According to the plan, the Dutch women's team will gather from June 19 to practice and prepare for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (from July 20 to August 20). However, the formidable opponent of the Vietnamese women's team will not be able to have full squad numbers, with 11 names absent on the first day of training.
Accordingly, the host clubs have expressed dissatisfaction because the match schedule (as allocated by FIFA) in the 2023-2024 season is too dense and does not pay attention to the health and physical condition of female players. Female players have to play an average of 1 match/week in February, April, June and July 2024. For countries with a place at the 2024 Paris Olympics, many female players continue to participate and then return to serve their host clubs.
The Dutch women's team could not have enough players on the first training day.
Therefore, many clubs have refused to release their players according to FIFA's schedule. Head coach of the Dutch women's team, Mr. Andries Jonker, said: "They (the clubs) said that they would not release the players on June 19, the day the Dutch women's team and most teams in Europe want to start preparing for the World Cup. Some clubs even did not want to release the players before July 10... The national football federations then had to approach FIFA and the training date (June 19) was discussed with the coaches."
Accordingly, all women's clubs must release their players by June 23 at the latest. "The clubs have accepted this request. However, the German women's team has already scheduled a friendly match with the Vietnamese women's team on June 24. They also really want to gather from June 20," said Mr. Jonker.
Thus, on the first training session (June 19), the Dutch women's team will be missing 11 players. Of these, 7 will not appear because the club has not agreed to release them, while Roord, Janssen and Wilms of Wolfsburg and Beerensteyn of Juventus were allowed by Mr. Jonker to join the team later due to club schedules.
Coach Jonker said the late arrival of the players greatly affected the Dutch women's team's preparation for the World Cup.
Previously, the Dutch women's team had finalized the list of 30 players to prepare for the 2023 World Cup. The Dutch Football Federation had also scheduled friendly matches and the late arrival of the players affected the training plan. "The start of preparation affects the players' resilience and playing time. We will play a friendly match on June 25 (with the Volewijckers men's team). On July 2, we will play an international friendly with the Belgian women's team and can only make 6 substitutions. So 5 players have to play the whole match. How will we do this?", Mr. Jonker expressed.
Not long ago, the Dutch women's team also received bad news when they definitely lost their top scorer Vivianne Miedema due to a knee ligament injury while playing for Arsenal. This striker is currently the team's all-time leading scorer with 95 goals in 115 matches.
The Netherlands women's national team's squad for the 2023 World Cup
At the 2023 Women's World Cup, the current runner-up Netherlands is in the same group with the Vietnamese women's team, the current champion USA and Portugal.
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