‘Was that stubborn boy from Amsterdam’
Gregory van der Wiel declined an offer from Bayern Munich in 2010. That’s what the right back tells in Kick it Net. Van der Wiel played a good World Cup and a good season at Ajax and received several offers in the summer of 2010. FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich, among others, were interested, but he stayed with Ajax.
‘Gabri, with whom I played at Ajax, asked someone: who is his agent?‘, Van der Wiel begins about FC Barcelona’s interest. eventually Ajax and the Spanish club entered into a conversation, but that conversation did not involve a transfer. ‘Will they offered far too little, which was a shame, of course.’
Even later, Bayern Munich, where Louis van Gaal was the trainer, came for Van der Wiel. The German club wanted to pay nineteen million euros for the right back. “But somehow I didn’t want to play in Germany. Why, I also ask myself… I was that stubborn boy from Amsterdam. Germany? No man… I’ve just finished interest from Barcelona, I’ve had a horrific year.’
Switch to PSG: ‘An emergency plan’
After the World Cup in 2010, Van der Wiel did not play the best seasons of his career. In the summer of 2012, he transferred to Paris Saint-Germain. “Everything had collapsed and I didn’t have much choice at that time.” The former Ajax player to switch to Paris is ‘an emergency plan’. ‘By my own fault, because in the meantime I had already signed a pre-contract with Valencia. But I said after three months: no, I don’t want to go to Valencia. I don’t know why either.’
This caused Van der Wiel to himself in his own words in trouble. ‘Time was running out, Ajax started to put me on the bench and put Van Rhijn on my seat, because I only had one year left. Then I started to get acquainted with the other side of football.’ so eventually he left for PSG.