Arthur Vermeeren's Journey: From Atletico Madrid to Royal Antwerp
Arthur Vermeeren arrived at Atletico Madrid in 2024 carrying a heavy label for a 21-year-old. The new Axel Witsel. The next great metronome in Diego Simeone’s midfield. A Belgian wonderkid dropped into a dressing room built on scars and seniority.
It never really started.
Across the second half of the 2023-24 season, Vermeeren’s Atletico career amounted to five official appearances and just 159 minutes in La Liga. He hovered on the fringes of the squad, watched matchdays pass him by and never managed to force his way into Simeone’s starting XI. For a player billed as a long-term pillar, he became a short chapter.
The exit came quickly. From Antwerp to Madrid, then on to RB Leipzig and a spell in France, before the circle closed and he found himself back where it all began: Royal Antwerp.
Looking back now, Vermeeren doesn’t hide from the reality that his leap from Belgium to Spain was far from ideal. Atletico had paid €22 million (£18.5m) to prise him away, a fee inflated by Antwerp’s financial strain at the time. The move made sense on paper for the club’s accounts. From a football point of view, the midfielder sees the flaws.
“I don't think I necessarily made bad decisions,” he told Het Nieuwsblad. “Probably there were wrong decisions among them, but the circumstances, which few people are aware of, also played a part. Perhaps Atletico wasn't the right club, but at the time it seemed the best option, and I fully supported it.”
The numbers say his time in Madrid was a non-event. Vermeeren insists the opposite. For him, those months cut deepest and taught him most.
He landed in a new country, in a new language, in a dressing room where he “barely knew anyone.” The minutes didn’t come. The frustration did.
“People don't see it that way, but my time at Atletico is when I learnt the most,” he explained. “I barely knew anyone, I didn't speak the language and, on top of that, I wasn't playing. That turned into disappointment and anger, complaining about everything. As if it were everyone else's fault.”
The self-criticism is sharp. So was Atletico’s business sense.
While Vermeeren never became the midfield anchor they imagined, the club avoided turning the gamble into a financial wound. They moved him on to Leipzig with a deal that suited their balance sheet: a €9m (£7.5m) loan fee, followed by a €16m (£13.5m) obligation to buy. In total, Atletico recouped €25m (£21m), turning an underused asset into a small profit.
Leipzig, stacked with young talent and built as a springboard for emerging players, chose a different route for him this season. They sent him back to Antwerp on loan, back to the familiar red shirt and the city that launched his career.
He has already made two league appearances in this new spell. No grand declarations, no bold promises. Just a clear target: help Antwerp chase the Belgian title again, something they last lifted in 2023.
From heir to Witsel to a player rebuilding at home, Vermeeren’s path has bent sharply. The hype has quietened. The stage, for now, is smaller. The question is whether the lessons from Madrid turn this return into a relaunch rather than a retreat.
