Sud Presse, December 2004: Jérémy De Vriendt at Standard — 22 years on
Original article
Sud Presse · Région Sports, p.15 · Friday 24 December 2004 · By Benoît Jadot
Original headline
Jérémy De Vriendt: good wheat coming through
As sometimes happens elsewhere in our kingdom, the Namur football authorities tend to go along with the view that our province is a place where footballing talent remains rather scarce. That impression does not survive analysis for long when you consider how many of our players are in first- or second-division clubs, most of them regular starters. Look abroad too, and to the Netherlands in particular, where Jérôme Colinet is breaking into the Roda Kerkrade squad.
What a fine team we could put together with him and the likes of Siquet, Camus, Defays, Detal, Suray, Stilmant, Akgül, Sbaa and Gürsever. To those already more or less seasoned players we could add three youngsters emerging in the Standard Liège squad: Maxime Baijot (Graide), Laurent Gomes (Floreffe) and, most recently and by no means least, Jérémy Devriendt, third-choice goalkeeper at the Liège club at 18. It is his progress — he turned professional in July — that we have followed, through his current coach, Christian Piot, and his role model and team-mate, Vedran Runje.
The Liège goalkeeper of the glorious 1970s, as open and warm as ever, agrees to spell out his player's qualities. "I have to insist on something that may be obvious but is essential," he begins. "If he has joined the first-team squad, it is because his qualities meant he belonged there. Jérémy had to go through a perfectly normal period of adjustment. Mainly on the sporting side: the work rate, the power of adults' shots — everything is different. That transition is over now, because he has absorbed the daily workload. As for fitting in with people, that happened very quickly and very naturally. Within the group, he is respected by everyone. He himself arrived with a great deal of respect for others and a real willingness to listen. He is also a hard worker who applies himself and draws something new from every piece of advice he is given. For me, over the past month, he has been fully in it and has found the professional rhythm. He still has a lot of room to improve, particularly in explosiveness, even though he is good on his line."
High praise from a great former international. While we were reporting this piece, Vedran Runje learned that, even before his return to Standard, he was Jérémy De Vriendt's benchmark. "I had no idea," confirms the Liège first-choice keeper. "I have noticed how hard he works and how well he listens, and how he puts that at the service of his talent. Technically he has already made a lot of progress, particularly in his catching. You can tell he is inclined to take advice, from Christian Piot and from me. He is a boy who is always smiling, and there are a few similarities with me in that he has known some awkward circumstances, not least in getting to the ground."
When Jérémy and Cédric go the extra mile, switch the floodlights on
As well as the two mentors already mentioned, Jérémy De Vriendt has been able to count on his father Michel, a qualified goalkeeper coach at UR Namur, for a few extra sessions. "Not this year, but I have regularly had his good advice," the young man confirms. His illustrious father, who himself joined the Rouches squad at 16, has not confined himself to the sporting side. He brought together a few sponsors to give Jérémy a car to get to Sclessin. "I'll take the chance to thank the friends who did not hesitate to help with this precious tool for my son," says big Mich.
The young man from Moustier's capacity for work has not escaped his coach, Dominique D'Onofrio. Told about the extra shooting session Jérémy had put himself through with his friend Cédric Roussel after training — the two players had all but disappeared from view — he simply replied: "Yes, but with Jérémy it's often like that."
"Standard? A family club, ideal…" — Interview
Jérémy, you have just finished the mid-season fitness tests. Where do you stand compared with your team-mates?
From the few results I know about, I think I am comfortably in the middle.
Confirmation that you have found the rhythm of a professional squad. The transition was not easy in the first weeks…
Indeed, the physical preparation of a professional squad bears no comparison with what I had known before. It really is demanding. The pre-season camp in Spa was tough. And during the season every training session has to be done at 100% to keep all of that. I think I have gradually managed to absorb the sessions Christian Piot puts on.
This new life is not straightforward, especially for you as you are still studying.
I am in my final year of accountancy at the Institut Marie-José. Fortunately my teachers are fairly understanding, and I have friends who kindly fill in my notes when needed.
A young player arriving in a professional squad as you have must still feel intimidated?
On the contrary, it is a great group that made me very welcome from the start. There is still quite a family spirit here, in the image of the club. I get on well with everyone, perhaps especially with Mémé Tchite and Karel Geeraerts. Cédric Roussel, with whom I shared a room in Istanbul for the European tie, is also very good company.
What are the high points you have experienced so far with the Rouches?
Above all the announcement by Mr Boccar — whom I thank, along with Jean Nicolay — that I was joining the professional squad, and the friendly played during pre-season at Malmedy. It is an enormous source of pride for me to wear the shirt of such a prestigious club, with a real tradition when it comes to goalkeepers.
You still have a lot of room to improve. What would you yourself like to work on quickly?
My catching, my distribution, and building strength so I can impose myself more easily in my box. That will certainly happen with exceptional teachers like Mr Piot and Vedran Runje, who is genuinely first class and never hesitates to give advice to young players. I hope that one day I will have the same will to win as he does. I thank them, as I thank Mr Bourlard and Mr Lukalu, my former age-group coaches at Charleroi, my parents, and my uncle Patrick Catrain, who drove me around for a long time. It is partly thanks to them that I am here.
22 years on — Jérémy De Vriendt
I find this cutting again and something tightens. It is not nostalgia — it is emotion. Because some of the people in these photographs are no longer here.
Christian Piot. I still run into him from time to time. He has not changed. That calm, that kindness — it is still him. What the article does not say is that Christian was the one who built the bridge: he made sure Vedran took me under his wing. A year with those two was another planet. The professional world has nothing to do with youth teams — the power of the shots, the rhythm, the daily intensity. I could not have had better guides.
Vedran Runje. I do not follow his career closely, but I saw that he joined the AC Milan staff in December 2024 as goalkeeper coach, with Sérgio Conceição. They won the Supercoppa Italiana in January 2025 — coming back from 2-0 down against Inter in the final. Then on to Al-Ittihad in the summer of 2025. It is no surprise: he was already first class back then. A will to win that I admired. That is exactly what I wished for him.
Dominique D'Onofrio. "Yes, but with Jérémy it's often like that." That line in the article is exactly him. Close to his players, natural, never full of himself. Memories of group meals where he was simply himself. Moments in the season when things were harder, and when he helped me keep my head up. He died on 12 February 2016, in Buenos Aires. Cardiac arrest. He was 62. On a scouting trip for FC Metz. It still feels strange to write that.
Cédric Roussel. "When Jérémy and Cédric go the extra mile, switch the floodlights on." That headline has always made me smile. We would train after training, looking for extra shots, not wanting to leave. We had shared a room in Istanbul for the European tie. He died on 24 June 2023, at 45 — a pulmonary embolism, on a café terrace in Mons. That is recent. And you feel it looking at this photograph.
Me at 18. I weighed 79 kilos. In the photographs you can see my skinny legs. I wanted to improve my catching — and I was right to want that, because I had not yet understood the mechanism that gives you security on high balls. It took me time. At 21, I was a Goliath — perhaps a little too much so. Guy Namurois, our fitness coach, was exceptional. He is gone too — cardiac arrest in February 2012, at 51, on a family mountain-bike ride.
What I try to be today. When I coach at Aureak, I try to be somewhere between Christian Piot — the calm, the gentleness that reassures — and Daniel Maty, who was pure drive and energy. I add my own touch to that, a certain creativity in how I teach. Those coaches made part of who I am. This cutting from 24 December 2004 is a wild period summed up on a single page. What those people gave me, I take with me into every session.
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