Bryan Linssen: The Veteran Forward NEC Needs
Hugo Borst throws down a challenge: call up Bryan Linssen.
In his column for Algemeen Dagblad, the outspoken journalist turns his gaze to Nijmegen, where a 35-year-old forward is driving one of the stories of the Eredivisie season. NEC sit an improbable third in the VriendenLoterij Eredivisie, and at the heart of that surge is Linssen – veteran, late bloomer, and, in Borst’s eyes, a glaring omission from Ronald Koeman’s Oranje plans.
A veteran making noise in Nijmegen
Borst doesn’t tiptoe around it. For him, the time has come for Linssen to finally wear the Oranje shirt.
“At NEC, there is a 35-year-old footballer we are all fond of: Bryan Linssen. He is getting better and better,” he writes, holding up the forward as the symbol of NEC’s surprise rise.
Linssen has never been the polished European star. No Champions League pedigree, no blockbuster transfer trail. He is the former Feyenoord striker who seemed destined to live out his career in the slipstream of bigger names. Yet his numbers this season, Borst argues, demand attention.
Linssen, he points out, brings something the national team often lacks: depth in his game, constant movement, and a penalty-box presence that never switches off. His statistics are “good,” Borst notes, but the real story lies in how he plays.
More than goals: a relentless worker
“Linssen scores regularly,” Borst continues, before quickly stressing that the goals are only part of the package.
He hails the forward’s work ethic as elite. Linssen, in his depiction, is the forward who never stops: always fit, always pressing, always chasing defenders into mistakes. Goalkeepers feel his presence long before the ball reaches the area.
Physically, Borst paints a vivid picture. Linssen, he says, is lean but powerful – “not an ounce of fat,” just “a mass of muscle.” This is the kind of striker who makes life miserable for defenders for 90 minutes, then still has the energy to press in stoppage time.
The Weghorst comparison
To sharpen his argument, Borst reaches for a familiar reference point: Wout Weghorst. The Dutch target man has been a recurring figure in recent Oranje squads, a Plan B presence with aerial strength and a tireless engine.
Borst, however, believes Linssen outstrips him.
He calls Linssen the better forward “in every respect,” and doesn’t restrict the comparison to footballing qualities. Character comes into it as well. Linssen, he says, is “amiable, cheerful and sociable” – traits he suggests Weghorst “lacks.”
On the pitch, Borst doubles down. Linssen, he insists, is the superior header of the ball, even though he acknowledges that Weghorst “is not half bad” in that department. The implication is clear: if Koeman wants a hard-working, aerially strong striker who lifts the dressing room as well as the attack, the answer may not be the usual name.
A direct message to Koeman
Borst’s column builds towards a simple, pointed appeal. If the national team is to reflect form, character and contribution rather than reputation alone, then the NEC forward deserves serious consideration.
“If we’re going to be sociable, Koeman: do give Bryan Linssen a thought,” he concludes.
The question now hangs over Zeist: in a national team often searching for the right balance up front, will Koeman really overlook the 35-year-old driving NEC’s unlikely charge?
