Esmee Brugts: The Netherlands' Women's World Cup hero linked with Real Madrid, Man Utd & Man City

Brugts started playing football around the age of five for SV Heinenoord, the team based in the village where she was born and raised. She stayed there for eight years before joining FC Binnenmaas, having been spotted by coach Marius Heinerman and persuaded to move.

Despite being the only girl in a team full of boys, Brugts regularly stood out. “She did so well that when I was putting the names on paper, she was always the first one,” Heinerman told GOAL last year. “She always wanted to give her best.”

Also a star in the Netherlands youth teams, putting up incredibly prolific numbers with the Under-17s, the young forward was very highly sought after when she turned 16 years old. In the end, she would sign for PSV and quickly become a regular in their starting XI, winning the Dutch Cup in her first season.

After steadily building a reputation with her domestic performances, either as a wide player or as a No.10, Brugts was given her international debut by then-head coach Mark Parsons in February 2022. With it the second-to-last international break before the Netherlands squad for the Euros would be announced, she didn’t have a lot of time to make an impression and get herself on the roster – but she still managed to do so.

Still just 18 years old at the time, it was the biggest moment of her career to date, and Brugts showed why she was chosen in the three substitute appearances she made, adding energy and creativity whenever she had the chance to.

While her role at the tournament wasn’t huge, it certainly raised her profile and marked her out as one to watch for the years to come.

Brugts only became more and more important for PSV as each season went by, improving her goal contributions year on year before departing the club this summer.

Unsurprisingly, a whole host of Europe’s elite clubs have been keeping tabs on her, with Real Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, Paris-Saint Germain, Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt all linked with the teenager in recent months.

With the national team, meanwhile, Brugts’ role has changed dramatically. She was largely operating in the forward areas in her first experiences with the senior team, sometimes from the start but more often from the bench.

Now, she’s become a regular in the Netherlands line-up, though usually playing as an orthodox left-back or left wing-back under new head coach Andries Jonker.

There’s a lot that stands out about Brugts. Heinerman said the first thing that caught his eye when he started to coach her as a young girl was her mentality. “Even when the season ended, she still wanted to train,” he explained. “With the boys, when we lost a game, she was always critical of herself. ‘That must be better. That must be better. That must be better.'"

As for her footballing traits, Brugts’ footwork is a huge strength, as is her creativity. “You just pass the ball to her and you just look and enjoy what is about to happen,” Maxime Snellenberg, her team-mate at PSV, told GOAL. “She's very good, I think, in the small spaces - one, two touches and then she can be gone. She has very good shots, very hard and strong. That's also a very good quality. She's a hard worker as well. Sometimes she's so tired that she can't walk anymore! She runs a lot for the team. She's a very good team-mate.”

Meanwhile, when GOAL asked Parsons about his decision to include the teenager in his Euros squad last year, the coach spoke highly of her “scanning, awareness and game insight”.

“She can dribble, pass, shoot, cross, defend - with one-v-one defending, defend with one-v-one pressing," he said. "But it's the game insight and intelligence that I think we're going to be enjoying for a few years.”

Also on that list of top qualities has to be Brugts’ versatility. She’s excellent coming off the left, onto her stronger right foot, in particular, but can play on either wing, as an attacking midfielder or, as we’ve learned in recent months, in a defensive role.

As with any young attacking player, Brugts’ end product can still improve. It’s evident that it did a lot in her time at PSV and that’s a real positive sign for the future.

She’s still very inexperienced, too. The young forward has only ever played four Champions League games, with the rest of her 78 appearances at PSV all coming in domestic competitions. While the Dutch league is improving, it’s still not one of the best in the women’s game, so Brugts is still learning about the highest level and what it takes to thrive on it.

And then there is that positional change. As someone who has always been a forward, the 19-year-old is now learning the other side of the game as part of the defence. That she has always worked hard for her team-mates and tracked back gives her an advantage in adapting to this new role, but it’s still new to her to understand to defend first and learn when to take those opportunities to get forward.

This World Cup will be huge for her in that respect as she’ll be tasked with not only thwarting some of the best wingers on the planet, but looking to get at some of its best full-backs when she can get up the pitch, too.

It’s hard to pick a player that Brugts resembles in particular. Instead, there are a few different players with whom she shares similar qualities.

For example, you could point to one of her international team-mates, Victoria Pelova, as having similar traits. The Arsenal star, who has been operating as the wing-back on the opposite side to Brugts, is a versatile footballer who is great at picking up pockets of space to create for others. She works hard for her team and poses a goal threat, too.

Another possible player of comparison is Barcelona’s Mariona Caldentey, whose favourite positions are the same as Brugts – either as a playmaker in midfield or from the left, where she can drift inside.

When it comes to footballing IQ, there are not many players in the world that have one higher than Mariona. It’s evident that Brugts has that awareness and intelligence as well as the incredible technical ability the Barca star possesses, just not at the same level in her early years.

Salma Paralluelo, Mariona's Barca and Spain team-mate, is another footballer with similar qualities, especially because she has some of those more direct traits out wide that Brugts also showcases sometimes.

It’s a huge summer for Brugts. First up, she is representing the Netherlands at her first ever World Cup at any level and doing so in a role that is brand new to her, too. If Jonker keeps that system and approach for the Oranje’s second group game, against the world champions, the United States, the teenager will be tasked with keeping someone like Trinity Rodman or Sophia Smith quiet, which will be quite an experience.

Beyond this tournament though, there’s an even more important step that Brugts has to take - choosing her next club. After showing her qualities in the Eredivisie for the last three years, a lot of top clubs are interested in her, and she’ll be keen to make the right decision for her development and her future.

But with good people around her, and a humble attitude, she looks likely to pick the correct path.