Once too petite, now all top players thanks to Dries Mertens: Bob Browaeys’ Futures Project helps ‘late’ players with much-needed experience

What do Yannick Carrasco, Alexis Saelemaekers, Yari Verschaeren, Charles De Ketelaere and Zeno Debast have in common? As a youth player, they were all too small, too thin or too immature for the national youth teams. Thanks to Dries Mertens, they were given every opportunity to grow into the top players they are today. Driesje is in fact the inspiration behind the Futures project, which also tries to catch late-maturing players in the meshes of the net.