This summer Leon Bailey and Sergej Milinovic-Savic, two of the world’s most coveted talents, are expected to bring in ludicrous sums should Bayer Leverkusen and Lazio reluctantly concede to selling. The Jamaican-born Bailey is reportedly interesting the usual English suspects – Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea – and unsurprisingly so given his incendiary impact on the Bundesliga this season. As for the 23-year-old Serbian Milinovic-Savic his is a quality superior to that of Paul Pogba’s while a Ballon d’Or awaits him in the not-too-distant future. Granted those claims were made by the player’s agent but the lack of scoffing that greeted them is noteworthy.
Also worthy of attention is that both stars began their career-paths at the same small club tucked away in the north-east Limburg province of Belgium and if this is not remarkable in itself then consider this: that same small club is also responsible for unearthing the third most costly goalkeeper ever; Manchester City’s record signing; the most expensive transfer of 2015; and potentially seven of a squad heading to the World Cup this year labelled as their country’s golden generation.
The club in question is K.R.C. Genk and theirs is a youth development and scouting mandate that is unparalleled in world football with a roll-call of successes that requires a deep breath to speak for itself.
In recent years de Smurfen (‘the Smurfs) have offered a stepping stone to the aforementioned Bailey and Milinovic-Savic while discovering a 16-year-old Wilfred Ndidi excelling for Nath Boys in Nigeria and soon after converting him from a centre-back into the mile-chomping Premier League midfielder we see today. They took a raw defender in Kalidou Koulibaly and sold him on to Napoli as a finished article and did likewise with Christian Kasasele, plucking him from Belgium’s second tier before sending him on his way to Watford.
Their highly esteemed youth system meanwhile has blooded a cornucopia of household names ranging from Kevin de Bruyne, Thibault Courtois, Steven Defour, Yannick Carrasco, Christian Benteke, Divock Origi, Sampdoria’s Dennis Praet, and international striker Jelle Vossen.
It is a hit-rate that any club would be immensely proud of. From a club with an average attendance of twenty thousand who have only really been in existence for thirty years (following the merging of Waterschei Thor and KFC Winterslag) it is little short of incredible.
Their relative infancy as a professional outfit partly explains their substantial success with youth development. In the late nineties when the Belgium FA first began to seriously consider a radical unified vision to help produce their talent of tomorrow Genk were already ahead of the curve, deciding almost from the get-go that this would be their most profitable approach. Unencumbered by old habits they committed to it quickly and resolutely so by the time the federation were building a national football centre on the outskirts of Brussels plans were already underway to house a fit-for-purpose academy pitch alongside the Luminus Stadium. By the time the federation released their vaunted blueprint for their next generation in 2006 a 15 year old Kevin De Bruyne was already playing on that pitch, feeding balls through for a 16 year old Christian Benteke; the former incidentally having been at the club since the age of eight.
Thrillingly their fast-tracking of youthful promise led to a Pro League title in 2011 but since then only respectable finishes have followed and it’s hard not to attribute this to an extent with Genk becoming victims of their own success. With their academy bearing fruit with such regularity word soon spread and the bigger clubs understandably flocked there, offering youngsters ten times their salary and luring them away before they had even reached the Genk first team. Though the strategy remained financially sound now there were lesser rewards on the pitch and perhaps it was this that prompted the club to embark on a two-pronged attack, retaining their trust in youth but additionally revamping an already impressive scouting network. The return so far has been bountiful illustrating that not only are Racing Genk star makers but star finders too.
This summer momentous bids are expected to pour in for Bailey and Milinovic-Savic while Bayern Munich and Juventus will conceivably butt heads in an attempt to bring Yannick Carrasco back from his eyebrow-raising move to China. In Russia the Red Devils begin the tournament as sixth favourites and it’s almost a given that a team featuring a handful of Genk graduates will at least progress to the knock-out stages.
Back home in a north-east pocket of Belgium a number of individuals from a club still in its adolescence can sit back and watch the madness unfold, highly satisfied with the work they have done so far.
