– As a child you do stupid things

In less than a year, Hugo Vetlesen (24) has become a central figure in Club Brügge and in the coming month he will be fighting for both the league title and a final place in the Europa Conference League.

– When you ask the players on the team who in the dressing room raises their voice, Hugo is a name that comes up again and again.

– In the dressing room, he is not among the biggest leaders, but he is just below the top leaders already, which is a little surprising since he has not yet been here a year. Also on the field, he is a leader through the way he fights, Tomas Taecke boasts of the 24-year-old.

For 12 years, Taecke has been employed as a football journalist in Belgium’s largest newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws, and uses every single working day to follow the club as closely as possible.

Vetlesen recognizes himself in the football journalist’s descriptions:

– Yes, I think I have been myself from the start and it is clear that good performances on the pitch and more time at the club make it easier to take a place in the group.

– It’s natural for me and something I’ve done in all the clubs I’ve visited. Whether it’s in Belgium, Norway or wherever, I take the space needed to make myself feel even more comfortable.

In the last match, Vetlesen distinguished himself with more than just scoring:

– How would you summarize your soon-to-be first year in Belgium?

– I would say very well. I have thrived from the first second since I arrived and have already played 50 games this year, Vetlesen replies.

– Hugo was rotated a lot in the first months, he was a bit in and out of the starting line-up and was used in one roleAt the start in Club Brügge, Vetlesen was used in the so-called “6er role” as one of two defensive midfielders. A role deeper in the pitch than he was used to from his previous club Bodø/Glimt. which is not necessarily his strongest, football journalist Taecke points out, and continues:

– Now he plays higher up the field, increasingly finds his place in the team and with goals in two straight games he is at the top of his form. The goal against St. Gilliose was of the amusing variety.

See the goal here:

In addition to his play on the pitch, Vetlesen’s rather unknown background has also given him extra attention.

It was the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that printed an old photo of a four-year-old Vetlesen wearing the kit of Club Brügge’s bitter rivals Anderlecht.

But the Norwegian has a good explanation:

– When my father gives me a suit when I’m four years old, I have no choice but to put it on. As a child you do stupid things and that is one of the things I have done, says Vetlesen and smiles.

– Are you happy that things have ended the way they have?, asks VG.

– Yes, yes, are you crazy. Club Brugge is the biggest club in this country, so I don’t regret it for a second.

– To put it this way: I am much happier playing for Club Brügge than Anderlecht.

What many people do not know is that Vetlesen already has a strong connection to both Belgium and neighboring France.

– I was actually born in Belgium and grew up in Waterloo because my father worked there. I lived here for my first four years of life, but of course I don’t remember very much, says the national team player who, because of his French mother, speaks French fluently.

Do you remember this?

– In Norway, we always talk about Belgian football as an intermediate step before one of them the big fiveThe “big five” are the Premier League in England, LaLiga in Spain, Bundesliga in Germany, Serie A in Italy and Ligue 1 in France. the leagues. Can he manage it?, asks VG football journalist Taecke.

– Absolutely. But he needs more time. It would be unwise of him to think about the next place now.

– But Hugo is a smart guy with smart parents that I have met. He probably knows that he needs at least one more year, says the man who has seen youngster after youngster leave Bruges for bigger clubs in the football hierarchy.