Matla Left Out of Oranje’s Pro League Plans — and Van Ass Says That’s the Right Call
Twenty goals in eight games. Top scorer in the Hoofdklasse by six. And still not on the plane.
Frédérique Matla will not go to the Pro League with the Netherlands, hockey.nl reports, and the decision has split Dutch hockey right down the middle. On Sunday she scored all four of Den Bosch’s goals in a 4-0 win over Rotterdam, then pushed a penalty stroke against the post. That is the form she is in. Twenty goals before mid-November. Nobody else in the league is close.
So why leave her out? Paul van Ass, who worked with her closely as national coach, says the call is right.
“Let Matla be Matla. She’s a star, she’s a top player,” Van Ass said. “Mattie needs a different route for a bit. I think it’s good that she’s not going to the Pro League now. She proves in the league that she can play hockey just fine, there’s nothing wrong there at all.”
His point is about timing, not talent. Matla has been the most talked-about player in the Netherlands since she fell out of the selection, and Van Ass reckons a breather now sets up a bigger return later. “Soon she’ll be fit and ready enough, and then she’ll definitely be at the Euros.”
The Euros are the big one. The European Championships land in London next summer, 28 July to 8 August 2027, and Van Ass expects Matla to be there. He also says she matters beyond the goals. She is a role model for young girls watching the game, a star in the Dutch sense of the word, and none of that changes because she missed a stroke on Sunday.
“Somewhere she has this thing of: whatever, bring it on, I’ll sort it in a second,” Van Ass said. “That’s not how she is, but that’s what she radiates. But that also means you miss one now and then. She makes up for it herself. Then she takes revenge on herself.”
The bigger argument
Van Ass went further than the Matla call. Hockey, he says, needs money and intrigue to grow. The sport has the product. What it lacks is the noise around it, the storylines that pull people in who don’t already watch.
He has a point, and the Matla situation proves it. The best striker in the Dutch league, left out of the national team, with the former coach publicly backing the decision. That is a storyline. Whether you agree with the call or not, everybody is talking about it.
For our money, Van Ass is right about the short term. Matla doesn’t need December in Córdoba to prove anything. She is proving it every Sunday at Den Bosch. The question is whether the Netherlands can afford to be without her if the Pro League gets tight. That is a gamble, and we’ll see in December whether it pays off.
