In the remaining fifteen minutes that was still on the clock in Stadskanaal, Steffens had to fish once. “I had no chance with that goal,” she laughs on Wednesday evening, when she picks up the phone in one of the changing rooms at De Gruinte sports park in Nieuw-Schoonebeek. In the background you can hear the giggles of teammates, when both women’s teams from Schoonebeek have just left the training field. Some of them also came to support Steffens on Sunday, assuming that she would remain in the dugout for the entire game. But trainer Jorden Abel thought otherwise.
Always on the football field
That Steffens was allowed to make her appearance among the men was a twist of fate. First goalkeeper Martin Berens was able to start, but recently had the corona virus among the members. The other reserve keepers, Rob Koers and Stefan Eising, were absent due to work and study obligations, so Steffens was asked to come along as reserve keeper. A question she didn’t have to think about for long, because if it were up to her, she’s always on the football field. Is it not as a goalkeeper, or as a referee, assistant referee or trainer of the youth.
Not only her original teammates came to cheer on Steffens. Her parents could also be found along the line, while sister Anouk sat next to her as a nurse in the dug-out. “The fact that I was allowed to sit on the bench was enough for all that support,” says Steffens, who reacted with surprise when trainer Abel summoned her twenty minutes before time to warm up and then fill in. “I thought: hello, this was not the appointment. I would only come in if Martin was wrong. But when the time came, I felt proud. And then it’s reset your mind and do your thing.” , it sounds sober.
Thanks to Ellen
The unofficial debut of the 21-year-old goalkeeper for the Sunday fourth division does not come completely out of the blue. She has been training with the men for two seasons, when there was a shortage of keepers during training sessions. The then Schoonebeek coach Wilbert Arends first asked her two years ago – “I’m always on the football field, so why not?” – and Jorden Abel kept her there. Stefan is happy with it. “In women’s football, the ball is shot forward much faster, while men play more carefully. As a result, I have also become calmer in my game,” she explains.
Steffens owes her milestone to Ellen Fokkema of the Frisian Saturday fourth division team Foarút from Menaldum. Until this season, it was not possible as a woman in Dutch amateur football to play in selection teams for men, but Fokkema decided to challenge that at the KNVB. ‘I don’t want to go to another association at all’, she motivated, and so she was allowed to participate in the first team of Foarút as a kind of guinea pig. And although that pilot that could hardly be tested due to the corona pandemic, the KNVB nevertheless gave in this season.
chats
And so a goalkeeper in Drenthe can now look back on a great debut with the men. “It tastes like more. And the trainer also said he was proud of me”, Steffens beams, although she acknowledges that she knows what her place in the selection is. “But such a debut is being talked about and that’s nice,” she says. Whether the men of Schoonebeek have their opinion about the brand new debutant ready now? Stephen laughs. “With men you can see some jokes coming from afar. Most of them always have the most talk when they are being cared for. And let my sister be the nurse here.”