The difficult journey of ex-wonderkid Mathias Bossaerts: ‘The pressure was huge’

INTERVIEW - Mathias Bossaerts was widely regarded as one of the biggest talents of Belgium when he moved to Manchester City from Anderlecht at the age of sixteen. In the summer of 2022, however, he announced that he ended his career at the age of 26 after a difficult time in professional football. ‘People still have preconceptions about me, let’s be honest about that.’

Nowadays, Mathias Bossaerts is training the next generation of players at the Belgian amateur club Hoogstraten VV. Photo: © Rik Tuinstra

At the age of seven, Bossaerts entered the youth academy of former-professional Belgian side Germinal Beerschot. He played there for seven years before he moved to Anderlecht. ‘It all went very fast for me. I just moved from Beerschot to Anderlecht in July, and in October I already knew that I would eventually move to Manchester City. I was also playing for the Belgian national youth team and I think that because of the matches I played for them, I was able to make the next step already.’

‘People had high expectations and that was not easy to deal with.’

Playing at such a high level at a young age also brought a lot of pressure onto Bossaerts. The media dubbed him the new Kompany and his whole youth was built around becoming a professional footballer from when he was seven. ‘People had high expectations and that was not easy to deal with.’

To launch his professional career he returned to Belgium when he was twenty and the pressure did not die down. ‘When I signed for KV Oostende, the director of the club announced that I would be playing for the national team within two years. Try dealing with that pressure.’

Setbacks

But the pressure was not the toughest thing for Bossaerts. ‘I never had setbacks from when I was a kid until I was eighteen to twenty years old. Everything was going swimmingly. I was part of the national youth team, played every game, and was captain. But when I set my first steps into professional football at KV Oostende I started to have some setbacks. I was put on the bench, I had a conflict with the manager and with some teammates. To go from everything always being positive and good to having some challenges was the most difficult for me.’

‘I was not used to the setbacks and I did not know how to respond to these situations,’ reveals Bossaerts. ‘Being sat on the bench felt catastrophic for me. Am I not a good footballer anymore or… what is the actual problem here?’

‘To go from everything always being positive and good to having some challenges was the most difficult for me’

Because Bossaerts did not know how to respond to these situations, he responded unusually and weirdly to certain situations. ‘I speak my mind and do not hide my emotions. So I often responded out of the first emotion I felt. Is this always a good thing? No, but I have always been that way.’

‘After these altercations, I would speak to my personal manager who told me to stay calm and be patient because I was still young,’ says Bossaerts. ‘But I just wanted to play football weekly and show what I can do. Even if I was only twenty and the defender playing ahead of me was 30, it did not matter. I did not want to wait and I was frustrated.’

Bossaerts has never regretted moving abroad to play at Manchester City. Photo: © Rik Tuinstra

Fourteen months on the sideline

Before his arrival at Oostende, Bossaerts had also just recovered from a hamstring injury which kept him out for fourteen months. ‘It started as a normal torn in the hamstring. I recovered, was back on the pitch and after a couple of weeks it tore again. Unlucky, I thought. Another recovery, back on the pitch and it tore again for a third time. I then had to get an operation.’

Dealing with the injury was tough, but he was living day by day. ‘You try to focus on the positives. I was not able to be on the pitch and develop myself technically, but I was able to develop my physicality. In those fourteen months, I became way stronger and build a lot of muscle. But I missed a lot of beautiful games in the Youth Champions League. It also was a very important year for me as I was in the final year of my contract at Man City.’

Bossaerts was offered a new one-year contract with the option of another by Man City, but he opted to return to Belgium. ‘It was the plan to loan me out to either New York City FC or NAC Breda. Those were nice options, but then my manager told me that KV Oostende was interested. At that moment they were in the top four in Belgium and were playing in the Europa League.’

‘I was training with the first team, playing with the best players in the world and playing against quality opponents I would never face in Belgium’

Bossaerts spent two seasons at KV Oostende before he moved to Dutch side NEC Nijmegen in 2018. He had been without a club since 2019 before he officially announced his retirement in 2022.

People often ask Bossaerts whether he would still make the same decision when it comes to moving to Manchester City at the age of sixteen, given how his career panned out. ‘If I could go back in time, I would have done it again without a doubt. In my years at Man City, I learnt a lot. I was training with the first team, playing with the best players in the world and playing against quality opponents I would never face in Belgium.’

‘Moving abroad is not for everyone the best option. It is different for every person. For most people, it may not work out well. Man City buys new players every season for 50, 60, and 100 million euros. So yes, it is more difficult to break through, but it is impossible to receive the same level of training in Belgium,’ says Bossaerts.

Now that Bossaerts has quit, he remains to feel the effect of his career. ‘People still have preconceptions about me, let’s be honest about that. Everywhere I come, people think ‘’oh that is the boy who played for Anderlecht and Man City’’. I always hear the same.’

Coaching

Nowadays, Bossaerts spends his days coaching the U9s and U17s of the Belgian amateur club Hoogstraten VV and gives technical training sessions to children on Sundays together with Aimane Mdouari.

Whether we will see Bossaerts return to professional football as a coach remains to be seen. ‘I am still young and I think that five years from now I will still be coaching the youth. This is my first season as a coach but I am getting a lot of satisfaction out of it. They learn very fast, especially the youngest ones. It is a great feeling to see them apply what you taught them in matches. Right now I want to continue focusing on coaching the youth, but I want to do that at the highest level in Belgium. And then we will see where we end up.’

Text: Rik Tuinstra