Marc Vanhoomissen helped put Romelu Lukaku on the road to the Premier League at Belgian side Lierse. When he first saw Wout Faes play, he had no doubt he would follow in the striker’s footsteps.
For Vanhoomissen, who coached Faes from under-12s to under-14s level before the defender moved from Lier near the Dutch border to Anderlecht an hour’s drive south, he stood out — and not just because of his distinctive mop of curly hair, which he already had back then.
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“The first time I saw him play, I knew he was destined to play at the top,” Vanhoomissen says. “He was unmatched at that age. I have rarely seen anyone with that mentality in all the youth teams I have coached.
“What really stood out was his strong personality, especially at that age. He was quickly appointed as team captain. He had very good defensive qualities but on top of that, he had excellent technical abilities for a central defender.
“He was extremely disciplined, even at that age. Even at 12, he was very professional. He was really an example for the rest of the team and any young players who wanted to take a step towards professional football.”
Faes was signed by Leicester City on this summer’s transfer deadline day as a replacement for centre-back Wesley Fofana, who had joined Chelsea for around £70million ($75.6m). He made his debut against Tottenham Hotspur in Leicester’s final game before this international break and was one of the few positives to come out of another miserable afternoon for his new team and their manager, Brendan Rodgers, as Spurs romped to a 6-2 win.
He is expected to start again alongside Jonny Evans at the heart of Leicester’s defence for Monday’s potentially pivotal clash with East Midlands neighbours and fellow early-season Premier League strugglers Nottingham Forest.
His leadership skills could prove vital for a team bottom of the table with a single point from their seven matches.
Faes, born in the northern town of Mol, had first been spotted playing aged eight by Roger Smets, who persuaded his parents Dirk and Carine to let him join area club Lierse.
“Wout was a strong defender, the best in his team, and he was a leading player with the right attitude for football,” Smets recalls. “He had a good technical background and stood out.
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“Beneath his luscious curly hair was a good football brain and common sense.”
It was at Lierse, a former top-tier club who played in the Champions League before going bankrupt in 2018, that Faes really began to flourish into a commanding defender and a natural leader.
“He was not from the same town as the club but he grew up in the same province as Lierse and it was the nearest first division club to where Wout grew up,” says Vanhoomissen, who coached Lukaku and his brother Jordan before they moved to Anderlecht to continue their development.
“He had that distinctive curly hair at that age but his physical attributes were impressive and technically he was very good as well.”
When Faes was 13, the Brussels heavyweights would come calling at Lierse again and offer him a place in their famous Purple Talents youth development programme, which has also produced his Leicester and Belgium international team-mates Dennis Praet and Youri Tielemans.
“Around 2010, we received some criticism from our technical director about not producing enough defenders,” says Jean Kindermans, Anderlecht’s technical director for youth.
“We had just had Vincent Kompany come through and there was pressure, so the person in charge of youth scouting was focused more on finding a defender. After reading a few positive scouting reports, I went to Lierse on a Saturday morning to watch their under-14s.
“I saw a guy who was incredibly tall with a big mop of curly hair and his socks rolled down. He looked like David Luiz. He wasn’t a great Anderlecht profile in appearance, but I saw a tremendous young defender. He was great one versus one, good in the air and he was a leader.
“After just one game, I decided to convince him to come to Anderlecht.”
For Lierse and Vanhoomissen, there was no question of standing in young Faes’ way. In fact, Vanhoomissen played an active role in persuading him to make the move, even though it meant moving away from home to the Belgian capital and into the boarding school, Sint-Niklaasinstituut, used for the kids in Purple Talents.
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“I was not surprised when Anderlecht came to watch him,” he says. “Anderlecht has one of the best youth academies in Europe. We didn’t stop him because it was the next step. I guided him a bit in the decision-making because he had some reservations.”
Anderlecht would play a huge role in developing Faes, not just as a player but as a person. On the pitch, Faes was moved from defence into midfield to help improve his ability on the ball, while in the classroom he quickly learned to speak French, which is the predominant language in Brussels but not in his home district.
“Once he was at Anderlecht we saw a guy with a tremendous fighting spirit and a good mentality,” Kindermans says. “He loved to learn and his integration went well.
“On the pitch, we set him a different challenge. We decided we weren’t going to play him and develop him as a central defender at first. We wanted to play him as a defensive central midfielder to improve his technique on the ball, speed of thinking, and decision-making. For the under-15s, he played 50 to 60 per cent of his games in midfield.
“It was only in the under-16s and under-17s that he played in the back four or as the central defender in a back three — (in those cases) he was always the central defender.”
Faes would captain every age group as he progressed at Anderlecht and he would also lead Belgium at the 2015 Under-17 World Cup in Chile.
“I was there,” Kindermans says. “They reached the semi-finals, where they lost 3-1 to Mali, and got the bronze medal by beating Mexico 3-2 in the play-off.
“He was always captain of our teams. He is a born leader and isn’t shy to take the initiative verbally.
“He is not a captain that shouts or yells every day. He is intelligent and he can use humour in an ironic or sarcastic kind of way. He is a nice guy. He will enjoy the dressing room in England, but in his own way.”
Shortly after that World Cup experience, Faes signed a new contract and captained the Anderlecht youth team to the semi-finals of the UEFA Youth League for the second consecutive year. Yet he would never make the breakthrough into the first team.
After loan spells in the Netherlands at Heerenveen and Excelsior, he joined Belgium’s Ostend permanently in the summer of 2018, although Kindermans reveals Anderlecht did try to re-sign him before he moved again, 18 months later, to Reims in France.
“It was difficult for him to progress to the first team because there was a lot of competition in his position at the club at that time,” Kindermans recalls. “He was not a player with enormous technical skills and he struggled a little bit with the ideal Anderlecht profile.
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“He had two very stable seasons at Ostend and I know that Vincent Kompany (after he returned initially as player/manager in summer 2019) was thinking of re-signing him for Anderlecht. I don’t know exactly why it didn’t happen.
“He went to Reims in France and did very well. When I watched him he was always in the starting XI and he is near to the Belgium squad now.”
Leaving Anderlecht for another much-less-famous Belgian club may have been seen as a backwards move for Faes, but Vanhoomissen believes each transfer has been crucial in his development and ultimate arrival in the Premier League.
“The players from Belgium playing in the Premier League haven’t skipped a step,” he explains. “They have been well guided throughout their careers, from a football perspective and their educational and psychological perspective.
“Belgium’s top clubs do extremely well in finding that balance between sports, education and social life, to really guide the players to the top without skipping steps. Some have gone to Premier League clubs at the age of 14 and 15 but it is rare they are still at the top.
“But a player like Wout, who has been in the programme and guided from his childhood, will benefit in the long run.
“In terms of fighting spirit and temperament, he was destined to come to the Premier League. It has been impressive to watch his career progress.
“I am really proud. I have coached several players who have reached the top in Belgium and in Europe but I am particularly proud of Wout and the steps he has taken, especially reaching the national team. It is always a proud moment to see him play.”
Faes became the fourth Belgium international in the Leicester squad — and the third of that quartet to graduate from Anderlecht’s Purple Talents programme — when he joined from Reims for £15million ($17.4m).
“Youri Telemans was one year older than Wout and they went to the same school,” Kindermans adds. “Dennis Praet was there just a few years before. They would have spent a lot of time together in school and on the training pitches.
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“We are proud of all those guys. I always tell them they are examples, ambassadors for the next generation. We use them as examples to parents of young players.
“Those guys know they are ambassadors. They are playing for a big club and in the national team, and I hope they all go to the World Cup in Qatar. We are very proud to have worked with those guys.”
(Top photo: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
