Sven Botman has jetted into Newcastle Airport before, you know. In fact, the Dutchman even stayed in Newcastle back in 2019 when Heerenveen were preparing for a pre-season friendly against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
None of those 6,645 supporters present that night could have imagined that Botman would go on to complete a big-money move to Newcastle United less than three years later - and that is not a reflection of his second-half performance by the way.
Rather, Botman was only at the start of his journey at the time. Although Botman had come through Ajax's academy, and represented the club's reserve side in the Dutch second division, the youngster was even a relative unknown to some of his new team-mates at Heerenveen when he arrived on loan that summer. In fact, they had not even met the 19-year-old before that 1-0 win against Sunderland as goalkeeper Warner Hahn remembered.
