Mitchell Dijks' Candid Confession on Weight and Career
Mitchell Dijks doesn’t bother with filters. Live on ESPN’s Transfer Deadline Show, the 33-year-old wing-back laid his career bare in a way you almost never hear from active professionals.
“I was testing my fitness,” he said of his spell at Nam Dinh FC in Vietnam. “But that didn't quite go well. I weighed 104 kilos. When I'm fit, I normally weigh 92 kilos. There were quite a few kilos on me.”
The studio fell silent for a moment. Then came the disbelief.
Presenter Milan van Dongen stared at him, convinced he was being wound up. A smirk, a raised eyebrow – this had to be a joke. It wasn’t.
“No, it's serious. I really was quite chubby,” Dijks replied, deadpan. This from a former Ajax, Vitesse and Fortuna Sittard left-back who once built his game on power and athleticism down the flank.
Vietnam, pasta and seven kilometres
Hans Kraay junior jumped in next, as stunned as the viewers. What had Dijks actually been doing in Vietnam?
“The intensity there is all a bit lower,” Dijks explained. “But you just eat good pasta there. And then during matches you only run seven kilometres.”
It was the kind of line that travels fast. Within minutes, the clip was bouncing around social media. The image of a modern full-back admitting he had ballooned to 104 kilos while jogging through seven-kilometre games and enjoying “good pasta” struck a nerve.
One user on X didn’t find it funny at all. “Hilarious, man, a player throwing away his own career,” they wrote, summing up the frustration many fans feel when a player appears to squander top-level potential.
De Telegraaf reporter Jeroen Kapteijns watched the same interview with mixed feelings. He recognised the value of such rare honesty but questioned the timing. “It's honest and sincere,” he noted, “but whether this is the wisest interview when you're looking for a club now?”
Between candour and career risk
That’s the tension Dijks has walked straight into. On one hand, his openness is refreshing in a sport where clichés and media training usually smother anything resembling vulnerability. On the other, he is currently without a club and openly talking about weight issues and low-intensity football in his last job.
Clubs watch these shows too. Sporting directors, scouts, coaches – they all take note. Some will appreciate a player who doesn’t hide. Others will hear “104 kilos” and “only run seven kilometres” and move on to the next name on the list.
What Dijks wants is clear enough. At 33, he is not talking about winding down in the Netherlands or easing into retirement. He is targeting another adventure abroad, and he doesn’t feel a return to Dutch football is necessary. Asia, again, is firmly on his radar.
Whether any club there is willing to bet on a brutally honest defender who insists his ideal weight is 92 kilos, and who has just told the world how far he drifted from it, will say a lot about how much room football still has for straight talk in a polished, tightly managed era.
