Mitchell Dijks' Honest Confession on Transfer Deadline Show
Mitchell Dijks leans back in his chair on ESPN’s Transfer Deadline Show and says the kind of thing most players spend a career trying to hide.
“I weighed 104 kilos.”
No spin. No excuses. Just a blunt confession from a 33-year-old left-back who once flew up and down the flank for Ajax, Vitesse and Fortuna Sittard, and who now finds himself without a club after a bruising spell at Nam Dinh FC in Vietnam.
“When I’m fit, I normally weigh 92 kilos,” he adds. “There were quite a few kilos on me.”
In the studio, presenter Milan van Dongen looks at him as if he’s heard the punchline coming. He assumes Dijks must be joking, playing to the cameras on a quiet deadline day. Dijks shuts that down immediately.
“No, it’s serious. I really was quite chubby.”
It’s the sort of line that would never survive a media officer’s red pen at most clubs. Dijks doesn’t seem bothered. He talks about Vietnam with the casual honesty of someone who knows the footage will live online for years and still decides to say it anyway.
Hans Kraay junior, sitting alongside him, can’t quite believe what he’s hearing and presses him: what exactly was he doing out there?
“The intensity there is all a bit lower,” Dijks replies. “But you just eat good pasta there. And then during matches you only run seven kilometres.”
Seven kilometres. For a modern wing-back, it sounds like half a shift. For Dijks, it became the symbol of a slide he now lays bare on national television.
The reaction is instant. Clips of the interview race across social media. Some laugh, others wince. One user on X sums up the harsher view: “Hilarious, man, a player throwing away his own career.”
The amusement quickly turns into a debate. Is this refreshing honesty from a seasoned pro, or a spectacular own goal from someone who says he’s desperate for a new club?
De Telegraaf reporter Jeroen Kapteijns voices the concern many in the game will share. He calls the interview “honest and sincere,” but questions the timing. If you’re on the market, is it really smart to tell the world you let yourself drift 12 kilos over your playing weight in a league you describe as less intense?
Dijks doesn’t appear to be chasing a redemption arc in the Netherlands anyway. At 33, he talks about his future with a clear preference: another adventure abroad, preferably in Asia. No urgent longing for home, no public plea to Eredivisie sporting directors. Just a defender who has seen the other side of the game, enjoyed the food, lost his edge, and now wants one more shot somewhere far from the Dutch spotlight.
Clubs will decide whether that brutal honesty is a red flag or a rare asset. What’s certain is this: on a night when most free agents polish their image, Mitchell Dijks chose to show the rough edges instead.
