Netherlands Women Name 33-Player Training Group: 11 New Faces as Oranje Rebuild After the World Cup
The rebuild starts on Monday. And it is a rebuild.
Netherlands women head coach Raoul Ehren has picked 33 players for a four-week training block that starts on 26 October, the squad’s first work since the summer’s World Cup. Eleven of them are new faces. That’s not a refresh, that’s a changing of the guard being done in public.
The 11 new faces
The players getting their chance to train with Oranje are Phileine Hazen (SCHC), Iris de Kemp (Kampong), Dymph Luttge (Hurley), Noa Muller (Amsterdam), Babs Reijnen (Den Bosch), Lotte Ruts (SCHC), Brechtje van Santbrink (Den Bosch), Lynn Vasterink (Oranje-Rood), Bente van der Veldt (Kampong), Mea de Vries (Kampong) and Fleur Wolfert (Kampong).
Kampong supply four of the eleven, which says plenty about where Dutch development is running hot right now. For all eleven, the next four weeks are an audition: Ehren cuts this group down to a final selection at the end of November.
Who’s missing, and why it matters
Four familiar names are out injured for this block: Joosje Burg (Den Bosch), Luna Fokke (Kampong), Pien Dicke (SCHC) and Noor van den Nieuwenhof (Kampong). Three more are being eased along at a lower tempo for now: Renée van Laarhoven (SCHC), Frédérique Matla and Laura Nunnink (both Den Bosch).
And then there are the two who aren’t coming back at all. Xan de Waard and Pien Sanders, two of the most decorated players of their generation, have retired from international hockey since the World Cup. Sanders’ farewell was confirmed this week. When players like that walk away, the spaces they leave aren’t filled by one-for-one swaps, they’re filled by exactly this kind of wide-open training group.
What they’re training for
The block builds towards the new FIH Pro League season, which opens for the Dutch women in December in Valencia, Spain. Ehren names his final Pro League selection at the end of November, so the maths is simple: 33 players, four weeks, and a plane list that won’t fit all of them.
The Netherlands don’t do transition periods quietly. They lost a World Cup final in the summer, lost two greats to retirement, and their answer is to open the door to eleven new players at once and let them fight for it. For our money, that’s the most Dutch response possible, and it’s why writing this team off for even one season is usually a mistake.
Related: Pien Sanders retires from international hockey, the FIH Hockey Stars Awards shortlist story, and where Oranje sit in the Rankings.
