In addition to perseverance, curiosity is the greatest quality of Andries Noppert, who was promoted to first goalkeeper of the Dutch national team a few days ago after years of sitting on the bench at clubs such as NAC, Foggia, FC Dordrecht and Go Ahead Eagles. As a child, he tried to build a hot air balloon with his own hands, which unfortunately caught fire miserably. Much later, the 28-year-old goalkeeper from the Frisian Joure manufactured his own exercise bike with an old bicycle, a pile of stones and pipes when he was recovering from a meniscus injury and could not go to the physiotherapist due to corona.
‘During training sessions he also always thought out of the box, he tried to bend certain things so that he thought it was more effective,’ says Wim Reckers, youth goalkeeper coach at Heerenveen, the club where Noppert went through the youth academy and returned in the summer. ‘I can still see him jumping up when he got really tall to realize: hey, now I’m 2 meters 63! Then he raised his hands and said, “And now I’m 10 feet 13!” He wanted to take advantage of that with high crosses.’
Tallest player at World Cup
Like a poorly understood Willie Wortel, Noppert walked around in professional football for a long time. He is tall (even the tallest player at the World Cup at 2.03 meters), flexible thanks to a few years of gymnastics, passionate, sympathetic and convinced of himself. ‘Stubborn, but not in an annoying way,’ says Robert Maaskant, who was Noppert’s trainer at NAC. He blurted out all sorts of things. Sometimes said to me: give me a chance. But he had two experienced keepers in front of him.’
It was never thought: gosh, what an exceptional goalkeeper. And then it wasn’t easy for Noppert with injuries, and a failed adventure at the small Italian club Foggia where he couldn’t make himself understood and where the mafia had a finger in the pie. Even his most loyal fans, his parents and his girlfriend, said two years ago: Andries, shouldn’t you do something else? Large amateur clubs such as Spakenburg outlined a beckoning perspective: weekly goalkeeping, training and traveling less often and earning a little more.
Sober and with guts
But Noppert still folded himself on his self-made exercise bike in his garden and continued on, hoping for a chance in professional football. He stayed on that treadmill until ten months ago. With only 22 games at professional level to his name, he suddenly gets the chance at Go Ahead Eagles, because first choice Warner Hahn has dropped stitches and coach Kees van Wonderen is impressed by the sobriety, reach and guts of the reserve goalkeeper.
Noppert keeps an excellent half season with powerful saves, followed by sober interviews. In the summer he chooses from many offers for childhood sweetheart Heerenveen. The ‘Toren van Joure’ is back home and actually as the first goalkeeper.
But it gets even better afterwards when Louis van Gaal invites him to the Orange squad after a strong start to the season. Noppert’s impassive reaction: ‘Of course I also see those guys on TV and they play at big clubs. But those boys also just go to the toilet, they also poop and pee.’
Only goalkeeper in form
Noppert is even allowed to go to the World Cup in Qatar, according to friend and foe as the third goalkeeper who may only get in on penalties. But Van Gaal thinks that Noppert is the only goalkeeper who is in shape. The national coach has a reputation when it comes to letting grass-green players make their debut.
And Noppert does not disappoint against Senegal, he has a few nice saves after the break and with a long kick a share in Davy Klaassen’s 2-0. Afterwards at the table with NOS reporter Jeroen Stekelenburg, still wrapped in his bright green goalkeeper shirt with short sleeves, he gives answers that immediately go viral. “I don’t think about the things I say. Often that’s not good, but it’s fair.’ In that respect he resembles Van Gaal, he thinks, they also have the same sense of humour.
About the risk Van Gaal took by fielding a goalkeeper without a shred of international experience, he says: ‘In the Netherlands we are all complaining that we don’t have good goalkeepers. But we do that ourselves.’
Cult hero formation
According to Maaskant, those statements and the dead-mooded face that Noppert puts on contribute to the cult hero formation. ‘He wasn’t that special at all. I still think it’s too much of a risk to put it on. But of course it’s a great story.’
Reckers is also surprised to see the rapidly growing popularity of his former pupil. “He was always perhaps too much of an open book. But now people think it’s wonderful, that authenticity. He’s been through a lot, but at heart he’s still that curious 10-year-old boy.’