So… listen to this… There’s no bigger trope in football than
the wonderkid who lets fame get to his head… but this guy… He took it to a whole new level… Drenthe didn’t just have a god complex… He literally admitted that at the peak of
his success he believed he was god himself… which might be why he ended up peaking at
21 years of age… You see… his rise was something else… In one tournament he went from being just
another promising young player to being the world’s highest rated wonderkid, being deemed
“the next Roberto Carlos” and then literally being signed to replace him… There was no reason why he shouldn’t have
had a career as successful as Marcelo, but instead… Well, the moment he arrived, he went a little
crazy… I’m talking about crashing into cop cars,
street racing Ferraris while he was completely drunk, dating playboy models who were involved
in human trafficking… Sneaking girls into the training grounds in
the middle of the night… If it sounded like a horrible idea, he probably
did it and well… Before you knew it he had gone from his country’s
greatest hope to his country’s greatest shame… Warming the bench at 3rd tier clubs and retiring
at 29 to become a rapper… only to end up bankrupt and begging to come
back to football, eventually even working as a nurse… And you know what frustrates me the most in
all of this? This guy… he really won the genetic lottery… I mean, being a surinamese immigrant in the
netherlands already feels like some kind of cheat code… Gullit, Rijkaard, Edgar Davids, Seedorf, Kluivert…
you see… But Drenthe wasn’t just another surinamese
immigrant, he was Edgar David's nephew… the talent really was in his genes… Wijnaldum is literally his younger cousin… Still, to keep things fair, I gotta say, in
other aspects he really wasn’t so lucky… At 3 years of age, Drenthe’s father was
shot dead in the street after getting into some problems with a local gang… It was already tough growing up without a
father, but it was made worse by the fact that his mother decided to hide the circumstances
of his death from Drenthe… Had he known how his father died, maybe he
would have made better choices, but instead, as he said it himself “When you grow up
among bad people, you have to learn to survive and most of the time that means becoming bad
yourself”... And to the great distaste of his mother, Drenthe
followed the footsteps of his father and joined a gang… Regardless, Drenthe was talented and I guess
lucky enough that at 13 Feyennord found him… and once at their academy… well… it was harder for him to get into trouble,
but on the other hand it was right at this point that everyone realized that he would
probably never stop finding new ways to get into trouble… Because 2 years later, he joined the clubs
B team on a trip to Switzerland and once at the hotel he caught wind that some of his
teammates were gathered in one of the hotel rooms playing video games, but for some reason
they didn’t let him in which somehow upset Drenthe enough that he broke into their rooms,
took their stuff and began throwing it out the window, damaging the cars bellow… As you might imagine, the coach immediately
demanded his expulsion from the club… One of the directors, however, knowing how
talented he was, managed to sort of defuse the situation, but the coach never really
forgave him and pretty much never called him up to another match, leading him to be released
at the end of the season and moved to Excelsior, one of Feyenoord’s satellite clubs… This completely destroyed Drenthe, so much
that he decided it was all over. He wanted to quit football… The only reason he didn’t was because his
mother convinced him to keep going and honestly, this could have been a teaching moment…
but instead, it backfired… Once again, Drenthe was simply too talented
and before he had the time to learn from this, they were already bringing him back which
only further planted the idea in his mind that he was invulnerable and from there on
out, things escalated… The moment he arrived at Feyenoord, he got
promoted to the first team. One year later, one of the left backs left
the club, the other got injured and suddenly 19 year old Drenthe was the first choice left
back at Feyenoord… which also meant that he had a guaranteed place in the Dutch under
21’s quest for the Euros… And there, Drenthe made the competition look
ridiculous, as I once read somewhere: “It was like he was playing against kids”...
