He bears an uncanny resemblance to his namesake Bart Simpson, and just like the cartoon character, new Lion City Sailors signing Bart Ramselaar also sports a defiant and adventurous streak.
When asked what convinced him to play outside the Netherlands for the first time, the 27-year-old Dutch playmaker joked: "Durian!" Since he arrived in Singapore in February for a rumoured €1.5 million (S$2.2 million), Ramselaar has wasted no time getting acclimatized to his new home.
With a glint in his eye, he said: "I was brought to an Indonesian restaurant where we could select the spiciness rating from one to 10. I don't eat spicy food, so I chose two and it was already really, really spicy.
"I also heard about the durian a lot. I saw it in Chinatown for the first time. People were eating it with gloves on and it smelled really, really bad. But I'm curious, and I have to try it one time. Just don't have it in the MRT, yeah?"
Ramselaar grew up on the streets of Amersfoort, a municipality in Utrecht with a population of just 160,000, where he would religiously play football after school, dribbling and scoring while imagining he was former Barcelona and Brazil forward Ronaldinho.
"My older brother and I played and fought a lot together. We wanted to be better than one another, but in the end I'm better," he said with a laugh.
This story is from the March 05, 2024 edition of The Straits Times.
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This story is from the March 05, 2024 edition of The Straits Times.
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