Mark Parsons recalls Daphne van Domselaar's Euro 2022 bow
One year ago, Van Domselaar was a relative unknown around Europe. That is until the Netherlands goalkeeper got thrust into the Euros after just 20 minutes.
A mere 20 minutes had passed when a curveball was thrown at Netherlands head coach Mark Parsons at last summer’s European Championships.
A head coach still trying to find his way in a new role with the defending champions at the time after a lengthy spell in the NWSL, Parsons saw his number one goalkeeper, Sari van Veenendaal, go down injured against Sweden, with Daphne van Domselaar in line to replace her if need be.
Van Domselaar had just one sole cap coming into the tournament, but after 22 minutes found herself thrown in as the new Netherlands number one for the rest of the tournament, yet not only did she cope, she thrived.
Just 22 years old at the time, van Domselaar’s performances, particularly in that tournament debut against Sweden, and again against France in the second round, shot the goalkeeper to the attention of Europe, and Parsons recalls how her own preparation helped her prepare for such a moment.
I’m quite passionate about this,” says the former head coach, now manager at Washington Spirit. “The person who does the most preparation is the player, and in this case, Daphne. We can talk about how we do all these things, but we do all these things to help everyone prepare for stepping in. We’d done the same for everyone, but it doesn’t work out for everyone, but in this case Daphne was ready for that moment, she absolutely embraced that moment.
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“What we did in the process was we felt she was just growing and growing and growing. From January, up to the summer, she was just building and getting better and better. We gave her a game in February against Finland, because we felt we needed to give her some exposure to a big game with a lot of fans. She didn’t have much action because we completely controlled the game, but the two things I’ll say are we felt she was growing, we knew she was going to get better, however, we knew she’d go on to be a very successful player going forward.
“Her profile, her feet, her shot-stopping, but what she did exceeded everyone’s expectations in terms of how she handled it mentally. We believed in her ability, but we didn’t know how she’d deal with the big moments because she hadn’t been in them. We believed in her, but she exceeded all expectations. Coaches and teams say they do this, this and this, but we do it for everyone. It was her mindset to crush the mental side and I know she invested a lot in that and I was so happy to see her do that. We had the option to overthink how to prepare her, but we did a good job, it was her who grabbed the opportunity.”
At 22, it would have been understandable for a young goalkeeper to buckle under the pressure, yet Van Domselaar didn’t just perform, she was one of the standout players of the tournament.
It begs the question, can too much preparation hinder a player, as opposed to being thrown in with very little chance to mentally process what’s happening?
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