Shanice van de Sanden may suddenly dream of the European Championship after fifteen months of absence from the Dutch national team. The pacesetter is eager to make the selection, especially now that she is happy again after a difficult period. “I started to believe the people from the outside.”
Van de Sanden tells her story on a drizzly morning in Zeist, just before the Dutch team’s training for Friday’s Nations League match against Germany. Despite the rain, the 32-year-old forward has pulled a short book from the closet. This makes the tattoo on her upper leg with the word ‘believe‘ clearly visible.
The tattoo has a special meaning for Van de Sanden. In 2017, she won the European Championship with the Dutch national team in her own country, but two years later she reached a low point. Van de Sanden received a lot of criticism at the World Cup in France and lost her starting place to Lineth Beerensteyn.
“I found that difficult, but also logical. But I found it very intense that the public sometimes booed me. Then I said to Sarina (Wiegman, ed.): I don’t want to be on the field anymore. I was so emotional at that moment. I thought: oh shit, what is this? This is something different than the 2017 European Championship.”
“I lost faith in myself. I started to believe the people from the outside. Then I lost my balance. Now I think: no, you have to believe in yourself. Who else will?”
Memphis route to Dutch national team
In recent years, Van de Sanden has regained balance and happiness. The 97-time international welcomed daughter Haló with her girlfriend Tatjana at the end of 2023 and moved from Liverpool to Mexican Pachuca last summer.
In the same transfer period, her good friend Memphis Depay also moved to the other side of the ocean to play for Brazilian Corinthians. Van de Sanden and Memphis know each other well from their time at Olympique Lyonnais, but were not aware of each other’s transfers.
“Before such a transfer becomes known, it is very private. You only discuss it with your family and your agent. But if I saw him here, we would have a chat about: how is it there?”
In Mexico, Van de Sanden finally got fit again after years of injury woes. She played a total of 32 games, almost as many as in the previous three seasons combined. After her domestic transfer from Pachuca to Toluca, she also found the net more and more often. In the last four league games, the Utrecht native scored seven times.
And so, like Memphis, thanks to a special transfer, Van de Sanden could think about the Dutch national team again. “It is indeed a bit the same. Every game that I stepped on the field in Mexico I had in the back of my mind that I was doing it to be able to play in the European Championship.”
‘I’m not going to think about dropping out’
A month and a half before the start of the European Championship, Van de Sanden received the first relieving email: she is in the selection for the upcoming Nations League matches. But Van de Sanden could not immediately express her joy.
“There was someone at our house measuring the curtains. So I couldn’t tell her, but I quickly showed her my phone. Then she grabbed the little one and we went upstairs to make a jump for joy. This is what I have always wanted, I always keep dreaming of the Dutch national team.”
In just over a month, Van de Sanden could participate in a major final tournament in Switzerland for the first time since the 2020 Olympic Games. At the last World Cup (2023) and European Championship (2022), Van de Sanden dropped out at the last minute. Like a boomerang, she kept returning to the Dutch national team.
“I’m not going to think about dropping out. I’m thinking about seeing the selection with my name on it. I want to score a goal at the European Championship and make the country cheer again.”
Jonker: ‘She makes a very good impression’
National coach Andries Jonker already said in the previous international period that the Mexican competition is “not a pancake competition”. He is impressed by Van de Sanden’s fitness. “It is remarkable that she has played 32 games this season after a number of years full of injury woes,” he said at his press conference.
“In the images we watch, she makes a very good impression. She is really fit again. She has a return and also knows what is expected at this level. So you have an excellent player in training, who can be used in the match.”