Valentijn Driessen sees ‘new Wout Weghorst’ in the Eredivisie

Valentijn Driessen has taken notice of Milan Zonneveld's rise. A year and a half ago, the 23-year-old striker was playing amateur football for Quick Boys. Now he is one of the VriendenLoterij Eredivisie's leading scorers with six goals.

On De Telegraaf's Kick-off podcast, Driessen explains why he kept an eye on Zonneveld. "I followed him at Telstar because he came from Quick Boys. I wanted to see how quickly he would adapt. Especially as he's a forward, because you have to have something special," Driessen begins.

"And things really didn't work out for him at Telstar. At one point he was swapped for Thórisson. Thórisson went from Sparta to Telstar, and Zonneveld went to Sparta."

"I said to Maurice Steijn at the time that I thought they'd got a good deal with that lad, because he's got a lot of drive and always keeps going. But he scored very little there too."

"And now he's suddenly started scoring. The other day, against Willem II, I saw him make a move on the edge of the penalty area and play such a deft through ball that I thought: I don't know who's coaching him, but he's made enormous progress. And he's still relatively young."

Driessen sees parallels with Weghorst's development. At 23, Weghorst was still playing for Heracles Almelo. He eventually reached Manchester United via AZ, VfL Wolfsburg, Burnley and Besiktas.

"Weghorst is, of course, on the decline, so perhaps he could become the new Weghorst. He keeps going. Constantly, for 90 minutes," Driessen concludes.