Netherlands squad for Women's Euro 2022: player profiles - Martens, Roord...
As part of the Guardian’s Women’s Euro 2022 Experts’ Network, a collaboration between media outlets from 16 countries, AS is offering in-depth profiles of the players in all 16 squads at the tournament, which runs from 6 to 31 July. This lowdown on the Netherlands team is written by Lars van Soest and Steven Kooijman of De Telegraaf.
Goalkeepers
Name: Sari van Veenendaal
Date of birth: April 3 1990 (32)
Position: Goalkeeper
Club: PSV
Profile: Sari van Veenendaal has been captain of the Oranje Leeuwinnen for many years now and is someone the rest of the group looks up to – both on and off the pitch. She leads by example and with words, talking in the pre and post match huddle with the message invariably being: “together we are strong.” Returned to the Netherlands in 2020 to join PSV after five years abroad (four at Arsenal and one at Atlético Madrid) so that she could be closer to her family. “I prefer to be in the Netherlands,” she said. “Otherwise you are not there at the moments you want to share. That is a great sacrifice at times.” Winner of the Golden Glove at the 2019 World Cup, she still wants to be the best in the world but she is not one of those players who think that football is everything. At Arsenal, for example, she lived with “non-football” people, including one teacher, to keep in touch with the rest of society.
Name: Barbara Lorsheyd
Date of birth: 26 March 1991 (31)
Position: Goalkeeper
Club: ADO Den Haag
Profile: An experienced goalkeeper who has the record number of appearances for ADO Den Haag’s women’s side, going past Renate Jansen’s 187 games in April 2019. Has two brothers, including her twin brother Sander, with whom she always played growing up. Started out as a striker but was told to stop playing sports because of consistent knee problems. Instead she went in goal – and became an international. Won the double with Den Haag back in 2011 and also hit the headlines in 2021 when an accidental tackle put international teammate Sherida Spitse out of the Olympics. “Every working day I close the door at home in Loosduinen behind me at six in the morning,” she once told Den Haag Centraal. “I then drive from the swimming pool to ADO at the end of the afternoon to train and come home in the evening. Well, then I’m pretty tired. It’s demanding physically and mentally but I always come home feeling good. I do what I like, otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted two hundred games.”
Name: Daphne van Domselaar
Date of birth: 6 March 2000 (22)
Position: Goalkeeper
Club: FC Twente
Profile: She is only 22 but has already won three Dutch league titles with FC Twente.
She stems from Oudkarpsel in Westfriesland, a region that is known as the”kingdom of a thousand islands” because of its patchwork of moats and farmlands and likes ice-skating in the winter. Otherwise she is very focused on football and rarely goes out. The amount of times she has been seen in the pub can probably be counted on two hands. Before the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France she collected Panini stickers, this time she is preparing for the actual tournament. Would like to play in the English Women’s Super League in the future. Was playing with boys up until Under-15 level.
Defenders
Name: Merel van Dongen
Date of birth: 11 February 1993 (29)
Position: Defender
Club: Atlético Madrid
Profile: Sport was an integral part of Van Dongen’s and her siblings’ lives while growing up – and look at the results. Merel is a Dutch international in football, her twin sister is a Dutch champion in basketball and her older sister plays for the Dutch rugby team. Football is clearly central to Van Dongen’s life, so much so in fact that she asked to marry her girlfriend (former professional footballer and Ajax teammate Ana Romero) in the centre circle at the Ajax training complex De Toekomst. Once asked what the most important lesson she learned from her parents, she told Vice: “To love your children unconditionally. I remember when I was 19 and kissed a girl for the first time. I just walked up to my parents and said, “I kissed a girl yesterday.” The response was: “Great! Was it fun? What is her name?” The Amsterdam native is not afraid to make her voice heard off the pitch either when it comes to women’s football when there are issues affecting the sport and there is a high probability we will see Van Dongen, who has a degree in psychology, as a board member of a club or the KVNB in the future. “Women’s football is very close to my heart,” she says.
Name: Dominique Janssen
Date of birth: 17 January 1995 (27)
Position: Defender
Club: Wolfsburg
Profile: Played under the name of Dominique Bloodworth for two years between 2018 and 2020 after getting married but reverted back to her maiden name Janssen after splitting with the former sprinter Brandon Bloodworth. Now in a relationship with the goalkeeping coach at her current club, Wolfsburg, Janssen was part of the squad that won the last Euros on home soil. A classy defender who can play in defence and midfield, she is also a qualified dietician. A big of a morning smoothie, which she sometimes treats her teammates to, her favourite recipe is as follows (she told Women’s Health): “I mix frozen fruit, half a banana, a tablespoon of peanut butter – from the Netherlands, of course – and Herbalife Nutrition supplements, with muesli, seeds and fruit as toppings such as blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or kiwi (just what is available at the time in the fridge).”
Name: Stefanie van der Gragt
Date of birth: 16 August 1992 (29)
Position: Defender
Club: Ajax
Profile: One of two players in the squad who has a child running around at home (Sherida Spitse is the other). Van der Gragt is a proud mother of daughter Noé Linn. She grew up in a football-loving family and all her three sisters played too. One of her siblings, Ashley, also had huge potential but tore her cruciate ligaments five times and in the end accepted that she had to stop. Her dad, Fred, even coached at the local team but stopped after a year, apparently for being a little “too fanatical”. Now back in the Netherlands after a disappointing spell at Bayern Munich and a happy one at Barcelona, she is also working with the former Netherlands and Aston Villa defender Ron Vlaar, at the AZ Alkmaar’s academy, coaching the boys Under-16 side. Read More...
