In the summer of 2016, Alkmaar sold central striker Vincent Jansen to Tottenham for a very handsome sum, and was required to replace the scorer who scored 31 goals in one season – and never came close to this balance later in his career. The task was not trivial, and the Dutch club went for two players – local and foreign.
Vout and Horst was signed from Heracles, the Nigerian Fred Friday arrived from the Norwegian Lillestrom. They were supposed to compete for the position, and the winner was quite clear, even if at the beginning the odds seemed equal. Now, six and a half years later, the two have again found new groups. And Horst landed this month at Manchester United, the 27-year-old Friday joined Beitar Jerusalem.
“If you look at their career paths, the difference comes mainly from character and not pure talent,” claims Dutch journalist Theo Brinkman. And Horst made his way with endless determination, even when everyone around him told him that he had no chance of making football a profession. He set himself a goal and went towards it. Friday also had a dream to become a star, he also saw Alkmaar as an excellent springboard for a rosy future, but he is not a fighter, and in the battle against Moll and Horst the surrender was quick.
There are people who are not deterred by difficulties, and there are those who are satisfied only when everything comes easily to them. It is possible that Friday belongs to the second category, because in terms of physical and technical data, he had the potential to develop into a player on a significant scale.
This potential was easily seen when he was in the Norwegian league in the 2015 season. Scouts flocked to Lilleström’s games, where the Nigerian demonstrated his abilities. It took him more than a year to acclimatize in the Scandinavian country where he arrived at the age of 18 straight from his homeland, but when it happened the results were great.
Lilleström knows how to cultivate Nigerians – she has done this in the past, among others, with Nosa Igibor who started his career in European football in the yellow-black media. Friday also received all the conditions to upgrade in industrial silence, and it certainly paid off. It’s not just about scoring 11 league goals in his breakout season, but also about the set of qualities he brought to the field.
The first thing that stood out to the eye was the athletic body. Friday has tremendous physical strength, and he even joked that he is not allowed to work out in the gym. “If my muscles grow a little more, I’ll just explode. You have to be careful, because if I’m too heavy I won’t be able to run.” In his normal state, Fred actually runs very fast. He was able to outplay almost any opponent in pursuit of the ball, and combined with good technical control of the ball and quick decision-making, it felt like the perfect package. Brakes could not move him in the box, and his presence allowed his teammates to use the free spaces he cleared.
Lilleström enjoyed his performance to the max, and his name is also linked to bigger teams than Alkmaar as he started the 2016 season with an improved scoring rate of 8 goals in 14 games. “We want to keep him for as long as possible, but it won’t be easy,” said sporting director Torgeir Bjarman at the time.
Indeed, that summer, Alkmaar was ahead of its competitors when it paid 1.5 million euros to Lilleström – a huge sum in terms of a mid-table group in Norway. Vachhorst also cost Alkmaar 1.5 million euros, and this only emphasized how close the competition between them was supposed to be. Friday was also the one who practically accepted the apartment vacated by Jansen, and some saw this as symbolic.
In other circumstances, the Nigerian might have developed momentum, but the reality was different. Friday’s career in the Netherlands got off to a bad start, then faded even further. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have moments of magic – for example, he scored a brilliant winning goal against Twente in the 90th minute and brought the whole stadium to its feet. However, in the bottom line coach John van den Brom was disappointed with him.
“Fred had good games, and he also suffered from bad luck in some cases, but Wachhorst was much better. You can say that willingness to work hard is not a trait that characterizes Friday. In Alkmaar they expected him to put pressure on the opposition players in games and invest in training, and that did not happen. He lost It grew quickly and it was difficult to manage it,” says Brinkman.
This is how Friday often found himself in the reserve team, and the way back was not easy even though he scored in it with high frequency. In the second half of the 2017/18 season, he was loaned to Sparta Rotterdam, had the honor of playing under the guidance of veteran Dick Advocat, and even almost bought his world when he scored a winning goal in the derby against Feyenoord with a spectacular spinning kick into the far corner, but the team lost 3:1, and this performance became a comment margin
The Alkmaar management was also not convinced by 4 goals in Sparta, despite the departure of Wachhorst. Friday’s conduct was too problematic, he was sent on loan to Twente at the beginning of 2019, failed there as well – and that summer it was decided to cancel his contract a full year before its expiration date. According to the Dutch journalists, Alkmaar was unable to find buyers for it, and preferred to part with a financial loss.
