After Finland, we went back to the Netherlands.
Again.
By then, moving countries was starting to feel less like a major life event and more like an inconvenient hobby.
Pack the bags.
Find a house.
Learn a new routine.
Pretend this had always been the plan.
Hans signed with a Dutch club and, for a while, life became almost normal.
Whatever normal meant for us by then.
I decided I wanted to work too.
Not because I had some grand career plan at that exact moment, but because I wanted something that was mine.
A little independence.
A reason to leave the house.
And, if I’m completely honest, I had absolutely no intention of becoming the stereotypical football wife who spent her days waiting for training to finish.
So naturally, I took a job in a hotel.
For what we would call in Dutch for an apple and an egg.
Which basically means:
Almost no salary.
The hours were terrible.
The job itself was definitely not the beginning of my dream career.
But it gave me something else.
A friendship.
I became close with one of the women working there and, somehow, that job I never really wanted gave me a person I am still grateful I met.
We had some ridiculous adventures together.
Years later, when I eventually returned to the Netherlands, she had moved abroad herself.
Of course she had.
Apparently nobody in my life knows how to stay in one country.
We only have occasional contact now through social media, but whenever I think about that period, I think about her too.
Sometimes a job gives you a career.
Sometimes it gives you a friend.
I got the better deal.
The Season Everything Worked
Football-wise, Hans was flying.
His first season back in the Netherlands was incredible.
He had developed his own free-kick technique and at some point people started noticing it.
There were videos everywhere.
And the ridiculous thing was that it almost didn’t matter where he took them from.
Left side.
Right side.
Distance.
Awkward angle.
Somehow…
in.
I’m sure Hans could give you a detailed technical explanation involving body position, contact point and hours of practice.
My analysis was simpler.
Free kick.
Hans.
Goal.
He won several individual awards in the league that year.
It was one of those seasons where everything seemed to come together.
He was playing well.
People noticed.
His name meant something again.
And because football has a wonderful sense of humour…
the next year, everything changed.
Football Does What Football Does
A new coach arrived.
New players came in.
The dynamic changed.
Hans still had a good season.
Just not the almost ridiculous season he had played the year before.
But we weren’t worried.
Why would we be?
He had just two good seasons, one of them exceptional.
Surely there would be another club.
That is the dangerous thing about football when things are going well.
You start assuming the next door will open because the previous ones always did.
Until one day…
they don’t.
The season ended.
And the phone stayed quiet.
Then quieter.
And quieter.
Meanwhile, I was pregnant.
So there we were.
A professional footballer without a club.
A pregnant wife.
No permanent home.
And eventually, the two of us living in the attic of Hans’ parents’ house.
Not exactly the glamorous football lifestyle people imagine.
Although Instagram wasn’t really doing much lifestyle influencing yet.
Perhaps we were simply ahead of our time.
Hustle
Hans did everything he could.
And when I say everything, I mean everything.
He trained.
He called people.
He contacted agents.
He went to clubs for games.
He kept himself fit.
He kept going.
He even played in a tournament specifically for professional footballers without a club.
And won the award for best player of the tournament.
Surely that would help.
It didn’t.
Still no club.
That was when we started learning another uncomfortable truth about professional football.
Being good is not always enough.
Sometimes you are simply too old.
Too expensive.
Too complicated.
Why sign an experienced player when you can take an eighteen-year-old for considerably less money and hope he develops?
From a business perspective, I understand it.
It just feels slightly different when the business decision is your husband.
The Door That Was Supposedly Closed
Willem II had always been Hans’ club.
It was where a huge part of his football story had started.
At some point, his agent told him he had spoken to Willem II and that there was nothing they could do for Hans.
End of story.
Except…
it wasn’t.
Because by then I had built some connections of my own inside football.
And someone said something very simple to me:
“Tell Hans to call Mister X himself.”
So he did.
The next day, Hans was standing on the training pitch at Willem II.
Not with the first team.
With the second team.
And honestly?
He couldn’t have cared less.
He needed somewhere to train.
Somewhere to stay fit.
Somewhere to feel like a footballer while waiting for football to remember he existed.
That moment changed something for both of us.
Because Hans had trusted his agent to represent him.
To make the calls.
To fight for him.
To open doors.
And yet one direct phone call from Hans opened a door we had been told was closed.
That is football too.
When there is money to be made from you, you are interesting.
When there isn’t?
You can move down someone’s list remarkably quickly.
That was the moment we decided Hans was done with agents.
From then on…
I would do it.
Which, looking back, was perhaps not the calmest possible decision.
Because I was pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Hormonal.
And now personally offended on behalf of my husband.
An excellent combination for negotiations.
When It Stopped Being About Football
The rejection from clubs was difficult.
But what happened around us was worse.
Because when life is going well, people tend to be everywhere.
When it stops going well…
you start discovering who was actually standing beside you.
Some of Hans’ childhood friends had a group chat.
At some point Hans was added to it.
