That I wasn’t gonna talk about Viv and the oranje leeuwinnen, here I am. And there’s a very specific reason why you haven’t read anything about that from me and that reason is simply because I thought I had and I checked to see and realized that in fact, I hadn’t mentioned anything about the last qualifying matchday and more.
As you know, I write on this blog every single day and there are times when my head is an absolute clown show and I simply forget what I’m doing mostly because of all the music that I need to learn, the songs I need to refresh/practice, or like today when I’m a hotel room and can’t practice, a lot of my memory and mental real estate is occupied with visualization exercises, and lots of rest. All this to say, again, that I’m sorry if you had been expecting something about The Netherlands and I haven’t written about it at all.
BTW if you are new here please know that whenever the dutch play, usually, this blog morphs to/from an Arsenal Women to an Oranje Leeuwinnen blog.
Now, even though the results haven’t been stellar I personally think the team looks much more balanced, for the most part. The midfield looks much more fluid the past few matches but I still have an issue with DvD being played so deep. She’s a 10 and she has her best matches when she plays there, and at the same time I get that we need her engine deeper on the pitch but anyway, that’s worthy of 17 blog posts.
I love Sherida’s leadership and drive but I honestly would like to see someone else play alongside Dom and it’s about time we start bringing people through little by little because Dom is also not gonna play forever, even though I think she can and she’s good enough to play obviously the Euros but the next World Cup as well.
Wieke Kaptein has been really good, really, really good and I know lots of you don’t wanna hear this, but we just look way better with her than we ever have with Pelova and I’m really excited for Vic and her recovery because she can have this situation as further motivation and I have no doubt in my mind that when she comes back, she’ll be a better, stronger and smarter player, so I’m really curious to see what the future holds because that competition is needed.
But let’s take a second to talk about Viv and her goal. Beyond it securing qualification and beyond what it means for the whole squad and it’s objective of going to Switzerland, that goal meant a lot to the team because they knew it meant a lot to Viv and it’s this beautiful symbiotic thing.
She needed that, the oranje needed that, The Netherlands needed that, Women’s football needed that and selfishly, I NEEDED THAT.
Among the reasons I needed that is because I need the current manager and the club to be proven wrong. To be shown that gifting Viv to Man City was the biggest mistake we’ve ever made and I need everyone involved in that decision to regret it, to the fullest and largest extent possible.
Before I go, here’s a cool interview with Jill Roord
d ❤
THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
You can listen to my music HERE
A very subjective look into AWFC 
Leave a comment