After a strong season in Mainz
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On matchday 9, Sepp van den Berg will face his former club Liverpool FC with Brentford FC, which he left for London in 2024 for 23.6 million euros. The Dutchman was under contract with the Reds from 2019 to 2024, but only played four games for the first team during this time and spent most of his time on loan at other clubs.
It’s understandable that he finally wanted to find a new home club in the summer of 2024 after a successful loan season at Mainz 05. Then Liverpool brought in Arne Slot, who had trained him in his youth at PEC Zwolle. When van den Berg was vacationing in his homeland, he happened to meet Slot, as he said in an interview with “Guardian” recounted. “He asked, ‘How was your summer break? Have you been working? Are you ready to prepare?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ But inside I thought, ‘Yes, I’m ready, but hopefully I don’t even go back to prepare’ – because I wanted to leave.”
But the preparation for the season with Slot after the departure of Jürgen Klopp gave van den Berg pause. “It was completely different. In previous years I never felt like I had a real chance. After a few weeks he said, ‘You’re doing very well. I want you to stay.’ When the Liverpool manager says that, it’s not nothing. So of course I started thinking again: ‘Maybe I should stay, maybe sign a new contract.’ It was strange,” said van den Berg.
Van den Berg on Slot: “He told me: ‘You won’t start’”
There was enormous competition in central defense in the Reds squad: Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konaté, Joe Gomez and Jarell Quansah. “He told me: ‘You won’t start, but I think if you stay, you’ll get a chance in the future.'” Van den Berg wanted to continue as a Mainz regular after one season and moved to Brentford FC on August 22nd, where he has been a regular staff member ever since. According to van den Berg, things are more tranquil at the London club than at the reigning champions: “Because the building is small, you see everyone. You see the sporting directors almost every day. You see the owner (Matthew Benham, editor) come into the dressing room at every home game and shake your hand.”
The fact that the Dutchman ended up at Brentford was the result of a data analysis. The Bees, as the club is called, use the Moneyball principle – a data-driven approach to player evaluation and squad planning. “The main reason they signed me was that my data was very good – especially at Mainz.” Brentford collects data from sessions in the gym, during training and during games and even after the final whistle. “There are so many new places where they can find data or find out new things,” van den Berg said.
Van den Berg: “Clubs should definitely pay more attention to young players”
The “Guardian” gives an example of the meticulous work of the Brentford scouts, who went into great detail before the transfer of Vitaly Janelt from VfL Bochum in October 2020. Ahead of the deal, they asked the defensive midfielder about his favorite restaurant. They visited this and asked the staff how Janelt behaved towards them. The answers were positive and the transfer was finalized for a fee of 600,000 euros. Today, with a market value of 20 million euros, Janelt is one of the three most valuable Germans who has not yet played for the national team.
After years of loan, Van den Berg has found his sporting home. Looking back on his time as a teenager in a foreign country, he warns young talents not to move too quickly to a top club. “They were definitely dark days. As a 17-year-old boy from another country, you’re not the priority.” The Reds brought him from Zwolle in 2019 for 1.9 million euros. He made all four appearances for Liverpool in the 2019/20 season – including a 5-0 defeat in the cup against Aston Villa, in which he was in the starting line-up. The bottom line, however, was that he was part of the second team.
“I sometimes went home crying and didn’t speak to anyone. Do you call that depressed? I think that’s too strong a word. But I didn’t feel good. I wasn’t in the mental state you’re supposed to be in. I had no self-confidence and that had a big impact on me as a footballer. I was constantly doubting myself, thinking I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t want to go to training – and that’s not me. Then you know that you “You’re really down.”
Van den Berg during his loan at Schalke
From the second half of the 2021/22 season onwards, loans to Preston NE, Schalke 04 and Mainz 05 followed. At Schalke he missed most of the season due to injury before he made his breakthrough in Mainz. “Looking back, if someone had looked after me as a young player it would have definitely helped me. For young players going abroad, to big clubs – I would say to parents: ‘Be careful. Make sure the child is okay.’ I have loving parents, my mother calls me on FaceTime every day, but still she didn’t know 100 percent how I felt. And the clubs should definitely pay more attention to young players. On the other hand, I learned a lot from the situation. She made me who I am today.” Van den Berg lost the first two Premier League duels against his former club 0-2 – he will start his third attempt on Saturday evening at the Gtech Community Stadium.