Dries Mertens Belgian Footballer Born 1987 in Leuven

Early life

Dries Mertens was born on 6 May 1987 in Leuven, Belgium. He started out as a boy at the local club Stade Leuven, and Anderlecht's scouts noticed him there. He joined the Anderlecht youth academy in 1998 and stayed for five years before the club let him go in 2003, with coaches judging him too small to compete at professional level. He then signed with Gent. After two seasons in its youth academy he was loaned in 2005 to Eendracht Aalst, then in the Belgian third division, where he was named Player of the Year. Gent again had doubts about his build, so it sent him out on loan once more, this time to AGOVV Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.

Career

Mertens joined AGOVV on 1 July 2006 on a season-long loan with an option to buy. He scored twice in 35 appearances that year, and the club bought him permanently. In his second season he scored 15 goals in 38 games, and he was made captain for 2008-09, when he added 13 goals and received the Golden Bull as the most talented player in the Dutch second tier. In all he made 110 appearances for AGOVV and scored 31 goals.

In 2009 he moved to Eredivisie side Utrecht for a reported fee of 600,000 euros. His first season brought six league goals and a runner-up place behind Luis Suarez in the Dutch Footballer of the Year vote, and he took the club's Di Tommaso Trophy as player of the season. After two seasons and 21 goals in 86 games, he and teammate Kevin Strootman moved to PSV Eindhoven in June 2011 in a joint transfer. At PSV he scored 21 goals in 33 matches in his first season, including four in a 7-1 win over Roda JC on 24 September 2011, and he scored a header in the KNVB Cup final as PSV beat Heracles 3-0. He added the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2012. He left PSV after two seasons with 45 goals in 88 appearances.

He signed for Napoli in the summer of 2013, as the first signing of manager Rafael Benitez, for a reported fee of 9.5 million euros. He scored in stoppage time in the 2014 Coppa Italia final, a 3-1 win over Fiorentina, and won the Supercoppa Italiana that December. After the sale of Gonzalo Higuain and an injury to Arkadiusz Milik in 2016, manager Maurizio Sarri used him as the central striker, and the change brought a sharp rise in his scoring. In December 2016 he scored a hat-trick against Cagliari and four goals against Torino in consecutive league matches. He ended that season with 28 league goals, one behind the Golden Boot winner Edin Dzeko, and was named in the Serie A Team of the Year for 2016-17.

His totals at Napoli kept rising. He scored his 100th goal for the club on 28 November 2018 and passed Diego Maradona's tally of 115 goals in all competitions in October 2019. On 13 June 2020 he scored against Inter in the Coppa Italia semi-final, his 122nd goal, which made him the club's outright all-time top scorer ahead of Marek Hamsik. Napoli won that year's Coppa Italia, beating Juventus on penalties. In November 2021 he also became the club's top scorer in Serie A. He made nearly 400 appearances for Napoli before leaving in 2022.

On 8 August 2022 Mertens joined Galatasaray on a free transfer. The club won the Super Lig in 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. In 2023-24 he led the league with 18 assists, and in the 2024-25 season he became the player with the most appearances in the history of the Europa League. After the 2025 title he announced his retirement from professional football on 22 June 2025, with a final appearance planned in a testimonial match for Marek Hamsik. He is nicknamed "Ciro".

With the Belgium national team, Mertens made his debut on 9 February 2011 in a friendly against Finland and scored his first goal on 15 August 2012 in a 4-2 win over the Netherlands. He scored a late winner against Algeria at the 2014 World Cup, and Belgium went on to finish third at the 2018 World Cup, beating England in the third-place match. He also played at Euro 2016 and Euro 2020, where he played his 100th match for his country on 17 June 2021 against Denmark. He was also in Belgium's squad at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Recognition

Mertens was named Belgian Footballer of the Year for 2016. His other honours include the KNVB Cup and Johan Cruyff Shield with PSV, two Coppa Italia titles and a Supercoppa with Napoli, and three Super Lig titles and a Turkish Cup with Galatasaray. In 2025 he was made an honorary citizen of Naples.