In one month, Orange spent 43 hours on a plane before and during the World Cup finals in Australia and New Zealand. Will the “Flying World Cup” affect the quarter-final against Spain? “It shouldn’t be an excuse.”
In één zin vat Jackie Groenen het schema van Oranje tijdens dit WK samen. “Het is wedstrijd, reizen, trainen, reizen, wedstrijd.” En dat doen de voetbalsters inmiddels al drie weken lang in Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland.
Bondscoach Andries Jonker kreeg bij de loting in oktober al “een vaag gevoel dat dit niet alleen het WK voetbal, maar ook het ‘WK vliegen’ gaat worden”. Zijn voorgevoel blijkt te kloppen. “Soms kijken de jongere speelsters met grote ogen: moeten we nou weer vliegen?”
Ontvang meldingen bij belangrijke ontwikkelingen rondom de Oranjevrouwen
Orange’s flight numbers are staggering. Jonker’s team left Amsterdam on 7 July, now 33 days in, for practical training in Sydney. Twelve flights have been made so far. The players have been on board for at least 43 hours and have traveled about 29,000 km.
At the 2012 European Championships in Poland and Ukraine, it was a source of misery for the guys. The Dutch national team stayed in Krakow in Poland, but played in Kharkiv, Ukraine, about an hour and a half away by plane. Players sometimes did not return to the hotel until 4:00 am. The defeats to Germany, Denmark and Portugal were not accidental.
The Orange Woman has already reached the quarterfinals. But wouldn’t the travel schedule have a negative impact on the quarter-final against Spain? The Spaniards stayed in the host city of Wellington for 12 days and did not have to travel to Australia for the Final Eight against South Africa as the Orangemen.
Vliegschema Oranje voor en tijdens WK
The team is lowered onto the plane
When Juncker received travel schedules from team principal Sonja van Gerenstein at the end of last year, he was reeling. So many air miles, so many airports, so many flights, so many hotels and so many fields grace his figure. Never experienced that before either.
It begs the big question: What can we do as a crew to burden players with as little flying as possible? “We used to be absolutely broke for two days when we had to take such long trips,” Groenen recalls.
The upshot was simple: players shouldn’t carry their bags, because it only costs them energy. That is why foreigners often hand their bags over to the men the night before.
FIFA did the rest for the World Cup: players do not have to go through checks at the airport, but are dropped off in front of the stairs leading to the charter plane with the players’ bus. They just need to get in.
Groenen: “We arrive, drop our bags, get on the plane, fly for two hours and go through everything. And that saves energy. If you have to stand in line for three hours again, you have three days of struggling.”
Why Turanga?
In this light, it is remarkable that the Orange have chosen a base in Tauranga, while the team will play two of their three group matches in Dunedin. New Zealand cities are more than 1,000 kilometers apart. The Group B match with the USA was played in Wellington and was therefore closer to home.
KNVB director in charge Jan Dirk van der Zee disagrees with the view that Orange should have been closer to Dunedin. “Then you will have a different experience in this group. Just ask the Swiss how they feel. They were there the whole time. We took a few flying kilometers for granted.”
Orange chose Turanga because of the warmer weather. Despite the current winter in New Zealand, it was around 15 degrees during the day, which is a temperature players like to practice at, according to Jonker.
Over the author
Jeroen van Barneveld schrijft voor NU.nl over onder meer vrouwenvoetbal.
Op een reisdag werken de speelsters alleen een hersteltraining af.
We must run away
Stephanie van der Graagt acknowledges that the travel schedule affects Orange’s training schedule. “We can’t train hard after a day of travel. You have to get off the flight.” In the days after the flight, the Dutch never trained so intensely. Groenen: “It’s just walking and running and stretching the legs.”
And according to director of football Nigel de Jong, performance at the World Cup should not play a role. “It’s not easy, but that’s how it’s organized now. We shouldn’t say we lost or played a game less because we flew too much. That excuse shouldn’t exist.”
Groenen says flying a lot is okay, too. They make the virtue of necessity. “You put your headphones on. Sometimes I lie down and sleep. You can still take three hours. You have no training, no media, no one around. I sleep peacefully.”
So there is no stress from flying, says Groenen. Juncker finds that experienced players draw on young people. “Now we can also win from every flight. This has become a winged pronouncement.”
Spanje-Nederland
De kwartfinale tussen Spanje en Nederland wordt vrijdag om 3.00 uur Nederlandse tijd in de Nieuw-Zeelandse hoofdstad Wellington gespeeld. Het duel staat onder leiding van de Franse topscheidsrechter Stéphanie Frappart.
Voor het duel in het Wellington Regional Stadium zijn volgens de KNVB tot dinsdagochtend 27.089 kaarten verkocht, waarvan 381 aan Nederlanders. In het stadion in Wellington kunnen ruim 33.000 toeschouwers.
Bij een zege op Spanje speelt Oranje in de halve finales tegen Japan of Zweden. Dat duel wordt op 15 augustus in Auckland gespeeld. Na twee nachtwedstrijden op rij speelt Oranje dan eindelijk weer op de Nederlandse ochtend: om 10.00 uur.
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