It was an extreme plan. “But I would have really done it if I had scored,” Kevin van Veen looks back on FC Groningen’s 2-1 win against FC Eindhoven. The striker hopes to have the best week of his life.
You could see him thinking for a moment when the winning goal was scored against FC Eindhoven on Friday evening. Can I claim it or not? It would have been his sixth of the season. Kevin van Veen was guaranteed to have gone completely crazy and already had extreme ideas about how he would have celebrated the goal, but the 32-year-old striker from FC Groningen decided that it should not be his party, but that of teammate Laros Duarte.
‘Give it to Laros’
“I think I hit him with my lace, but I said, give it to Laros,” the controversial goalgetter looks back on the 2-1 win over FC Groningen and the liberating goal by his teammate, the shot that he seemed to scoff for a moment. “At least the ball hit something, but even if it had been my toenail, Laros simply deserves it. He has had so many injuries. Knee problems, just like I used to. I get along well with him, so I wish him the same. I’m a striker, but this one doesn’t matter to me.”
The audience in the cold Euroborg had been chanting his name for minutes when Van Veen was allowed to take off his tracksuit fifteen minutes before the end. “I thought it was very beautiful, heart-warming,” says Van Veen, who, as always, lets his heart speak. “I’m in a difficult time, I didn’t even have to be at the club. I have permission to take three or four weeks off, since my girlfriend’s pregnancy wasn’t going well. We’ve been to the hospital. There were oxygen problems, the baby was too big.”
“But I had a conversation with the club management and said: I will not throw in the towel, even though I no longer have a starting position. I’m working hard on myself, I’m at the club from early in the morning until late at night. I gained 4.5 kilos in a week and a half. Just muscles.”
Straight forward
Van Veen has an idea why the Groningen public is embracing him so en masse. “Personally, I think it’s because I’m always honest and straightforward. If it’s bad it’s bad, if it’s good it’s good. It really wasn’t good against FC Eindhoven either. Every time we take a 1-0 lead we fall back, while we have to stick the knife in and slaughter them. I will continue to do my best for all those people in the stands. If at a certain point the staff does not want to see what I do, there are always the supporters from whom I get my motivation. They really touch me.”
He would have thanked the spectators profusely if he had scored. The scenario was already completely in his head. “I took off my shirt and jumped into that box. Not in the front row, but towards row ten or so. The referee couldn’t even find me to give me a yellow card. I said, give me a beer and keep playing. Then it would have been 3-1. Just finish the match with ten men. I really would have, I swear to you. That was my plan.”
‘You’re crazy’
An exciting week awaits Van Veen. The due date for the arrival of his first child was actually early December, but his girlfriend will probably be induced next Tuesday, depending on the advice of doctors in Scotland. It would have been a reason for many expectant fathers to return home immediately, if not for Van Veen. FC Groningen will play another match against Jong AZ on Monday evening. The striker actually just wants to grab that.
“Director Wouter Gudde and the trainer already said, you are crazy,” says Van Veen. “I’ve had a few arguments about it with my girlfriend. But look, I may miss a match in the near future, but as long as the baby isn’t really knocking on the door yet, I’m willing to take this risk for the club. What good is it for me to spend four weeks on the couch in Scotland? I would do anything for FC Groningen, I feel responsibility and I want to turn the situation around. I know that if the baby comes earlier and I am here, I will miss the birth. I don’t want that, certainly not, but I also think that succeeding at FC Groningen is very important for myself. I am also sure that if I get the chance again and am completely fit, everything will still work out fine here.”
The ultimate scenario
The striker does have an ultimate scenario in his head for next week. In his vision, he will first score the winner for FC Groningen against Jong AZ in Wormerveer on Monday and then be able to proudly embrace his newborn daughter in Scotland a day later. Van Veen in utter euphoria: “Three points and the birth. That will be the best week of my life. If that really happens, I’m going to take off my pants and go helicoptering.”