a club where I would play weekly,” he explained.
At that stage, Dessers’ potential had been recognised by FC Utrecht. The Eredivisie club signed him after 22 goals in the Dutch second division for NAC Breda, but he made more appearances as a substitute than a starter in his first season, and his second campaign was ruined by a bad knee injury.
The move to Heracles in 2019, who paid €1m for him and have realised a four-fold profit on their investment, was both a setback and an opportunity.
“Everyone has to deal with setbacks at one time or another. Injuries, form, confidence, coaches who are not sure about you. When Dick Advocaat took over at Utrecht I thought I had his confidence but after one week I was on the bench. But in Almelo the coach left me in the team even when things weren’t going well. He knew I could be important with goals and assists.”
And so it proved, as Dessers went on to dominate the scoring charts in the Dutch league. There were key goals too, like the winner over Ajax in a rare triumph for the provincial club over the Amsterdam giants. By mid-season he had created enough interest that there were talks with Celta Vigo and struggling SPAL in Serie A about a January move, but neither were concluded.
“I do have the ambition to still play in one of the top five leagues in Europe but it was not to be this time around because of the coronavirus. I think the crisis made it difficult for the agents in the transfer market,” he added. But Genk was a more than satisfactory alternative. It was the club he supported as a boy, having had trials there as a seven-year-old and he often played against them in preseason scrimmages with his first professional club OH Leuven.
“I had long dreamed to play in their stadium. Hard work has paid off and I’m now where I want to be.”
Next then is to win a first cap for Nigeria. Dessers popped over to London to speak to Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr in the early part of the year and not long after received a call-up for two Africa Nations Cup qualifiers in March against Sierra Leone. The matches were put on ice by the pandemic but will likely be played in November.
“That was painful because I thought it could have been one of the best moments of my life, certainly my career.”
That debut is not far away, even with stiff competition for places in Nigeria’s attack – not least from Napoli’s new €60m man Victor Osimhen. Still, if Dessers can reproduce at Genk what he did at Heracles last season, he will be more than worth his place.
“I do have the ambition to still play in one of the top five leagues in Europe but it was not to be this time around”
Cyriel Dessers