What Happens in Cyprus Doesn’t Always Stay in Cyprus

The season that built our relationship, gave us family, and showed me the side of football nobody talks about.

Years ago, in 2014, I wrote a blog about the season Hans and I lived in Cyprus.

I recently read it again. And it was strange. Not because the story wasn’t true. It was.

But because I was reading the words of a much younger version of myself. A girl who had no children yet, had barely started building a life with the man she would eventually marry, and had absolutely no idea that some of the people sitting around our dinner table in Cyprus would still be sitting around our table almost twenty years later.

Back then, I mostly saw the chaos. Now I see what that year actually gave us. And, after all these years, I can probably tell a little bit more of the story too. Not everything. Definitely not everything.

Because professional football has its own version of what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

And some stories aren’t only mine to tell. But let’s just say… Cyprus was an experience.

We lived there for one football season, close to Ayia Napa.

As a holiday destination? Absolutely beautiful. White beaches, crystal-clear water, great food, incredible history. I would still recommend Cyprus to anyone for a holiday. For professional football?

Well. That’s a slightly different blog. And just to get this out of the way again: Cyprus is an island.

It is not Greece. I apparently felt the need to point that out in 2014, and I still stand by it.

But Cyprus will always mean much more to me than beaches and football. Because that is where the real foundation of my relationship with Hans was built. We weren’t married. We didn’t have children but we had Edgar the cat. We had only just started living together when this opportunity came along.

Hans could play football in Cyprus. So we went.

There was definitely a little thought somewhere in the back of my mind:

This is either going to make us or break us.

Well…We’re still here. So I guess we know how that worked out.

In the beginning, it really was beautiful. There were several Dutch footballers on the island at the time, although most of them played for different clubs. Cyprus is small, especially when you’re living inside the football world, so eventually everybody knew everybody. Some people only casually.

Others became real friends. We spent time together at people’s homes, on beaches, at restaurants.

Stories were shared. We laughed a lot.

Those first months, especially pre-season, felt almost carefree. Hans was having a good season.

We sometimes received groceries. Restaurants would feed us. The weather was ridiculous.

The stadium where Hans played sat high on a hill, overlooking the blue sea and part of the town where we lived. Beautiful. Very Instagrammable. Although Instagram barely existed then. And the stadium itself was so old that sitting down required a small risk assessment because there was a realistic possibility of getting a splinter in your ass.

There was also a boat next to the football pitch. An actual boat. I questioned it in 2014. I still have questions in 2026. But those are the details you remember.

And then the season really got going. Welcome to professional football.

This was where I started learning something that I would understand much better later:

The football world you see from the outside and the football world families actually live in can be two completely different things. Players came and went constantly. Hans would come home and tell me another player had disappeared from the team. Then another. Then another. It honestly started to feel like some bizarre football version of The X Factor. At one point, Hans and a Portuguese goalkeeper were basically the last foreign players left from the group that had started the season. Not exactly something that gives you a comforting sense of job security. Things happened on the pitch that I didn’t understand either. There was even a match Hans couldn’t start because, according to paperwork, he had received a red card. Only… He hadn’t. At least not in the football match we had all apparently watched.

What exactly happened behind certain decisions? I don’t know. Or maybe after all these years I have learned that sometimes it is smarter to simply say: I don’t know. Because here’s the thing about professional football. There is a lot everybody knows. There is a lot everybody talks about privately.

And there is surprisingly little anybody talks about publicly. Football is beautiful. But it is also political.

It can be incredibly fake. And when your husband is the one whose career is involved, you learn very quickly that not every story needs names, dates and supporting evidence attached to it. So Hans, don’t worry. I’m behaving. Mostly.

And then there was the money. Salary became a monthly surprise. Will it arrive? Won’t it?

For us, most of the time, things worked out. Hans’ team was winning a lot, and we were lucky.

Others weren’t. In my original blog I wrote about a Dutch player from another club, who came from AJAX,  who regularly came to eat with us because he wasn’t being paid. We didn’t even know him particularly well at first. We had simply heard about his situation. And if you can put another plate on the table, why wouldn’t you? But reading my old blog again, I noticed I completely left someone else out. The Portuguese goalkeeper. He was at our house constantly. And I mean constantly. During the day. In the evening. Sometimes it felt as though he practically lived there. He used our Wi-Fi because he needed internet. He ate with us. He spent hours at our home. At the time I probably thought we were just helping someone out. Looking back now, I understand it differently. Our house was somewhere he could breathe. Because when you are in another country and your salary isn’t arriving, everything becomes stressful. Your career. Your rent. Your future. Your family at home. The next contract. Everything.

People often see a professional football player and assume that means money and glamour. Sometimes it means sitting at your teammate’s kitchen table because you don’t know when you’re getting paid again. And that Portuguese goalkeeper? He is still here. Not physically sitting on my sofa every single day, thankfully. Our Wi-Fi bill couldn’t handle that anymore. But he is one of Hans’ best friends. He is part of our family. Our children know him as family. Nearly twenty years later. That blows my mind sometimes. And he’s not the only one.

Recently, another football friend of Hans from that time was at our house. And while he was sitting there, something suddenly became very clear to me. I don’t see him as one of Hans’ football friends anymore. He’s my friend too. Our friend. Our children see him as an uncle. He is family. There is a bond between us that started in Cyprus and continued through all the years after it. And nobody can take that away. When we returned to the Netherlands after living in America for ten years, he was one of the people who reached out to us. That period of our lives wasn’t easy. And you remember the people who show up when life isn’t easy. There are friendships that don’t need constant contact. You can go months without seeing each other. Sometimes longer. But there is history underneath them.

