• Joined ESPN in 2011 • Covered two Olympics, a pair of Rugby World Cups and two British & Irish Lions tours • Previously rugby editor, and became senior writer in 2018
BARENDRECHT, Netherlands — It’s a warm Saturday in May, the day before the final round of the Eredivisie, and the seven pitches at VV Smitshoek, south of Rotterdam, are packed. Children of all ages are playing soccer, at varying levels of competitiveness.
Indoors, one of their youth teams is celebrating winning their league: Tradition states they’re given a vast platter of fries, followed by taking a photo with a trophy. They have 1,275 members, and teams include players ranging from 6 to 65 years old, the older generation playing walking football on an area that 80 years ago was farmland.
A 10-minute drive away is BVV Barendrecht. Their nine pitches are also packed; the clubhouse is also heaving with some of their 2,300 members. This is just a small snapshot of the Netherlands’ amateur soccer scene, and it’s here in the suburbs of Rotterdam where Inter Milan and Netherlands right back Denzel Dumfries mastered his craft.
On Saturday, Dumfries will start for Inter Milan in the Champions League final, and then on to World Cup qualifiers in June. But while his Dutch teammates came through the academy pathways from a young age, shaped by the finest brains in the sport, a decade ago Dumfries was just one of the children enjoying Saturday morning soccer in this part of the world with his pals, having slipped through the academy net.
He joined Smitshoek at age 7 and played there until he was 16, telling his teammates from a young age that he would one day play for the Netherlands. They laughed at him, but he never doubted himself. “He was a child that really stands behind his dream and is willing to do anything for it,” Peter van der Pennen, his first coach at Smitshoek, tells ESPN.
It’s through graft on the amateur soccer scene and immense self-belief that he has progressed to being one of the world’s best fullbacks. But it started in this corner of the Netherlands, on old farmland, just south of Rotterdam.
