Ricky van Wolfswinkel

A Dutch footballer Ricky van Wolfswinkel plays for Norwich City as a striker. He was born on 27 January 1989 in Woudenberg.

In 1998, Ricky started trying his hand at football at the academy of his hometown club – Woudenberg. He trained there for a year, before being drafted into the youth department of Vitesse, where he spent the last nine years of his junior career. During that period, Wolfswinkel revealed his potential and earned promotion to the senior level.

In 2008, Ricky signed his first pro contract and became a member of the club’s main team. He performed for Vitesse over the course of a season, making 33 appearances and scoring 8 goals.

The footballer ended his Vitesse spell with Utrecht move in the summer 2009. At that time, many Dutch clubs desired to secure the striker’s services, but he preferred to join FC Utrecht. Ricky stayed for two seasons with the team, appearing 60 times and netting 22 goals.

In the summer 2011, a transfer to Sporting CP happened for a fee of €5.4 million. Wolfswinkel managed to become one of the team’s pivots after featuring in 55 matches and scoring 28 goals. In 2013 Sporting received a €10m offer from Norwich City and could not but let the Dutch go.

From 2006 to 2009, Ricky played four matches and scored 3 goals for the Netherlands national youth team at U-19 and U-20 levels. In 2010, he was once capped for the Dutch national side.