Real history. And when you meet again, it is simply there. Cyprus gave us several of those people.

At the time, we had no idea. We were just a bunch of young footballers and partners trying to survive another season.

Apparently I also forgot about the police. How I managed not to put this in the 2014 version is beyond me. Because at the time I was absolutely terrified. Hans and I were once stopped by the police. And no, I’m not going to tell every detail. Mainly because the explanation for why we had supposedly been stopped was so ridiculous that even today I don’t really know what to do with it.

But it didn’t feel funny at the time. Not remotely.  he situation was intimidating enough that I remember being genuinely scared. Then they asked us what we were doing in Cyprus. Hans explained that he was a professional footballer and told them which club he played for. And suddenly the entire atmosphere changed. Completely. Apologies. Everything was fine. No problem. And could we please come to the police station the following morning? So the next morning we went. Where we received…

More apologies. I still don’t completely understand that chapter. But there was one part I will never forget. One of the police officers looked at Hans and basically told him that it wasn’t very clever to have a girlfriend like me and not marry her. Because before he knew it, another man might run off with me. Which was, obviously, the most important issue requiring police attention that day.

Small detail. Eight months later Hans proposed to me. In Cyprus. Now… I’m absolutely not suggesting that a Cypriot police officer is responsible for our marriage. That would be ridiculous. I’m merely presenting the evidence. Hans can draw his own conclusions. But some stories weren’t funny. There were situations around us that were genuinely frightening. I wrote about some of them in 2014.

A player with a family who was no longer wanted by his club, despite having a contract.

He continued showing up for training because, as far as he understood, that was his right.

Then came an encounter that made him question whether continuing that fight was worth the possible consequences for his wife and baby at home. Even writing that sentence now, I am careful.

Because there is the story you tell privately around a table… And there is the story you put on the internet. Those are not always the same story. If you’ve been around professional football long enough, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. And if you haven’t… Maybe that tells you enough already. The family I never forgot. There was another Dutch football family whose story stayed with me. Their move to Cyprus had been presented as one of those opportunities you don’t turn down.

And that is something people outside football don’t always understand. When an opportunity appears, sometimes you have to decide immediately. There isn’t always time to carefully analyse every possible outcome. You go. You trust. You believe the promises. They sold their house in the Netherlands.

Packed up their lives. Moved to Cyprus with their children. And then things started going wrong.

Personal problems. Problems with the club. And eventually no salary. Suddenly there was a family in a huge rental home in another country without the income they had been promised. Her husband needed to find another club quickly and travelled around trying to create a new opportunity while his wife remained in Cyprus with the children. We visited her. Other Dutch friends helped too. And in my 2014 blog I wrote that I regretted not doing more. That sentence hits me differently now. Back then I was young. I didn’t have children. I understood intellectually that she was scared. But I couldn’t truly understand what that fear felt like. Now I can. Now I am a mother. Now I know what it means to look at your children and realise that whatever happens, you have to make them feel safe. Even when you don’t feel safe yourself. And that is the part of professional football people rarely see. When a club changes its mind, an agent makes a promise that doesn’t materialise, a contract disappears or a salary doesn’t arrive, it isn’t only one footballer dealing with the consequences. There can be an entire family standing behind him. A partner. Children. A house somewhere else. Schools. Bills. A life they packed up because they believed this was the next chapter. That’s why, almost twenty years later, I still remember her.

I thought Cyprus taught me about football. It didn’t. Or at least, not only. It taught me about people.

It taught me that somebody can walk into your house because they need Wi-Fi and dinner and somehow still be part of your family almost twenty years later. It taught me that your husband’s football friend can eventually simply become your friend. It taught me that sometimes the people who went through the strangest years with you are the people who appear again when your life falls apart much later. It taught me that professional football is absolutely not always the glamorous world people imagine. And it taught Hans, apparently with some assistance from the local police department, that he should probably marry me.

But most importantly… Cyprus built something between Hans and me. We went there as boyfriend and girlfriend. Young. Naive in many ways. Just starting to live together. And then we were thrown into uncertainty, bizarre situations, financial questions, different cultures, different languages and a football world I didn’t understand yet. We had to figure it out together. And we did. Eight months later he asked me to marry him. Then came Finland. Germany. America. Our children. Loss. Coming back to the Netherlands. Starting over. And everything else life has thrown at us.

Looking back now, I can see that Cyprus was where we first learned how to be a team away from the football pitch.

Almost twenty years later. In my original blog I ended by saying: “One day you’re in, one day you’re out.” I still think that may be one of the most accurate descriptions of professional football. I also wrote that the football world isn’t always glitter and glamour. That hasn’t changed either. There are wonderful people in football. There are also people I would happily never sit at a dinner table with again.

There are beautiful opportunities. There is politics. There are promises. There are stories so absurd that if I wrote them all down, people would probably think I had exaggerated them. I didn’t. And there are still stories from those years that I won’t tell. Not because they didn’t happen. But because after all these years I understand something my younger self didn’t yet fully understand: Not every truth needs a name attached to it. Some of the people who lived through Cyprus with us will read or hear this and know exactly which moments I’m talking about. They’ll know what I’ve left out. They’ll probably laugh. Maybe cringe a little. And that’s okay. Because the strangest part is that after everything that happened, the thing that survived wasn’t football. It was us. The friendships. The people who became family. The bond Hans and I built there. Almost twenty years later, nobody can take that away from us.

Maybe that’s the real Cyprus story. And yes… I still rest my case.