Leaving the Netherlands helped Crysencio Summerville, but a World Cup place is motivating his form

Crysencio Summerville’s blistering run of five goals in five games for West Ham United is no accident. According to multiple sources close to the 24-year-old winger, the driving force behind the purple patch is a singular ambition: forcing his way into Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands squad for this summer’s World Cup.

Summerville, a £25 million summer signing from Leeds United, has become the first West Ham player to score in five consecutive matches since Jesse Lingard’s hot streak in 2021. Yet the road to Premier League prominence began with a necessary departure from his Rotterdam roots. “He needed to step away from Rotterdam,” says Dirk Kuyt, Summerville’s former Feyenoord U-19 coach and ex-Liverpool striker. “The area Cry is from, it’s so easy to go down the wrong path.”

Kuyt recalls a teenager blessed with rare gifts but hampered by tardiness and wavering focus. “I often told him, ‘You can get away with it now, but later in your career it could become a big problem’,” Kuyt tells The Athletic. “I kept drumming into Cry that if you are late outside the pitch, you are also late on it.”

The winger heeded the advice only after leaving the Netherlands. Spells on loan at FC Dordrecht and ADO Den Haag preceded a 2020 move to Leeds, where 25 goals in 89 appearances—19 in the 2023-24 Championship campaign—earned him PFA Championship Player of the Year honours. A serious hamstring injury last January sidelined him for seven months, but since returning in August he has supplied four assists and five goals in 22 West Ham outings.

Erwin van de Looi, Summerville’s former Netherlands U-21 manager, believes the attacker’s direct style is exactly what the senior national team lacks. “We have a lack of attackers and Cry is the fresh, young, exciting talent we need,” van de Looi says. “He deserves to be in the World Cup squad.”

Sources indicate Summerville has already been placed on Koeman’s radar ahead of March friendlies against Norway and Ecuador. With 37 youth caps but no senior debut, the winger views the tournament as the logical next step. “Considering what he went through with his hamstring injury, it’s great to see him playing well,” adds Kuyt, who still texts his former protégé after matches. “If I were in Ronald Koeman’s shoes, I wouldn’t hesitate to call up Cry.”

For a player once at risk of wasting elite-level talent, the prospect of a World Cup berth has transformed punctuality into purpose—and West Ham supporters are reaping the rewards every time he peels away down the left flank.