which is even more impressive considering that Ivanovic, Chiellini, Milner, Nani and
Witsel, among others, were all in that tournament… Drenthe was more skillful, stronger and faster
than anyone else… It wasn’t even like he controlled the tempo
of the game, he was the tempo, he was so powerful he could drag the match in whatever direction
he pleased… he was a force of nature and once the Netherlands won it all, there was
no point in arguing… Drenthe was the player of the tournament,
for everyone watching, he was the most exciting wonderkid in the world and for the people
of the Netherlands, that whole team was the future and Drenthe would be their leader… Little did they know, that this golden generation
would actually bring them only shame and that Drenthe would be the worst of the bunch… Regardless, not knowing any better, at the
time, the comparisons came one after the other… Personally I think the comparison to his uncle
was uncanny, but the most popular was maybe the most daunting… At 19, Drenthe was being compared to the greatest
left back of all time… Roberto Carlos… and with the great man himself
having left Real Madrid just months before… The club looked at no expenses, they knew
the cost of replacing the irreplaceable and so with 16 other clubs, including Barcelona,
fighting to sign him… Real Madrid put 14 million euros on the table…
making him one of the most expensive teenagers of all time… for reference, it was only
one million less than Man United had paid for Ronaldo, 4 years prior… and it could
have risen even higher had Drenthe not threatened to sue Feyenoord if they didn’t accept Real’s
bid… Regardless, on the 14th of August 2007, Drenthe
was presented to the fans alongside another Dutch youngster, his name was Wesley Sneijder… One week later, another one would join them… It was Arjen Robben… I think the fact that Drenthe’s name holds
virtually no weight when compared to those two is the greatest testament to how disappointing
his career was… Still, at that moment, Drenthe was not even
thinking about that… All he cared about was that suddenly he had
become a millionaire, as he said it himself: “I went from living with my mom in a small
house to living in a chalet worth millions… It all happened in a flash… The day I arrived, Guti came to me and Sneijder… He put his arms around us and told us: "Don't
worry, if you want to party, just come to me”. I could barely process everything that was
happening”... And well… if all that was overwhelming,
then Drenthe scored a 40 yard screamer on his debut and launched the hype train into
overdrive, convincing everyone that he really was the second coming of Roberto Carlos… Again, as he said it himself: “After that
goal, I set the bar too high… I just couldn’t deal with it… not at that
age”... and that statement really checks out, considering that 2 days after his second
match for the club, Drenthe crashed into a cop car at almost 5 in the morning, injuring
one of the policemen… Thankfully, he tested negative for alcohol
in his blood, otherwise it could have been the end, but honestly it might as well have
been the end, considering that it completely tainted his image, especially considering
that that day he was accompanied by his new girlfriend, Malena Garcia, a playboy model
who was notorious for having been involved in a prostitution scandal… Owh and I almost forgot, you gotta consider
that at the time, Drenthe was already married and that his wife was pregnant, so Malena
was actually more like his mistress… yeah… In fact, one of his former coaches alerted
everyone of what was happening, telling the dutch press: “After moving to Real Madrid,
Royston became a different person. He used to be very nice to everyone… Then he got back from Madrid and whenever
we tried to talk to him it was like a door was being slammed in our faces. Drenthe thought he was too important to waste
his time with us. He acted like the world revolved around him. One of the first times he acknowledged me,
all he wanted was to show me something he had bought… I said: “What is this?” and he replied:
“It’s a watch, there’s only a few of them in the world, I paid 80 thousand euros
for it”... That should’ve impressed me, but it just
made me sad… They dumped all that money on him and he couldn’t
deal with it… It wasn’t just that we lost a great footballer,
we lost a great guy… He needed someone to hold his hand and they
just let him drift away”... When recalling these events, years later Drenthe
would not beat around the bush, he would admit: “At that stage of my life, I thought I was
actually god himself… That’s how I felt”... However, the realization that he was indeed
only a mere mortal would hit like a truck… because Drenthe was talented, sure… but
a year before, Real had signed Marcelo… Honestly, back then, Drenthe was the sure
fire guy, Marcelo was just a talented kid who they were giving a chance to… but well,
considering that nowadays many consider Marcelo to be the greatest left back of all time…
you see where this is going… Basically, by the time December rolled around,
2 months had gone by and Drenthe had managed a total of 2 minutes on the pitch… It got to the point where one day after hearing
that he wouldn’t be called up for the next match, Drenthe literally turned his back on
the coach and left the training pitch… By January, many of Europe's B-list clubs
were gathered around Drenthe like sharks following the scent of blood in the water… From Fiorentina, to Aston Villa, Lyon, PSG,
Villareal and Fenerbahce… Everyone wanted a taste, but Drenthe refused
to leave the life he had in Madrid… Eventually a switch to left winger was enough
to get him some minutes and allow him to survive the next summer's transfer market, but all
the next season had waiting for him was even more drama… Clearly, all of this was already becoming
pretty taxing on Drenthe’s mental health, you honestly could see that he was about to
break and once the Real Madrid fans began booing him, he was done… He literally got to the locker room and broke
down in front of his coach, begging him to be left out of the team sheet for the next
three games… His anxiety had gotten completely out of hand
and the way he found to cope with that stress was going out at night… In fact, he sort of became addicted to it… Even saying that “If there was no party
outside, I would make my own party”... claiming that he and Robinho created a makeshift nightclub
in his basement, so that they could trick the club into thinking they were being good
