Mitchell Dijks Opens Up About Weight Struggles on ESPN
Mitchell Dijks doesn’t bother with filters. Live on ESPN’s Transfer Deadline Show, the 33-year-old wing-back laid his recent past bare in a way you rarely hear from active professionals.
He got fat. Very fat, by his own standards.
“I was testing my fitness. But that didn't quite go well. I weighed 104 kilos. When I'm fit, I normally weigh 92 kilos. There were quite a few kilos on me,” Dijks admitted, talking about his spell at Nam Dinh FC in Vietnam.
For a player who once patrolled the left flank for Ajax, Vitesse and Fortuna Sittard, the numbers sounded unreal.
Presenter Milan van Dongen thought so too. On air, he almost refused to believe it and suspected Dijks was having him on. The answer came back instantly, and it was as blunt as the rest of the interview.
“No, it's serious. I really was quite chubby,” Dijks replied, half-laughing at himself, half-owning the reality of it.
Vietnam, pasta and seven kilometres
The disbelief in the studio didn’t stop there. Analyst Hans Kraay junior wanted to know what on earth Dijks had actually been doing in Vietnam.
“The intensity there is all a bit lower. But you just eat good pasta there. And then during matches you only run seven kilometres,” Dijks explained.
No excuses. No spin. Just a defender admitting that a slower league, good food and limited running had taken their toll on his body.
The clip rocketed around social media. The tone was light, the content anything but.
One user on X summed up the mood with a sharp verdict: “Hilarious, man, a player throwing away his own career.”
De Telegraaf reporter Jeroen Kapteijns struck a different note. He praised the honesty, but questioned the timing for a free agent trying to impress potential employers. “It's honest and sincere, but whether this is the wisest interview when you're looking for a club now?” he wondered.
Looking east, not back
Dijks is currently without a club, but he isn’t talking like someone ready to walk away. At 33, he still wants one more adventure, and he’s looking back towards Asia rather than home.
A return to the Netherlands is not a necessity for him. He’s open to another move abroad, another chance in a different football culture — only this time, presumably, with a stricter relationship to the scales.
The numbers he quoted will stick in people’s minds: 104 kilos instead of 92. The question now is whether a club in Asia will look past them and see a seasoned left-back willing to run a lot more than seven kilometres again.