And because of the way the chat worked, he could see the history.
Including what had been written before he joined.
About him. About how hopeless his situation was. No club. A pregnant wife. Living in his parents’ attic.
Basically, according to them, his life had become something to laugh about.
And now he could read all of it.
I watched what that did to him.
And that hurt more than almost anything happening in football.
Because rejection from a club is business.
You can explain it.
Age.
Money.
Tactics.
A coach who prefers somebody else.
Whatever.
But rejection from people you thought were your friends?
That goes somewhere else.
It felt like kicking someone who was already on the ground.
Looking back now, more than fifteen years later, I don’t even know whether they meant it as cruelly as it sounded.
Maybe it was macho talk.
Maybe it was insecurity.
Maybe they were projecting something of their own onto Hans.
Maybe they genuinely didn’t like him anymore.
Who knows.
The timing was spectacularly awful either way.
And strangely enough, I no longer feel angry about it.
I hope they are happy.
I imagine many of them have families of their own now.
Children.
Lives.
Problems.
And I genuinely hope their children never have to feel what Hans felt reading those messages.
Us Against the World
Something changed between Hans and me during that year.
Finland had already taught us to rely on each other.
This was different.
This was us learning what we did not want our lives to become.
Bitter.
Angry.
Obsessed with proving people wrong.
We could have stayed there. It would have been easy. Instead, somewhere between pregnancy hormones, football rejection, an attic bedroom and my newly self-appointed position as Hans’ agent… it became a mission.
Not to prove everybody wrong. Although I would be lying if I said that wasn’t occasionally enjoyable.
But to keep moving. To find another door. And if nobody opened one? Fine. We would start knocking.
And Then the Phone Rang
The call came from nowhere.
Or actually…
not completely nowhere.
It came through our Brazilian friend from Cyprus. One of those people who had entered our lives during chaos and somehow never really left.
One of the friendships that had survived distance, countries and years. Just like the Portuguese goalkeeper from Cyprus, he had become proof of something we were slowly learning:
Real friendship is not always the person geographically closest to you.
Sometimes the person standing thousands of kilometres away is the one who reaches back when everybody nearby disappears.
There was a new club.
In Texas.
America.
Would Hans be interested?
I think we both knew the answer before the question was finished.
The coach had found videos of Hans on YouTube. Including those free kicks.
His response was apparently very simple.
“I want him.”
Funny, isn’t it?
In the Netherlands, we were struggling to convince anyone to give him a chance.
Across the Atlantic, someone watched a video and decided: That’s my player.
Apparently I Was an Agent Now
Then came the contract.
And suddenly my accidental new career as a football agent became very real.
I researched everything.
And I mean everything. I even had binders!
I watched YouTube videos explaining how to negotiate in professional football. Which feels slightly ridiculous now. But apparently it worked.
We weren’t going to become rich from the move. Not even close.
But I could see something else.
An opportunity.
A life experience.
A completely clean start.
And after the year we had just survived, that was worth more than a bigger salary.
So I negotiated.
Insurance?
Covered.
Flights?
Covered.
Car?
Yes.
Housing?
Yes.
Baby bed?
Obviously.
Diapers?
Also discussed.
Because while football agents may negotiate signing bonuses, heavily pregnant wives negotiate practical survival.
And then there was one final non-negotiable.
When we arrived in Texas, there needed to be a litter box. And cat food.
For Edgar.
Obviously.
Because long before there was a baby, Edgar had been our first child.
And I was not moving a professional footballer, a heavily pregnant woman and a cat halfway across the world without somebody taking Edgar’s arrival seriously.
I had standards.
Three Suitcases, a Cat and a Premature Baby
There was only one tiny complication.
The baby.
After everything that year had thrown at us, our daughter apparently decided she didn’t want to miss any of the drama.
She arrived much earlier than expected.
In January.
Suddenly our move to America wasn’t just about contracts, tickets and housing anymore.
The doctors gave us a number.
When she reached 2.5 kilos, we were allowed to fly.
Hans’ training in Texas started on February 18th, 2012.
We flew on February 17th.
Of course we did.
Nothing like giving yourself a comfortable margin.
So there we were.
Three suitcases.
One cat.
One premature baby.
Two parents who had absolutely no idea what they were doing.
And a one-way journey to Texas.
A few months earlier, Hans had been sitting in his parents’ attic without a club. People were talking about how hopeless his situation had become. Now we were getting on a plane to America.
That is football.
Actually…
that is life.
It can make you feel completely finished on Monday… and hand you a boarding pass on Friday.
We thought we were going to Texas for football.
We had absolutely no idea that we were about to begin one of the happiest and most important chapters of our entire life together.
Not just of Hans’ career. Of our family.
Cyprus had given us friends.
Finland had made us best friends.
The Netherlands had tested just how much we trusted each other.
And Texas?
Texas was about to change everything.
But that is the next story.
The Woman Behind the Jersey 