{"id":29438,"date":"2025-09-02T20:03:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=29438"},"modified":"2025-09-02T20:03:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:03:43","slug":"verdonk-makes-history-with-lille-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2025\/09\/02\/verdonk-makes-history-with-lille-signing\/","title":{"rendered":"Verdonk Makes History with Lille Signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"196\" data-end=\"433\"><strong>Indonesia international defender Calvin Verdonk has written his name into the history books after completing a move to French giants Lille on September 1, becoming the first player from the Southeast Asian nation to feature in Ligue 1.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"435\" data-end=\"800\">Lille turned to Verdonk as part of a defensive overhaul following the departures of Mitchel Bakker, Gabriel Gudmundsson, and Bafod\u00e9 Diakit\u00e9 to Atalanta, Leeds United, and Bournemouth, respectively. The 27-year-old arrives from NEC Nijmegen in a deal worth \u20ac3 million, joining fellow new recruits Nathan Ngoy from Standard Li\u00e8ge and Romain Perraud from Real Betis.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"802\" data-end=\"1193\">A versatile defender capable of operating both as a left-back and a center-back, Verdonk is viewed as a like-for-like successor to Gudmundsson. Known for his progressive play, high stamina, and ability to contribute in attack with overlapping runs and assists, he also brings tactical flexibility and leadership qualities that Lille manager Bruno G\u00e9n\u00e9sio can draw upon in multiple systems.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1195\" data-end=\"1415\">On the same day, Lille also unveiled Congolese international Chancel Mbemba \u2014 formerly of Newcastle United, FC Porto, and Marseille \u2014 alongside Verdonk, underscoring the club\u2019s commitment to reinforcing their backline.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1417\" data-end=\"1749\">Verdonk\u2019s arrival in France also marks a new milestone for Indonesian football, with the nation now boasting four representatives across Europe\u2019s top five leagues. Jay Idzes and Emil Audero ply their trade in Serie A with Sassuolo and Cremonese, while Kevin Diks recently sealed a move to Bundesliga side Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indonesia international defender Calvin Verdonk has written his name into the history books after completing a move to French giants Lille on September 1, becoming the first player from the Southeast Asian nation to feature in Ligue 1. Lille turned to Verdonk as part of a defensive overhaul following the departures of Mitchel Bakker, Gabriel Gudmundsson, and Bafod\u00e9 Diakit\u00e9 to Atalanta, Leeds United, and Bournemouth, respectively. The 27-year-old arrives from NEC Nijmegen in a deal worth \u20ac3 million, joining fellow new recruits Nathan Ngoy from Standard Li\u00e8ge and Romain Perraud from Real Betis. A versatile defender capable of operating both as a left-back and a center-back, Verdonk is viewed as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2025\/09\/02\/verdonk-makes-history-with-lille-signing\/\" class=\"tribe-more-link\">Continue reading &#8220;Verdonk Makes History with Lille Signing&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":28138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,1639],"tags":[3038,1998,1570,91,2149,3037,95,315],"class_list":["post-29438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-players-in-europe","category-europe","tag-calvin-verdonk","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-indonesia","tag-ligue-1","tag-lille","tag-slider","tag-southeast-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29439,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29438\/revisions\/29439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}