The sequel certainly confirms this assumption, because Friday did not find a new job for a year and a half. No one has any idea what he did during this period, and perhaps the corona epidemic also contributed to the difficulty in finding employment, but the Nigerian returned to playing football only at the beginning of 2021. For this, he returned to the place where he was remembered fondly – Norway. Justin Pelo, the sporting director of Stromsgoodest, was impressed that the striker was in reasonable shape, and decided to bet on him.
After all, not every transfer window has the opportunity to sign a proven scorer as a free agent, and the team needed a striker to replace Lars-Jürgen Salvesen who tore ligaments in his knee and was supposed to be out for a year. The commentators actually had their doubts, and before the new season a leading newspaper rated him as one of the worst new players. Friday had to show that was a mistake, and to some extent he did.
In the 2021 season, the Nigerian was an anchor in the lineup as a central striker, scoring 7 goals in 30 games. The balance was not very impressive, but his motivation was definitely high. The 2022 season started very badly from a team point of view, Stromsgodst sank to the bottom, and in the meantime Salvsen returned to activity and took Friday’s place. Coach Bjorn Ingebertsen placed him on the wing in several games, without particular success because the position does not suit his skills.
The new situation caused the striker to lose his cool, and following a certain disciplinary incident he was even suspended from a league match against the Amarkamartana. The sale of Salvesen to Budo Glimt in the middle of the season didn’t fundamentally change the picture either, and Friday finished the year with 5 goals in 26 league games, 10 of them as a substitute – a very significant change compared to 2021.
His contract ended at the end of 2022, the club decided not to renew it, and the Nigerian was released along with a number of players who were in a similar situation, while Stromsgodst opted for a major refresh of the staff. “Overall, it was a relatively reasonable tenure. Fred is a very talented player, and that’s quite clear, but he didn’t score enough as a central striker, and that caused some frustration. At the same time, he has a great physical presence, he is able to hold the ball against any opponent, And it created spaces for his teammates. At the end of the term, there were certain disciplinary problems, and the club believed that a contract extension would not be relevant in terms of cost-effectiveness, because his salary was relatively high,” claims local journalist Daniel Christiansen.
Joachim, a Stromsgoodest fan with a subscription to the team’s games, says: “He has an on-off button. In some games he was great, in others he completely disappeared and it seemed like he wasn’t at all interested in what was going on.” Oscar, another fan of the team, gives similar words: “Fred is a mystery. When he plays well, he is simply wonderful and can fit into any Norwegian team and beyond. Strong, fast and efficient. But then, in the next game, suddenly nothing works. He Does not run, is completely indifferent, and does not cooperate with other players. He is a strange guy, who makes you love him and hate him at the same time.”
After the release, which was expected and surprised no one, Friday had the option to stay in Norway. The Amarkamartana problem was of interest to him, and there were reports of other options, but he chose to try an adventure in a new country. Throughout January, he did not reach an agreement with any club, but his agent was not under pressure because free agents are allowed to sign with any team even outside the transfer window. In the end, Beitar Jerusalem offered him the chance to prove himself in a league completely different from the Norwegian one.
Yellow-black colors will remind him of Lilstrom, which is already an encouraging sign. The Jerusalemites get a striker who will be one of the strongest in the Premier League in regards to his physical structure. He also has speed, and when the muse rests on him he is capable of scoring technically spectacular goals. The problem is that the muse visits him with unexpected frequency, and based on past experience it is reasonable to assume that Friday’s performances will be characterized by extreme instability. There will be games in which he will shine above all others, and there will also be many weeks in which he will do nothing.
Considering the presence of other quality strikers in the squad, this will not necessarily be a big problem, and the task of Yossi Abuxis will be to identify Friday’s weak games, and not leave him on the field on such days. At the same time, staying motivated can turn out to be quite a challenging task. Beitar fans may also love and hate their new striker at the same time, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on how you look at it. You just shouldn’t expect him to have the potential to move to Manchester United.