Collection almost complete: Pien (9) receives a shirt from her football heroine Renate Jansen

Shining with pride, Pien shows off her bright orange shirt for the photo. The nine-year-old is a big football fan and has a rock-solid top three, if you ask about her biggest football heroes. “Daphne van Domselaar, Wieke Kaptein and Renate Jansen,” she lists the football women.

It was a great celebration when she received a real shirt from Jansen yesterday after the Netherlands – Scotland football match in Nijmegen. But that gift didn’t come completely out of nowhere.

Shout loudly

“We were at the FC Twente match against ADO Den Haag last week,” says Pien. “Then I asked if she wanted to exchange a shirt at yesterday’s game. She then said, ‘Yes, that’s fine.’ A promise is a promise, but it was so busy after the match yesterday that Pien had to work up a sweat.

“I shouted her name at the top of my lungs. We were sitting in the main stand, so quite close, but it was very busy.” Fortunately, the football player immediately recognized Pien, and the nine-year-old from Alkmaar was given a fresh spare shirt from the dressing room. “The shirt she was wearing had to be sold for the Pink Ribbon charity,” Pien explains.

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That did not end Pien’s mission, because the goal was to make shirts exchange. Pien and her father travel across town and country to visit football matches, and tomorrow she will get a new chance. “We are going to the open training sessions in Zeist at the KNVB campus. I didn’t get through yesterday so I couldn’t give my shirt, there were children all around me.”

Pien’s father had special goalkeeper shirts printed with her name on it. At Pien’s own club, the Alkmaarse Kolping Boys, the nine-year-old always keeps goal during the first half. “I’m going to give a shirt like that, I have a few of them,” she tells NH.

Not yet exchanged

Pien has not yet been traded out, because her top three is of course not yet complete. “I would also really like to exchange Daphne van Domselaar’s shirt for one of my shirts, she will be next.”