Tonny Vilhena Returns to Eredivisie with Willem II

Tonny Vilhena is on the verge of a return to Dutch football, with Willem II closing in on the former Feyenoord midfielder.

According to reports from VI, the 31-year-old is expected to join the newly promoted Tilburg club from Panathinaikos, offering Eredivisie experience and bite in midfield to a side whose first priority is simple: stay up.

His move comes after a frustrating spell in Greece. Vilhena featured only three times for Panathinaikos last season and slipped down the pecking order in Athens. Willem II now present him with a way back into a league he knows as well as anyone.

A Feyenoord product, Vilhena broke through in Rotterdam as a teenager and became a mainstay. He played 258 games for the club and scored 41 goals, blending aggression, timing and a knack for arriving in the box. In 2019, he decided his future lay abroad and signed for Russian side Krasnodar, where he made 79 appearances and scored nine times.

From Russia, his career took him west. In January 2022, Vilhena joined Espanyol on loan, impressing enough for the La Liga club to make the deal permanent that summer. One season later, he moved again, this time to Italy, spending a year on loan with Salernitana.

Panathinaikos brought him to Greece in the summer of 2023. He played 44 games for the club, a solid workload that suggested he had found some stability. But the 2024/2025 campaign sent him back on the road: a six‑month loan to Turkish side Alanyaspor, where he made 15 appearances and scored twice.

When he returned to Athens, the picture had changed. Panathinaikos no longer saw him as part of their plans, and he was deemed surplus to requirements.

Willem II, back in the Eredivisie and braced for a survival fight, see something very different: a seasoned midfielder with hundreds of top-flight minutes behind him, shaped in Rotterdam and hardened across Russia, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

If the deal is completed, Vilhena’s next chapter will unfold on familiar Dutch pitches, this time in Tilburg rather than De Kuip – and with the task of keeping a promoted side in the big time.