Jurgen Mattheij (born 1 April 1993) is a Dutch professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

centre back In the sport of association football, a defender is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categ ...

for club

Excelsior Excelsior may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * "Excelsior", an 1877 picture book in verse by Bret Harte, published as an advertisement for the Sa ...

Club career

Born in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

, Mattheij began his professional career at

in 2011. In his eight seasons with the club, he played in 188 games and scored 9 goals. In June 2019, he joined

Sparta Rotterdam Sparta Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club based in Rotterdam. Established on 1 April 1888, Sparta Rotterdam is the oldest professional football team in the Netherlands. Sparta currently competes in the Eredivisie, the top flig ...

before moving to CSKA Sofia a year later. Mattheij soon established himself as a key player for "the reds", becoming the team's

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

. He also developed a knack for scoring decisive goals, including a last-minute one in extra time in the second leg against

Viktoria Plzeň Viktoria usually refers to Viktoria, a name which is the same as Victoria (name), but may also refer to: Places * FK Viktoria Stadion, stadium of Viktoria Žižkov * Viktoria-Luise-Platz, building in Berlin * Viktoriastadt, now known as Victor ...

, held on 26 August 2021, to secure the team's entry into the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage, and the winning goal against Bulgarian champions

Ludogorets Razgrad Professional Football Club Ludogorets 1945 (), commonly known as Ludogorets Razgrad or simply Ludogorets, is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Razgrad, which currently competes in the First Professional Football League ...

in a First League match that took place on 20 December 2021. During 2021, he managed a career-high 7 goals in all tournaments. Mattheij's winning strike against CSKA 1948 on 8 November was voted Goal of the Season for 2021. In June 2024, following a period during which he was sidelined due to injury issues, he left the team upon the expiration of his contract. On 30 December 2024, Mattheij returned to

, on a contract until the end of the 2024–25 season.

Career statistics

Honours

Team

CSKA Sofia *

Bulgarian Cup The Bulgarian Cup () is a Bulgarian annual football competition. It is the country's main cup competition and all officially registered Bulgarian football teams take part in it. The tournament's format is ''single-elimination'', with all matche ...

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Individual

*Best goal in

Bulgarian football Football (, ''futbol'') is the most popular sport in Bulgaria. It was introduced in 1893–1894 by Swiss gymnastics teachers invited to the country. A football (initially called ритнитоп, ''ritnitop'', "kickball") match was first pl ...

for 2021 *Best defender in Bulgarian football for 2021 *Best foreign player in Bulgarian football for 2021 (shared with

Jordy Caicedo Jordy Josué Caicedo Medina (born 18 November 1997) is an Ecuadorian professional footballer who plays as a striker for club Sporting de Gijón, on loan from Liga MX club Atlas, and the Ecuador national team. Club career Caicedo started pla ...

)

References

External links

* 1993 births Living people Dutch men's footballers Men's association football central defenders Excelsior Rotterdam players Sparta Rotterdam players PFC CSKA Sofia players Eredivisie players Eerste Divisie players First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players Dutch expatriate men's footballers Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Bulgaria Expatriate men's footballers in Bulgaria Footballers from Rotterdam 21st-century Dutch sportsmen {{Netherlands-footy-defender-stub