In the car from Wormer, a village in the Zaan region, to Zeist on Monday, it was about his new status. That Micky van de Ven (22), still a footballer for FC Volendam until two years ago, suddenly belongs to the best defenders in the Netherlands. In recent years he often watched Virgil van Dijk and Matthijs de Ligt on TV. “Then I say: yes, but Mick, you are now also among them,” says father Marcel van de Ven, who drove his son to Zeist. “People look at you the same way now.”
Micky van de Ven still has to get used to it, new as everything is to him. Last Tuesday, sprightly and fresh, he spoke to a group of journalists along the training field on the KNVB Campus in Zeist. He has his first training, in the week that he makes his debut in the selection of the Dutch national team. National coach Ronald Koeman could not ignore him now that he is immediately a permanent fixture at his new club Tottenham Hotspur, second in the Premier League.
He is the youngest member in the rich company of Dutch centre-backs, sought after in the European top. He is explosive and tall with his 1 meter 93. Technically gifted, he builds up easily with his passing. His strong leg is on the left, which is an advantage as the left center back flush tends to be thinner in top-flight football. There he also plays at Spurs, which took him over from VfL Wolfsburg this summer for 40 million euros.
He talks easily and quickly, just as fast as his career has been going in the last year. Halfway through the conversation, he casually says: “It has not been a very long but beautiful career so far.”
On Thursday, he can be graced with his debut, when the Orange plays a qualifying match against Greece for the European Championship 2024 in Eindhoven. Although the chance of playing time is not great because he has captain Van Dijk in front of him in his position. At the same time, Van Dijk, who receives a lot of criticism, is no longer undisputed. Van de Ven may eventually become his successor, although that also applies to the more experienced Nathan Aké.
Read also this article from last June: after the previous defeat of the Orange against Italy, there were many doubts.
Late bloomer
He considers himself a late bloomer. He was an attacker until the age of sixteen, only after that he became a defender, he says. It also takes years for him to stand out in that position. In the youth he is never selected for national teams, only in 2021 he will be in the picture with the Dutch Juniors.
It was close or he had stepped out of professional football. At FC Volendam, where he went through the youth academy, he had no prospect of playing time in the first. For that reason, he planned to “pop out” and play amateur football for one or two years. “I wanted to go to Fortuna Wormerveer, they went well then.” He is from that region. “My father pushed a lot: Mick, go ahead, that chance will come.”
You sometimes “need luck,” like a trainer who sees it in you, he says. In his case, that was then Volendam coach Wim Jonk, on whose intercession he was able to sign his first professional contract in July 2019. That year he breaks through in the Eerste Divisie, becomes captain and two years later Feyenoord, Olympique Marseille and Wolfsburg are interested. After a Van de Ven lost arbitration case – he wanted to enforce contract termination at Volendam – he made the move to Germany for 3.5 million euros.
He talks a lot with his father about his development, how to mentally prepare for hectic situations in competitions. Marcel van de Ven (52) is a former undercover agent, he wrote a book about a secret unit within the police that fought serious crime: The cage. He is now a ‘performance coach’ and is asked as an expert on TV programs such as Hunted and 112 Today. From those experiences he gives his son advice. “We talk about that over a cup of coffee, like father and son. Not that he has to come to surgery,” says father Van de Ven.
“He always says: accept the chaos,” says son Micky in Zeist.
“In the stadium you have to learn to deal with it when there are emotions,” his father explains by telephone. “In my work I had to deal with a lot of adrenaline and stress, with violence and serious incidents. If you accept chaos, you can deal with situations more easily.”
“Rest is a weapon that never refuses, he always says,” says Micky.
“If you are calm, you can continue to act,” explains his father. “When he is under pressure, he knows how to solve it playing football.”
‘What am I doing it for anyway?’
That does not alter the fact that he is having a hard time at Wolfsburg in his first season (2021-2022). He does not play under Mark van Bommel, who was the coach at the time. He is always in the selection, but does not fall in. “I knew in a series of races that I didn’t even have to warm up. You give full throttle, but that opportunity just doesn’t come. I thought: what am I actually doing it for?”
Just 20 years old, he often sat alone in his apartment in gritty, industrial Wolfsburg. “After the game I came home, I hadn’t played, I went to play with my friends from the Netherlands. To have a distraction for football. I said to my friends: I don’t want to talk about football, nothing, zero.” The fact that he has been out for months due to a hamstring injury does not help either.
But in his second season, under coach Niko Kovac, he plays almost everything. Images go all over the world when he prevents a goal against Union Berlin with a masterly sprint back on his own goal line. From measurements turns out that he is the fastest central defender in the Bundesliga, with a top speed of 35.8 kilometers per hour. At Volendam he once ran the 60 meters in 7 seconds in a training.
At Spurs, he immediately gets the confidence from coach Ange Postecoglou this season – and the freedom to build from the back. “He says: if you make a mistake, it is my responsibility.”
He is in the middle of London’s football Valhalla, in the leading league. All good, he says, but the weeks are even: going to the club every day, training, getting better and better, working towards duels. “Every week again.” After the international period, he moves into a house in a village just outside London.
He can still improve a lot, says Van de Ven. The passing with his right leg, how he positions himself, his posture, his timing. He hopes to learn from De Ligt and Van Dijk this week. When his father dropped him off in Zeist on Monday, he said: “Enjoy it and show what you can do”.