Jan Paul van Hecke on Brighton’s next step and lessons from Virgil van Dijk | OneFootball

On listening to Jan Paul van Hecke talk, you can start to understand why Fabian Hurzeler has empowered the centre-half to speak more, especially in a week like this.

Brighton and Hove Albion have been so focused on setting the right mindset that they have been sending their squad clips of late goals. The idea is to foster belief, especially as the club aims to take that crucial next step and win their first-ever major trophy through the FA Cup. “I feel like we really can do something in this cup,” Van Hecke says.

The Dutch centre-half’s approach helps. “I like to motivate other players,” Van Hecke explains, but staff say that is typical of this leader’s humility. The 24-year-old has naturally emerged as a senior voice.

The very context of Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final only emphasises that. As Brighton hope for the best moment in the club’s history, the club standing in their way is that which inflicted by far their worst moment of the season. It is only eight weeks since Nottingham Forest subjected Hurzeler’s side to a 7-0 humiliation.

Such defeats have seen many teams collapse. Brighton instead responded with six wins in seven, as well as a 2-2 draw at Manchester City they should have won. Van Hecke puts it down to “the character” in the club. “I felt like it was unacceptable from ourselves,” he says. “But then also you come back in the training ground and you feel like everyone has that feeling. And they were like, ‘nah, it’s not happening to us’.

“And of course this is a bad result… but it’s only three points.”

This feeds into why Van Hecke has been picked as a leader, because it is in keeping with the attitude of the club. The Brighton hierarchy were quick to make it known to Hurzeler that their famous analytics showed it didn’t have the numbers of a 7-0 defeat, even if it wasn’t exactly a good performance. There was a freakishness to it, compounded by injuries. Hurzeler helped the mindset by literally burning the playbook from the match, sending the message the game was gone.

“I think the mentality was like, alright, we cannot go worse from 7-0,” Van Hecke says. “But now we can show what we are about. And then it just kind of switched in our head.

“Of course, it’s 7-0, it’s a hard one, but it can also be a good thing. And that happened afterwards.”

open image in gallery

Netherlands' Jan Paul van Hecke, foreground, blocks Spain's Ferran Torres (AP)

Van Hecke says the main motivation now is “to go to the next round and play in the semi-finals”.

Brighton have been there twice in the last seven years, and are now conscious of the need to not treat games like Saturday as days out. They need to see it as something natural, in order to take that next step and win Brighton’s first-ever major trophy. That chance comes with the challenge of reaching the Champions League for the first time.

“I think if you ask real fans what they prefer, they will say winning a trophy,” Van Hecke states. “But I think you can do both… we can do big, big things.”

The sense of measured progression fits with Brighton’s respected approach to recruitment, and how they develop players. Van Hecke already looks like another inspired signing, and he reveals that the reason he picked the club in 2020 – when he had doubts about being able to step up given he was at second-tier NAC Breda – was because of the roadmap they laid out.

open image in gallery

Van Hecke celebrates after scoring against Fulham (Action Images via Reuters)

“I was also speaking with other clubs, big clubs, but they didn’t have any plan,” Van Hecke says. “They just want to buy me, put me with other players and see what happens.

“But I was like, ‘alright, Brighton sounds really good and they have a good plan’.”

That was first to go back on loan in the Netherlands, which was with Heerenveen, and then to the Championship, with Blackburn Rovers, before being worked in the team. That plan helped Van Hecke visualise the idea that becoming a Premier League footballer might actually be “realistic”.

“Playing in the first team when I was like 19… that’s not realistic. So I needed to build myself up to be a Premier League footballer.

“And they said, of course, ‘this is a plan, it also cannot work… but we think you can have the potential to be a Premier League footballer. I felt maybe a little bit like a risk… but I have to try.In the end it worked well. It was a good plan.”

open image in gallery

Van Hecke in action against Newcastle United (Getty)

Van Hecke admits he was a “raw” defender at that point, but the club began to develop abilities they admired such as his energy and a will to drive forward. That particularly suits Hurzeler’s aggressive approach, with the high line allowing the 24-year-old to engage with what he most enjoys in football: “Headers, duels and a lot of tackles”.

Van Hecke doesn’t see Hurzeler’s approach as “naive” in any way, though.

“He’s good in his meetings and in his detail,” Van Hecke says. “He’s quite young and he’s got different things in his head about football.

“You see us more going forward and making more action in the final third. You see us trying to press everybody. So I think that's all the credit to the manager.

“The way we play is also more attractive and people enjoy watching us.”

Just as importantly, Van Hecke says the opposition do not enjoy playing them.

“They lose the ball and then four or five seconds it’s in the net and they’re like ‘oh, that’s not really nice to play against them’.

“A lot of tempo and intensity. I think that’s why a lot of people love the Premier League.”

Such a comment leads to the obvious question, over whether Van Hecke watched the FA Cup growing up in his village of Arnemuiden. He says he “loved” it, in part because it’s “so traditional”.

This is no mere line. Van Hecke is one of those players utterly obsessed with the game and consumed as much as he could growing up.

“I just love football,” he remarks.

open image in gallery

From left: Van Hecke, Bart Verbruggen and Virgil van Dijk (Getty)

So much so that he went to watch all three of the Netherlands’ major clubs and initially followed Arsenal in England because he loved Dennis Bergkamp.

“My dad always told me you need to watch his clips,” he recalls.

Van Hecke’s parents were of the type that drove him and his brothers all over the Netherlands to play football. There was consequently a particular pride in representing that country with his first cap last year, given his father died a few years ago.

“When the national anthem is going I think about him,” he reveals.

Van Hecke last week got to play alongside another player he looks up to: Virgil van Dijk. The two formed the Netherlands’ centre-half pairing for both legs of the Nations League quarter-final against Spain, which brought a penalty shoot-out defeat after a 2-2 draw and 3-3 draw.

“He’s really coaching a lot in the game,” Van Hecke details. “If he goes for a duel, you almost know he’s going to win it. It makes it a bit easier for me to play next to him.”

Van Hecke now plays a similar role for Brighton and consequently seeks to give the right message before Saturday: “Now we got another big one against Forest. So it really feels like for now it's our cup, and we really want to do special things in it. You need to first win this game.”