Steven Defour’s tattoos are a clue to the mind of the player who, at £7.5m, is Burnley’s record signing. One, on his right forearm and written in Gothic script, reads: “Exitus acta probat.” The motto of the Roman poet Ovid, this translates to: “The end justifies the means.”
Defour was once the next big thing in Belgian football. A player many believed to be in the class Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne now occupies, the midfielder’s progress was hampered by injury and off-field distractions, which have included a difficult personal life and an uneven approach to training.
On the pitch Defour thrives, particularly when faced with the hostility a controversial career has caused. Another phrase on one of the 28-year-old’s arms sums up the boy from Mechelen. “Voluntas vincendi maior timore perdendi” – “The will to win is greater than the fear of losing.”
This self-determination has proved vital. At 16 Defour was the wunderkind handed a debut at Genk by René Vandereycken, who later did the same when becoming Belgium coach. A year later Defour was a first-choice and when Ajax expressed a serious interest in the summer of 2006, his first divisive decision followed. Defour invoked a law that allows footballers in Belgium to terminate contracts for a fee. A gentlemen’s agreement among clubs means this rarely occurs and so Defour provoked ill-feeling and, more materially, made Ajax back away from the transfer.
Instead he joined Standard Liège, which still upsets Genk supporters, and when Defour’s new club played Genk in August that year fans pelted eggs at the team bus, and vicious chants were aimed at the player. His response was to step off the bus first, offer a broad smile, then turn in an impressive display.
Renowned for being fiery, Defour maintained his cool. Even when Genk’s Tom Soetaers administered an industrial tackle on an ankle, the cold-eyed calm remained. “Frankly,” Defour said, “I was expecting much worse. I liked it.”
In private Defour is likeable, though he can find privacy difficult. At his wedding in 2011 he and his bride asked the paparazzi to stay away and felt moved to hide behind umbrellas as they arrived. Later, Defour could not resist a joke: he posed with a brolly for an interview shortly after the ceremony.
The wedding (Defour is now divorced) was front-page news in Belgium and he has often featured on the gossip pages. His parents separated when he was young and his relationship with them has not always been smooth. Defour’s father, Jacques, was a footballer but his career ended after he broke a leg on his debut. Despite this, Defour Sr drove his son towards becoming a professional and has often been emotional in public during the highs and lows of his career.
At Liège, Defour’s edge was honed by playing alongside Sérgio Conçeicão. The Portuguese’s CV included the scudetto at Lazio and the Cup Winners’ Cup. He was also a three-time league champion at Porto. At 19, Luciano D’Onofrio, the Liège manager, made Defour captain, though calf and shoulder injuries troubled him.
Yet by May 2009, the midfielder had won two Belgian championships – the first broke Liège’s 25-year drought – a domestic cup, the golden shoe, as the nation’s finest player, and was an international of three years.
Defour also operated in tandem with Marouane Fellaini before the latter left for Everton in September 2008 – and was considered the team’s driving force. But he then broke a foot, causing Sir Alex Ferguson to write a letter to him in September 2009. It read: “I am going to pay attention as to how you are progressing and I am going to get in touch with your club to get the information on your recovery.”
Ferguson’s interest faded and Defour moved to Porto in 2011. There he won the title twice in his first two seasons, played in the Champions League and, in total, made 111 appearances before returning to Belgium in 2014.
This again caused friction as he signed for Anderlecht, Liège’s fierce rivals. Defour’s status at his former club fell to pariah and caused a graphic banner to be unfurled when he returned to the Stade Maurice Dufrasne in Anderlecht colours. “RED OR DEAD” it read and featured Defour’s severed head being clutched by a masked figure holding a machete in the other hand.
That was last year. By then Defour had lost his place with Belgium having been in the 2014 World Cup squad, although he was Friday selected in Roberto Martínez’s first Belgium squad for the upcoming matches against Spain and Cyprus.
He had also fallen out with a section of the Anderlecht fans – causing them to hurl beer at him – leading to the move to Burnley, one that offers some respite.
The transfer came close to not happening though. Twelve years into an attritional career, Defour was tempted by a more lucrative offer to join Abu Dhabi’s Al Jazira. While the player will earn around £1.5m per season at Turf Moor – his biggest ever salary – Jazira offered markedly more.
But the intervention of Sean Dyche helped convince Defour, the Burnley manager having been impressed with the player after watching him during Anderlecht’s 5-1 victory over KV Kortrijk and then having a face-to-face meeting. Daily contact by phone followed and this month the deal was agreed.
The challenge for Defour is to make his mark in the Premier League having also made the transition from attacking midfielder to spiky holding player. In last Saturday’s 2-0 win over Liverpool at Turf Moor he made a bright start, creating Andre Gray’s second. “Once we get his physicality right then I think he’ll be a good asset for us,” Dyche said.