boys and you know… going to bed early… But eventually, Mourinho arrived and 2 months
later, he was being loaned out to Hercules… Most were hoping that joining one of the smallest
teams in La Liga would be a sobering experience for Drenthe’s ego and in fact, over the
first few months, his performances actually earned massive praise... After a bit of an injury crisis in the Dutch
national team, he was even handed his international debut… but well… there’s a reason why he never again played
for the national team… At 6 in the morning, following a match against
Malaga, Drenthe was caught driving at 110 miles per hour, going past not one, not two,
but six red lights in the center of Madrid… Once stopped by the police, Drenthe refused
to collaborate and instead insulted the cops, who eventually found some drunk girl lying
passed out on his backseat… Drenthe insisted she was his friend and that
he was only trying to get her to the hospital as fast as possible and somehow he did actually
get off with only a warning… but obviously the media wouldn’t be as kind… Still that was far from the biggest source
of stress in Drenthe’s mind because at that point not only did Hercules stop him from
moving to Juventus in the winter but they also sort of just stopped paying their players… so the squad got together and began planning
a strike, but that’s where things got kind of funny… You see, apparently, when they “planned”
that whole thing, most of the players were just conspiring for the sake of conspiring,
while Drenthe literally got on a plane and left for a vacation in the Netherlands, only
to eventually turn on the TV and realize that everyone else had still gone to training while
the club worried over his disappearance… which prompted Mourinho to give the scolding
of a lifetime… Not to mention that by the time he got back
to his home in Spain, the Hercules supporters had broken his windows and painted the words
“Money Grabber” on his walls… So yeah… it sort of all just went to hell
and even though Drenthe would then secure a much more promising loan to Everton, being
nurtured by David Moyes and quickly establishing himself as a starter, even going on a streak
of 1 goal and 5 assists in 7 games… he would then betray the trust of the manager over
and over again… As Tim Howard would say: “We had some wrong’uns
at Everton, but one stood above them all… Royston Drenthe was just horrible”... And if you’re wondering what he did… Well.. First Drenthe was caught in the security cameras
sneaking girls into the training center’s jacuzzi at 2 in the morning, then he began
openly flirting with the idea of a move to Liverpool, despite the fact they were Everton’s
direct rivals… And once Everton were actually going to face
Liverpool, Drenthe arrived late to the team meeting, barged in like he owned the place
and even told David Moyes to “F*** off” once he began shouting at him for interrupting
the whole thing… Once he made it back to Madrid, Real didn’t
even try to renew his contract, they just let it expire… Honestly, it’s crazy to me that not even
knowing that his contract was on its last legs was enough to quiet him down for a season
or two… Regardless, years later he would admit to
his mistakes, saying: “I wasn’t ready to be a pro, I loved women and partying too
much and you can’t combine that with football… I was always so angry, so reckless, I just
kept peaking and peaking and when the low moments came, I didn’t know what to do… “
And the low moments did indeed come… After losing his contract, Drenthe could not
find another club, everyone knew what a headache he could be, even Feyennord refused to take
him… And after 6 months without a team… he ended
up at Alania Vladikavkaz, a recently promoted club in Russia… However things there didn’t last either
and his most notorious moment that year was recording himself drinking beer with one hand
while he drove his Ferrari with the other… Somehow he still managed a return to England,
joining Reading, where he was so poor that he ended up training with the under-21s before
being sent on a 6 month loan to Sheffield Wednesday and then being let go on a free
transfer to Erciyesspor… Once there and completely disillusioned with
football, Drenthe tried to cash in with a move to Baniyas Sport Club in the United Arab
Emirates, but the club would struggle to afford the massive contract they had offered him
and after going 4 months without pay… Drenthe just let it all go to hell and quit
football at 29 years of age… Simply telling the press: “I am no longer
a footballer”.... and then trying to jumpstart a career as a rapper, before trying to make
a switch to acting, failing at both and not only getting his ego crushed but finally getting
taught some serious life lessons which eventually made him realize how much he had wasted his
life, leading him to come back to football, signing for Sparta Rotterdam in the Dutch
second tier, playing incredibly well for someone who was out for so long, getting them promoted
and then deciding to leave the club as he wasn’t sure he could deal with the stress
of top flight football and instead gladly going down one more tier and joining Kozakken
Boys in the third division… A move I’m sure he seriously regretted,
considering that one year later, he would declare bankruptcy, after racking up losses
of around 3.2 million pounds without any explanation… Confessing on Dutch TV that he was especially
concerned with his financial situation considering that by then he had 7 children from 4 different
women… Quickly moving to Racing Murcia in the Spanish
4th division, trying to round up some cash, only to still somehow end up getting kicked
from the club for out of shape, supposedly weighing at 96 kilos and eventually ending
up at Racing Mérida, in the sixth tier, with a crew of reporters traveling to watch one
of his matches, only for him to be benched for the whole 90 minutes, leading them to
write: “The man who played for Real Madrid, doesn’t play for Racing Murcia, not today. There is no classic tale of redemption and
it’s more realistic this way”... However, I have to disagree, there was some
redemption, it just didn’t come from football… Today Drenthe works taking care of dementia
patients and as he said: “My mom was a nurse and this job is helping me find myself while
I help others, it helped me realize that I don't always have to be cool… that it’s okay to take a step back and show
your sweet side sometimes”... His story is a great reminder that it’s
never too late to grow…
