NAC Breda Announce Former Premier League Defender Capture

NAC Breda have secured the signing of 30-year-old defender Terence Kongolo on a free transfer.

The experienced player joins the club on a two-year contract after leaving Fulham earlier this summer and will add depth to Parel van het Zuiden for the upcoming Eredivisie campaign.

Kongolo, who spent last season on loan at Rapid Wien, has been without a club since his contract with the London side expired. The Dutchman began his career at Feyenoord, making his debut at 18 before earning a €15 million transfer to AS Monaco in 2017.

A year later, Kongolo moved to Huddersfield Town for €20 million and then to Fulham two years later for over €4 million. While with Fulham, he was loaned out to Le Havre and Rapid Wien before becoming a free agent this summer.

His time at Wien was not a huge success – he managed to pick up three red cards in his first seven outings for the Austrians. In doing so, he broke a two-decade-old Austrian league record for the most amount of red cards in the fewest amount of games

Kongolo has also represented the Netherlands four times internationally, including an appearance at the 2014 World Cup against Chile. He now continues his career in Breda with NAC.

“We were looking for an opportunity in terms of experience and power, so that our staff has more room to vary. Terence can be deployed in multiple positions at the back,” technical director Peter Maas said on behalf of NAC.

“That gives exactly the extra possibilities we were looking for. We believe that with his profile he can be a good addition with a view to maintaining his position in the Eredivisie.”

NAC have had a difficult start to the current season, losing three of their four matches. They were promoted last season despite finishing eighth in the Eerste Divisie after beating Roda (8-3 on aggregate), Emmen (4-3) and finally, Excelsior (7-6 on aggregate) in thrilling encounters. This campaign, they’ve lost matches against Utrecht, Heerenveen and Groningen but surprised Ajax on the second weekend of the season with a 2-1 victory.

Site Opinion

This is a pretty big signing for NAC, who are among the favourites for the drop. Their play-off campaign showed they can attack and score for fun, but defensively, they get found out quickly against a pacey attack.

They need reinforcements; they’ve already had two suspensions for red cards, and with big clubs like PSV and Feyenoord on the fixture list, Kongolo’s experience will be huge. It might not be enough to keep them up, but they’ll be stronger by his arrival, unless he starts collecting red cards like he did in Austria!