Back in December 2019 we published a scout report on a 21-year-old centre-back at Heracles Almelo named Mats Knoester. It was one of the first player profiles we ever wrote, and I remember Steve and I going back and forth on whether we were overrating him. Six and a half years later we can actually check our homework. Below is the profile as we saw it then, lightly tidied, followed by where his career has actually gone according to our own platform data.
What we saw then
Heracles were not among the elite of the Eredivisie, though they had won the league twice, in 1927 and 1941, and they had a reputation for developing players. In 2019 their most interesting prospect was a young, left-footed centre-back the club had high hopes for.
| Profile (as of December 2019) | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 19 November 1998 |
| Place of birth | Alphen aan den Rijn |
| Nationality | Netherlands |
| Height | 186 cm |
| Club at the time | Heracles Almelo |
| Position | Centre-back |
| Preferred foot | Left |
Knoester started out in the Feyenoord youth academy, where he played and developed for over a decade before transferring to Heracles in January 2019. He made his first appearance the following month, in a win over a fully fit Ajax. He was never a goalscorer; his job was protecting the goals his teammates scored. A solid, unusually mature centre-back.
Style of play
What stood out was his composure. He was level-headed, read the game well, and knew by instinct how and when to tackle. He positioned himself intelligently and intercepted efficiently, an exceptionally important player for Heracles. For a young defender, that is the rarest part: pace and power are common at 21, but reading the game usually comes years later. He even showed decent strength when attacking, always aware of what was happening around him at any given moment. He was a joy to watch, and we wrote at the time that we would not be surprised if bigger clubs were already keeping tabs on him.
Strengths and weaknesses
His strengths were classic centre-back attributes: man marking, tackling, heading accuracy and aerial dominance, plus leadership and the stamina to see out the full 90 minutes. He was a genuine team player too, the kind teammates trust behind them. His weaknesses were mostly the attacking traits you would not expect a defender to have anyway, things like vision, finishing and long passing. An attacker's toolkit, in other words. Nothing that worried us for his position; the only thing he was missing was experience, and that only comes one way.
How his season and career were going
When we wrote the piece, 18 league matches into the 2019/20 season, Knoester had started every single one of them. It was his first season as a nailed-on starter, and proof he was first-team material, in a league that has produced world-class players for decades. You could start a never-ending list of what the Eredivisie has developed and sold on. We felt he was in the right place at the right time: Heracles were known for developing and exposing talent, and after playing for the Netherlands through his youth national teams, he was finally having a genuine breakthrough season at senior level. A raw, pure defender getting the opportunity he deserved in a big league, and making the most of it.
His route there had not been smooth. Having played for the Netherlands at youth level, his path through Feyenoord ended in frustration:
- 15/16: Moved from Feyenoord U17 to Feyenoord U19 (17 years old)
- 17/18: Graduated from Feyenoord U19 to the Feyenoord first team (19 years old)
- 18/19: Demoted from Feyenoord to Feyenoord U21 (20 years old)
- 18/19: Moved from Feyenoord U21 to Heracles Almelo (20 years old)
Getting promoted to a senior squad and then demoted back to the U21s stings. We believed that demotion triggered the Heracles move, and it told us he was no pushover. He went and found first-team football rather than waiting for it.
Our prediction at the time
Per transfermarkt, he was valued at 0.6 million euros in December 2019, and we forecast a rise to around 1.25 million at the next market update. Market value tracks minutes on the pitch, so we modelled it against how his season might finish. A good season, roughly 20 appearances out of 34, would push his value to around 1.2 million; a very good season, starting all or nearly all 34 matches, would push it towards 2 million.
Then we made the call every scout dreads reading back years later. Our transfer prediction: with a good season, a move to Utrecht; with a very good season, AZ Alkmaar or Union Berlin in Germany. Our official prediction was that he would have a very good season and be playing for AZ Alkmaar in 2020/21.
Where is he now
We got the trajectory half right and the destination completely wrong. There was no AZ Alkmaar move. Knoester stayed at Heracles and kept racking up Eredivisie starts, 27 and then 31 league appearances in the two seasons after our report, then left the Netherlands entirely. Per our platform data, his route ran through Aarhus in the Danish Superliga before landing at Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership, where he is now a first-choice centre-back at 27, wearing the number 5.
His latest season in our data is exactly the profile we described in 2019, just older: 28 league appearances, over 2,200 minutes, six clean sheets, 44 tackles, 31 interceptions and 21 blocks, with 82 percent pass accuracy. Still zero goals, which honestly tracks. He was never going to score them; he was always going to stop them.
| Season | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020/21 | Heracles (Eredivisie) | 27 | 2 |
| 2021/22 | Heracles (Eredivisie) | 31 | 0 |
| 2023/24 | Aarhus (Superliga) | 14 | 0 |
| 2024/25 | Aberdeen (Premiership) | 13 | 0 |
| 2025/26 | Aberdeen (Premiership) | 28 | 0 |
League seasons tracked on our platform.
So, not the superstar arc we half-imagined in 2019, but a real, durable top-flight career across three countries, built on exactly the traits we flagged: positioning, composure and consistency. I played my football at semi-pro level in Malta, and I can tell you that carving out a decade as a starting centre-back in three different top divisions is a career most defenders would sign for on the spot.
For his current rating, fixtures and full season-by-season numbers, see his live Mats Knoester scout report.
