Winnie Haatrecht

Who is Winnie Haatrecht?

Winston Haatrecht is a retired Dutch-Suriname footballer and currently a player's agent. During his playing career he served AFC Ajax, Willem II Tilburg, AZ, SC Heerenveen, FC La Chaux-de-Fonds, Cambuur Leeuwarden and TOP Oss. He is the brother of former professional footballer Jerry Haatrecht.

Both Jerry and Winnie Haatrecht were known as talented youth players and were always playing at the Balboa Square in Amsterdam with their buddies Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard. All four they joined the youth squads of AFC Ajax and became part of a high quality group of players, where also players like Wim Kieft, Marco van Basten, Gerald Vanenburg, Sonny Silooy and John Bosman were their team mates.

Jerry and Winnie were not able to get a professional contract at Ajax and both left the club for a club in other regions of the Netherlands. Winnie signed for Willem II Tilburg, while Jerry moved to Cambuur Leeuwarden. Where Jerry's adventure was no success, as his mentality and his discipline were not strong enough to eventually break through in professional football, Winnie made his professional debut at Willem II, but in his second match he injured his meniscus, which took him nine weeks to at least be able to walk again. After he recovered he would no longer be the highly talented player he was, but became a decent professional player instead. Willem II played a great first half of the season in which they won almost all matches. However in the second half things went worse and their coach asked his players what was going on. When Haatrecht was one of the few to actually answer the question he was not supported by his team mates nor the coach and he did no longer feel happy at Willem II. He had a few friends playing at AZ and asked if it was possible to join that club to play alongside his buddy Sigi Lens.