The FIFA Women’s World Cup is wrapping up and the Dutch team has shown incredible strength and determination advancing to the semi-finals. Below are some fun facts about the Nederlands vrouwenvoetbalelftal!

Photo taken by Emma Coolen found on Flickr.com with license CC0 1.0

International Tournaments

The Nederlands vrouwenvoetbalelftal played their first international FIFA-related event in 1971. In 2015, they finished 13th place, which makes this year’s world cup the farthest the Leeuwinnen (lionesses) have reached.

There is reason to hope that the oranje team will make it far. In 2017, they won the European Championship against Denmark.

Lieke Martens

One of the strongest players in the ploeg or team is Lieke Martens. Like most athletes, she began playing heel vroeg or quite early. She has played in several Dutch teams including Heerenveen (Friesland) and VVV Venlo (Limburg). She later played in Belgium, Germany, Sweden and since 2017 has been playing for FC Barcelona. That same year, she was named FIFA Women’s beste voetbalster ter wereld or best footballer in the world.

Lieke has been playing very well during this world cup scoring twice against Japan despite having problems or last van her foot. In between games she is resting and moving around in a wheel chair.

I first heard of Lieke in my favorite Dutch commercial! The peanut butter brand Calvé has a few commercials that spotlight Dutch athletes. Lieke was the first female athlete to be featured in the reclame or commercial. I previously wrote a post about the commercials which you can check out here. Three things I love about this commercial are: 1) she stays playing outside in the rain because the coach tells the jongen (boys) to go inside, 2) a hint of her Limburg roots is present when the coach tells her loesteren instead of luisteren, and despite the rain she says she was lekker bezig or deliciously busy. Below is the commercial

https://youtu.be/qsTl60nH6Bk

To celebrate the Nederlands vrouwenvoetbalelftal, Calvé included the names of the players in the peanut butter jars, and boodschappenwinkels or at least the grocery stores I frequent have been placing these all over the store.

Oranjestraten

When the men’s soccer team is playing in either the World Cup or the European Cup, hundreds of streets in the Netherlands turn orange in support. There has, however, not been the same display for the women’s team. Fortunately, there are several people who are doing something about it like Mandy Blok from Leiden. She talked to her buren or neighbours so they could all put orange vlaggetjes or flags and the Dutch flags. You can read more about Mandy’s initiative in this article by RTL Nieuws.

But Leiden isn’t the only city where the vlaggetjes hangen uit! In Mill in the province of Brabant, the city also hung flags in support of the women’s football/soccer team. The video below tells more about the efforts in Mill and it includes a good selection of elftal liedjes. 

Ajax voetbal

While most of the attention is on the World Cup, last week Amsterdam-based team Ajax announced that they were offering the female players a CAO (collectieve arbeidsovereenkomst) or collective labor agreement. As of next season, both the men’s and women’s teams will have certain basic things guaranteed such as loon (wages), vakantiedagen (vacation days), and ziekteverlof (sick leave). Ajax is the first team in the Netherlands to offer this and, according to the manager of the women’s team for Ajax, this is the first step in professionalizing women’s soccer.

Which country will you support? Will the Dutch women’s team beat the men’s in becoming world champion?