Erik ten Hag believes that Wout Weghorst’s ‘intelligence’ is the reason why the striker became a professional footballer. The coach let us know this in conversation with Football International. Ten Hag rejected Weghorst from the youth academy of FC Twente, but he later brought him to Manchester United.
In 2023, Weghorst played on loan for Manchester United, where Ten Hag was ultimately responsible. According to the coach, a player’s IQ is an underestimated factor for success in professional football. The fact that Weghorst made it as a professional footballer is due to Ten Hag ‘not only because of his unimaginable efforts, but also because he is quite smart. Intelligent’.
Ten Hag decided to bring Weghorst to Manchester United in 2023, even though he had once rejected him as head of FC Twente’s youth academy. “Whether you were talking about the first assumption, passing, shooting, heading, dueling, finishing; by nature, everything was actually below par for professional football,” says Ten Hag.
According to former striker coach Dirk Jan Derksen, who worked with the striker at Willem II, ‘Weghorst headed as if he had a pigeon on his head’. “He indeed couldn’t head,” Ten Hag responds. “But he can think well. This means he is able to process information and then convert this information into football actions. I think that intelligence is an important factor why he has made unimaginable progress in technique at a later age.”
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