As the draw for the Concacaf Champions Cup linked Forge FC’s and Los Tigres’ ping-pong balls, Daniel Krutzen had one overriding thought:
“Oh my lord, I’m going straight into the fire,” the newly returned Forge central defender recalls. “My first game is against one of the world’s most popular teams.”
Krutzen, the 29-year-old who was with Forge for its first four seasons—although he was sidelined with a serious knee injury for most of the 2022 schedule—before departing in 2023, is coming out of retirement to play again and said, “I’d like to imagine five more seasons.”
The multifaceted veteran hasn’t played professional football since 2023 when he helped Phoenix Rising FC win the USL Championship series title in a string of playoff upsets. With Forge prior to that, he won three CPL titles and in one of those seasons he led the entire league in intercepted passes and defensive touches and earlier this year CPL.ca named him as one of the top 11 non-domestic players in league history.
He became a player agent for Future Soccer, while competing in a coed league in Toronto and later in a men’s league in Edmonton where he and his wife Aryana moved early this year and where their daughter Inara was born two months ago. With his return to the pitch, he had to surrender his FIFA agent’s licence, but will get back to that side of the game after he’s scratched the itch to play again.
“The biggest reason I’m coming back is that I missed being on the field so much,” Krutzen said. “Especially working at the agency: you’re still in the game but you’re not really in it. The best place to be in the soccer business is on the field; there’s no other way to put it. I’m still grateful that a second opportunity has come along.
“My wife is very supportive and says this train might not come again. I know Forge and Hamilton; I know the people. It was the first city I played professional in so I have a lot to thank the city and club for. I think it speaks for itself that I want to give everything I have to them and to give them everything they deserve.”
Krutzen was born in the Netherlands but was raised in Belgium and played in the well-respected Genk Academy from the age of seven all the way until he was 20, when he left for North America and the NCAA’s University of Albany. At Albany, he helped the Great Danes to two America East Conference titles and led the league with seven assists in his sophomore season when he also made the conference all-star team.
He played in the Premier Development League for Tucson and Reading United, ranking seventh among pro prospects before signing with Forge FC in March of 2019, the CPL’s inaugural season. He debuted in early May.
In late 2020, the pandemic year, he scored a memorable goal in stoppage time which beat Tauro FC to deliver Forge into the Concacaf League quarter-finals and he had a trial with some Swedish clubs before returning to Forge. But he tore his ACL in late 2021 and missed most of the next season although he did return for the final four games to help Forge win its third title. He then went on trial with Vancouver Whitecaps, who took him to Europe for a friendly against German side Hamburger SV, and he landed in Phoenix. The Rising had one of the “craziest playoff runs in history,” winning road games in San Diego and Sacramento and going down 0–2 in shootout kicks in the league final at Charlotte, but eventually winning 3–2.
“We were super resilient,” he said. “A lot like Forge.”
Despite the title, it was a tough season for Krutzen, who was still affected by the injury he’d suffered at Forge.
“It was my first full year back and my knee wasn’t feeling that great,” he replied. “I’d play 90 minutes in a game and the day afterward my knee always hurt.
“I asked myself, ‘Is this how I’m supposed to feel at 27?’ My now-wife and I wanted to have kids and I want to run around in the backyard with them, so you start to think of all these things and I think that played a big part in my decision to retire.”
He’d grown close to Pedro Nery, CEO of Future Soccer, whom he’d met through Forge teammate Anthony Novak, and joined the agency which had represented him and “did a bit of everything” including using his longtime connections in Holland and Belgium to place players and working on a myriad of the company’s administrative details.
When Forge was in Calgary for the CPL semifinal, Krutzen travelled down from Edmonton to see Bobby Smyrniotis and former teammates Kyle Bekker, Tristan Borges, David Choinière, Chris Kolongo, Dino Bontis and Elimane Cissé. As they sat in the hotel lobby, he told his former coach about working out diligently with a personal trainer but didn’t mention that he’d been seriously considering a return to the pro game.
“But Bobby asked right out if I’d consider coming back,” Krutzen said. “I’m fit and my knees don’t bother me, but it was more of a question of getting back into team training and making those quick decisions on the field.”
“Bobby said, ‘I believe that if you were a good player once you’ll still be a good player when you get back in the game.’”
So now he’ll line up at centre back beside Dan Nimick, the CPL’s Defender of the Year Award winner. Both of them think defence first but will initiate dangerous attacks up the middle of the field and can also manoeuvre into scoring position.
“I’ve seen Dan play in the league for a couple of years and it goes without saying he’s one of the best defenders—if not the best defender—in the CPL,” Krutzen said. “It’s also nice that he has my old number (5), which I was happy about. I would like to get No. 4 if it’s available but don’t care so much about numbers. It’s more the possibility of playing with Dan. It’s really exciting and I think we’d be a good duo back there.”
And his first game back will be against Los Tigres. Fourth Champions Cup appearances for Forge, fourth Champions Cup appearance against a top Liga MX team.
“You couldn’t have made that up if you wanted to,” Krutzen said. “Those are the games you play this sport for. It’s why you play and we have the opportunity to write history.”
He says he’d like to play as many as five more years, and by then his daughter will be entering school age and he and his wife would reassess the family’s future.
“We’ve brought back some players like Mo Babouli and Elimane Cissé we’ve been familiar with in the past and that’s always easier on the synergy," said Jelani Smith, the Hammers’ director of soccer operations. "You know what they’re good at but you also know their flaws, you know their successes and their positive qualities. It makes it a lot more predictable for us as staff.”
And Smith confirms, the two Daniels are slotted in as the double wall in the middle of the backline in front of Golden Glove-winning Jassem Koleilat: “That’s the plan. If there’s any way to improve on the centre-back play from last year, then I think this is it.”