A special evening for Ralf Seuntjens (34) from Breda. The striker, who overcame lymphatic cancer in recent years, scored his first goal since his return to the Dutch fields against FC Eindhoven on Friday. With this he immediately gave his team De Graafschap the win. “This is amazing.”
The news about his return to the Netherlands at the end of last year was striking to say the least. The former player of RBC Roosendaal, FC Den Bosch and NAC Breda, among others, previously indicated that he wanted to end his career in Japan. Shortly after he started his adventure there in the spring of 2022, disaster struck. The diagnose? Lymph node cancer.
In the period that followed, it was uncertain for a long time whether Seuntjens would ever be on the football field again. Yet last June, more than a year after the bad news, he made his return to his Japanese club FC Imabari.
And despite his desire to play his last match there, the Breda native is now wearing the blue-white shirt of the Superboeren again. He previously played there between 2019 and 2021. He completed his comeback on Friday evening by scoring the only goal against Eindhoven.
“I said: I don’t come here to be an asshole on the field.”
“This means a lot to me,” Seuntjens said in front of the ESPN camera after the match. “Scoring is always nice, especially in such a difficult away match. But when that little one is back in the stands…”, the match winner refers to his son.
The pressure was great, he admits. “I really wanted to show it. With goals and by helping the team. I said: I’m not coming here to be a jerk on the field. I don’t feel like that. If that’s the case, you better pull out the plug.” For the time being, that does not seem to be the case. “He came in top today.”
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