With his surprising transfer to FC Porto, Luuk de Jong definitively said goodbye to PSV on Sunday. Trainer Peter Bosz grants his former captain the new adventure, but also regrets the departure of “a great person.”
Just minutes before the PSV players enter the field for the second half against Go Ahead Eagles in the Johan Cruijff Shield on Sunday, FC Porto puts a message on X. In it, the Portuguese top club announces the arrival of De Jong.
It is a transfer that no one sees coming. In recent months, there has been much uncertainty about De Jong, whose contract with PSV expired after last season. The club icon could sign again in Eindhoven, but would have to enter the competition with Ricardo Pepi.
De Jong did not sign, but also remained silent. In the meantime, he was linked with a transfer to Saudi Arabia, and on Sunday morning there was a rumor in Spanish media about a return to Sevilla.
The name of FC Porto was never mentioned. Until De Jong reported on Sunday around seven o’clock on the field of Estádio do Dragão of FC Porto, for his presentation during the open day of the Portuguese club.
“I’ve known since last night,” Bosz said Sunday evening at the press conference after the match with Go Ahead (2-1 victory). “But no, I didn’t see this coming either.”
Bosz called De Jong once
Bosz was eager to keep the 34-year-old De Jong at PSV. The striker was the striker in Bosz’s team for two years. In those two seasons, De Jong scored no less than 56 goals. But above all, he was important as a leader of the team.
“I will miss everything about Luuk,” Bosz said. “He is a great person and someone you can trust. I like working with that. And he is also a really good footballer. It seems logical to me that I would have liked to keep him.”
Defender Sergiño Dest was also asked about the departure of his captain. “Luuk was a good captain. I also played with him at FC Barcelona. We always had a good click. He was an experienced leader. But I grant him this step.”
However much Bosz would have liked to keep his captain; he chose in recent months not to beg De Jong to stay. “I called him once and spoke to him once when he was at the club. That’s it.”
“I think I have to respect his choice. And his choice was to wait. Then I can try to call him every week, but I don’t think that’s fair. He knows how much I would have liked to keep him. It is his choice.”
‘Luuk belongs to the best strikers of PSV’
According to Bosz, the match with Go Ahead showed how much PSV will miss De Jong. “We will miss that he was often at the end of a cross. Just put his head against the ball and head it in.”
“If you see how many crosses we gave today… Luuk is someone who will fight. Whether he is the best in the world at heading? I find that difficult to say. But I can imagine that it is not nice to play against Luuk.”
Bosz finds it difficult to say where De Jong stands in the history of PSV strikers. “Romário and Ronaldo were world-class. I played against those men myself at that time. That was not nice.”
“And people here also enjoyed Ruud van Nistelrooij. But Luuk certainly belongs to the best strikers in the history of this club.”