Al-Ittihad want Van Velzen
The Saudi club have the Dutch veteran on a 68-man list, but for Ponferrada the question is whether their stalwart of nine years can be prized away.
33. That is Gino van Velzen’s age, and it is the number that frames every conversation about his future. Al-Ittihad Club Jeddah want him. Not as a headline signing to sell shirts, but as one name among 68 on a list drawn up by a club with a worldwide following and an appetite for experience.
Van Velzen has been at Ponferrada since the summer of 2054, when he arrived on a free transfer and set about becoming one of the most dependable players in the Spanish First Division. In 387 games for Los Bercianos he has scored 59 goals in league, cup and continental competition, a return that speaks of consistency rather than explosion. His £110,000-a-week deal runs until the end of June 2065, which means any move would require a fee and a negotiation. Nothing has been agreed. No bid has been lodged. But the interest is real and it lands at a delicate moment.
Ponferrada are 11th in La Liga and winless in five. Their last result, a 1-1 draw at home to Oviedo on Monday, was typical of a side that has forgotten how to close out matches. Before that came a 3-0 defeat at BSC Young Boys in the UEFA Champions League, a 0-0 at Alavés, a 0-1 home reverse against Villarreal and a 1-0 loss at Levante. The manager who built the modern Ponferrada, Valdeir Pinto Morel, was dismissed on December 14 after four years, one cup and 113 wins. The new man, whoever he is, will inherit a dressing room in which Van Velzen is a senior figure, a player who has seen the club rise from relegation scrappers to Champions League participants.
The Derbi Leonés against Leonesa still stirs the city of Ponferrada, but the club’s horizons have widened. They are no longer the side that yo-yoed between divisions in the late 2040s and early 2050s. Van Velzen has been part of that transformation. He has played in a Champions League campaign this season, and he has done so with the calmness of a man who has 69 caps for the Netherlands and 592 club appearances across three clubs.
Al-Ittihad’s interest is not a surprise. Saudi clubs have been shopping in Europe’s middle shelves for years, looking for players who can add craft and know-how without demanding the wages of a global superstar. Van Velzen fits that profile. He is not the future, but he is a reliable present, and for a club building a squad to compete on several fronts, 68 names is a long list that gets whittled down by availability, price and appetite.
For Ponferrada, the calculation is different. Van Velzen’s contract has 18 months left. Selling him now would bring in a fee and clear a significant wage, but it would also strip the squad of one of its few constants. The fans who packed the Estadio El Toralín for the Oviedo draw did not boo him. They sang his name, as they have done for nearly a decade. They know what he has given. They also know that football is a business.
The coming weeks will tell whether Al-Ittihad’s interest hardens into an offer. For now, it is a name on a list, a conversation in a recruitment meeting, a possibility. Van Velzen himself has said nothing publicly. He trains, he plays, he leads. The rest is noise.
Ponferrada travel to their next match with the same problems they have had for a month: a leaky midfield, a blunt attack, and a sense that the season is slipping. Whether Van Velzen is still there to help fix it in January is a question no one can answer yet. But it is being asked.