Ruud Vormer (born 11 May 1988) is a Dutch former 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 played as a

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, most notably for

Club Brugge (), known simply as Club Brugge (in English also: ''Club Bruges''), is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges, Belgium. It was founded in 1891 and its home ground is the Jan Breydel Stadium, which has a capacity of 29,042. They pl ...

Club career

Early career

As a youngster, Vormer played for two amateur clubs from his hometown of

Hoorn Hoorn () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland. It is the largest town an ...

, Hollandia and De Blookers. Although he attracted interest from other Dutch clubs, he transferred to AZ in February 2000. Vormer was promoted to the AZ first team in 2006 and made his debut for the club aged 18. However, did not consistently play and was not given a new contract by AZ, so two years later he joined

Roda JC Sportvereniging Roda Juliana Combinatie Kerkrade (; ), shortly as Roda JC Kerkrade () or commonly Roda JC or simply Roda, is a Dutch professional football club based in Kerkrade, Netherlands. Roda JC Kerkrade plays in the Eerste Divisie. The c ...

on a free transfer. At Kerkrade, he soon became an important player, making the Roda JC team of the season in 2011-12. He then joined

Feyenoord Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Netherlands, Dutch professional association football, football club based in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football league system, Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the ...

on a free transfer in the summer of 2012, after rejecting a three year extension from Roda JC. However, Vormer struggled for regular gametime at the Rotterdam club, and told Feyenoord he was open to a transfer.

Club Brugge

Vormer joined Belgian side

on 1 September 2014 on a three-year deal. Vormer was named Club Brugge's player of the season during the 2015–16 campaign, featuring in 3,547 minutes or 69.1% of the club's play, and also contributed with seven goals and added a further six assists. On 24 February 2017, Vormer scored twice in a 5–0 win over Zulte Waregem. He would go on to win the

Belgian Golden Shoe In association football, the Belgian Golden Shoe (, , German: ''Goldener Schuh'') is an award given in Belgium at the beginning of each civil year to the best footballer of the Belgian Pro League for the past year. The trophy is sponsored by the B ...

in 2017. Vormer followed this up with a career best 13 league goals in the 2017–18 season, helping Club Brugge to a 15th Belgian First Division title. On 22 July 2018, Vormer signed a new contract with Club Brugge, keeping him at the club until 2022. Vormer continued being an influential member for Club Brugge, contributing to their 17th league title success during the 2020–21 season and was named the club's player of the month for

March 2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued in 2021. Most major eve ...

. Vormer signed a one-year contract extension on 14 June 2021, keeping him at the club until 2023.

Zulte Waregem

On 3 January 2023, Vormer officially joined fellow Belgian side Zulte Waregem on a loan until the end of the season, with the deal set to become permanent once his contract with Club Brugge would expire. As Zulte Waregem relegated at the end of that season, Vormer was a free agent. Despite him having indicated upon his initial arrival that he would not stay with the club in case of relegation, Zulte Waregem was able to convince Vormer of signing a two-year deal on 30 May 2023. Despite this, Vormer announced his retirement a year later in 2024.

International career

Vormer made his debut for the Netherlands national team in a 1–1 draw with

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

on 31 May 2018, coming on at half-time for

Donny van de Beek Donny van de Beek (; born 18 April 1997) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Girona. In youth international football, Van de Beek made more than 40 appearances for the Netherlands from under-17 to ...

Career statistics

Honours

Club Brugge *

Belgian Pro League The Belgian Pro League (; ; ), officially the Jupiler Pro League () for sponsor Jupiler, is a professional association football league in Belgium and the highest level of the Belgian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs from the 2023 ...

: 2015–16, 2017–18, 2019–20,

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 ...

, 2021–22 *

Belgian Cup The Belgian Cup (; ; ) is the main knockout football competition in Belgium, run by the Royal Belgian FA. The competition started in 1908 with provincial selections as the "Belgian Provinces Cup". Starting from 1912 only actual clubs were allowed ...

: 2014–15 *

Belgian Super Cup The Belgian Super Cup ( ; ; ), ''Pro League Supercup'', is a Belgian club competition played as a single match between the Belgian Pro League champions (also received the Super Cup host) and the Belgian Cup winners. If both teams are the same, ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

Individual *

: 2017 *Club Brugge Player of the Season: 2015–16, 2016–17 *

top assist provider: 2017–18, 2019–20

References

External links

Ruud Vormer
at ''

Voetbal International ''Voetbal International'' (VI) is a Dutch football magazine. It is the oldest Dutch football magazine that is still running. History and profile ''Voetbal International'' was established in 1965. VI was one of the founding members of ESM. It l ...

'' – {{DEFAULTSORT:Vormer, Ruud 1988 births Living people Footballers from Hoorn Dutch men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Netherlands men's international footballers AZ Alkmaar players Roda JC Kerkrade players Feyenoord players Club Brugge KV players S.V. Zulte Waregem players Eredivisie players Belgian Pro League players Dutch expatriate men's footballers Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium