Barcelona and PSG both let Xavi Simons leave on a free transfer, and will be beginning to rue the fact that they did so.
There was plenty of hype surrounding Simons as he began to come through the ranks of La Masia, but the club themselves seemingly didn’t believe it, allowing him to join PSG on a free transfer rather than giving him the personal terms he wanted in a new contract.
It was a similar story in Paris, where he was only given 11 chances to play for the first-team in three years there.
As a result, when his contract expired this summer, he shocked the French club – who expected him to sign a new deal and leave on loan – by joining PSV permanently in search of first-team football.
He’s since been given the playing time he was longing for by Ruud van Nistelrooy, and has shown his former clubs that they should’ve given him the same belief and support that his new employers are.
Despite the fact that the 19-year-old joined PSV having played only a handful of senior matches in his career, Van Nistelrooy didn’t hesitate to put him into his starting XI early on, and was quickly rewarded for that leap of faith.
People began to sit up and take notice of the Dutchman when he got a goal and two assists in just his second start for the club against Go Ahead Eagles, and that was a sign of things to come. He has scored twice in a match on three occasions since then and has been PSV’s biggest threat perhaps with the exception of Cody Gakpo.
His performances have been made all the more impressive by the fact that he’s been used in a number of roles; as a striker, a winger and a number 10, and has thrived in each of them.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t really being spoken about outside of the Netherlands with talk of him impressing in a “farmer’s league” not being much to shout about.
And then came the match against Arsenal.
Occasionally, a young player will deliver a performance so good that he’ll go from being someone relatively unknown to most of the footballing world to someone everyone in that world is talking about in the space of 90 minutes – Simons delivered such a performance against Arsenal.
Playing first as a false 9 and then as a winger, he wreaked havoc pretty much every time the ball ended up at his feet.
Arsenal defenders were unable to get it off him thanks to his remarkable control and agility, even when they had him completely surrounded as they did when he scored his fantastic goal that was ultimately disallowed by VAR.
Even without scoring or getting an assist though, he stole the show, completing every dribble he made and creating multiple chances for teammates.
Since the full-time whistle, he has been trending on Twitter all over the world, while those in the Netherlands have been getting uncharacteristically excited about him.
Dutch pundits don’t often get carried away when young players start to impress, being more cautious and reluctant to hop aboard the hype train, but that isn’t the case this time around with nearly all of them waxing lyrical about the PSV man.
Such excitement perhaps hasn’t been seen in the Netherlands since the golden generation of Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Robin van Persie and Rafael van der Vaart started making their mark, which says a lot.
The big question now is whether Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal is on the Simons bandwagon himself. He included him in his provisional World Cup squad, but taking him to Qatar would be quite the call given the youngster has never been in a senior Oranje squad, let alone played for his country.
However, Van Gaal has never been one to show caution when it comes to giving young players a chance, and the general consensus is that Simons will be at the World Cup.
He’s already showing Barcelona and PSG what they’re missing, and could soon do so on the biggest stage of all. If so, PSG will surely activate their buy-back clause that expires in the summer.
However, the clause states that he only has to go back if he wants to, and at this rate, he could well have far more options than just a return to Paris.
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