The "Century Club" in the Netherlands has disappeared, leaving memories of Yu Hai, Zhang Yuning, and their European mother team.

Written by Han Bing On August 8, 2025, it is a sorrowful anniversary for Dutch football, and for Chinese players Yu Hai, Zhang Yuning, and Shandong Taishan foreign aid Kazaishvili, who are thousands of miles away, it is the same. The Dutch club Vitesse, where all three players once played, officially lost its professional league license on this day. Due to overwhelming debts, it is likely to ultimately face bankruptcy. The demise of Vitesse signifies the end of certain memories for Chinese football players abroad.

Founded in 1892, Vitesse is one of the oldest professional clubs in the Netherlands, older than the three major clubs Ajax, Feyenoord, and PSV Eindhoven. In the new season, among the 34 clubs in the Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie, only Rotterdam's Excelsior (founded in 1888) and Doetinchem's De Graafschap (founded in 1883) are "older."

Vitesse is located in Arnhem in eastern Netherlands, and its best achievement is winning the Dutch Cup in the 2016/17 season. Although its strength is average, it has nurtured Dutch internationals such as Cocu, Makaay, Van Hooydonk, Propper, Van Aanholt, and Van Ginkel, as well as European Golden Boot winner Mahrez, Dutch Golden Boot winner Bony, and stars like Babangida, Keisuke Honda, and Openda. Current superstars Mount and Ødegaard also trained at Vitesse. Moreover, renowned Dutch coach Koeman started his coaching career at Vitesse, and other famous Dutch coaches like Benhakker and Cocu have also coached there, with Rutten, Bosz, Vlasov, and Leš becoming the best coaches in the Eredivisie while at Vitesse.

Of course, Vitesse's recognition in China is closely related to the two foreign players. In February 2007, Yu Hai was loaned to Vitesse, but in January 2008, during a match against Excelsior, he suffered a torn inner ligament in his right leg, ending his season. While preparing for the Beijing Olympics in the summer, he again suffered a torn cruciate ligament and meniscus injury, missing both the Olympics and the subsequent Eredivisie season, leading Vitesse to terminate his contract. Yu Hai played only 15 matches in the Eredivisie during his one and a half years at Vitesse, contributing just one assist.

In the summer of 2015, 18-year-old Zhang Yuning joined the Vitesse U19 team, beginning his overseas career. Zhang Yuning spent two seasons at Vitesse, and in the summer of 2017, he transferred to the Premier League team West Bromwich Albion for a high price of 7.2 million euros. During his time in the Eredivisie, he recorded 3 goals and 1 assist in 24 matches, and in the Dutch Cup, he had 1 goal and 3 assists in 3 matches, marking the most successful phase of his nearly four-year overseas career.

Additionally, former Shandong Taishan Dutch coach Ten Cate and current Shanghai Shenhua coach Slutsky have both coached Vitesse. In the 1997/98 season, Ten Cate led the team to a third-place finish in the Eredivisie, the highest ranking since Vitesse first competed in the league in the 1971/72 season across 39 seasons. Slutsky took over in March 2018 as an emergency measure and successfully led the team into the Europa League. Although they finished fifth in the 2018/19 season, they missed out on European competition, and Slutsky was dismissed in November 2019 due to poor performance.

Shandong Taishan foreign player Kazaishvili played for Vitesse for six seasons, winning the club's top scorer title in the 2015/16 season. Before him, Serbian winger Lazovic also won the club's top scorer title in the 2006/07 season. In 2015, he joined Beijing Beikong in the China League One, where he had a decent record of 13 goals and 5 assists in 28 matches, but Beikong failed to secure promotion, leading him to leave the team. In 2016, he joined Hebei China Fortune, where Kakuta had also played for a year and a half starting in the summer of 2012.

The disaster that has befallen Vitesse is fundamentally rooted in its overwhelming debts. The club's debt has reached 14 million euros, and it was already demoted to the Eerste Divisie last season due to penalties from the Dutch Football Association. This summer, the situation continued to worsen, leading to the revocation of its professional league license by the Dutch Football Association. On August 8, the Central Court of the Netherlands rejected Vitesse's appeal against the Dutch Football Association's decision to revoke its professional league license, meaning the club will be expelled from the Eerste Divisie in the new season, marking the failure of its last effort to retain professional league status. Vitesse can still survive in amateur leagues for the time being, and the Arnhem city government and club management are working hard to save it, but unfortunately, the debt is too enormous, making bankruptcy inevitable.

In May of this year, the retired Yu Hai also spoke about his experiences at Vitesse when he was 19. He encouraged young players to go abroad as soon as possible and suggested starting with smaller clubs outside the top five leagues to seize opportunities. Little did he expect that two months later, the club that held his memories of playing abroad would vanish from the Dutch professional league.