Grol: Full of expectation…

11 June 2022

“The tournament is a success if we don’t come last and if we win once.”

For the teams of all those professional football clubs it is already a unique experience to participate in the International Marveld tournament for the players and player Jikke of the team of Grol it is even more special. Playing on this stage at your own sports complex against the stars of tomorrow. Players of Grol from all those previous editions are still talking about it. Players of the current selection have been dreaming about it for months. Today, parents dropped them off at the sports park and waved them on with a sense of pride. Proud now, euphoric later and perhaps moved by a success. An experience for parents too.

How do the boys themselves view it? Bart Wopereis: “My hopes are that we will win once and as a striker I would love to score a goal. The experience around it is fantastic to see. I hope it will be experienced that way in the group as well.” Joost Penterman agrees: “This is a fantastic tournament. I hope we can win a game once and score a few goals.” Wout Reukers is also unanimous: “I think it’s great that we can participate and hope that we can offer some resistance to the opponents, that we don’t lose a lot, and hopefully score a goal. The tournament will be successful if we don’t finish last and win once.” Coach Max de Vries looks and listens attentively and proudly to his boys: “I totally agree with the boys. It is a special story, two years without a tournament.

The boys are all attending the Marveld tournament for the first time. So nobody has any experience at the tournament. It is a very nice experience for the group. We hope to make a team of them. In the league, both U-15 and U-17 teams did very well and had a very nice season. So now we have a mix and we’ll see if we can resist at this level as well. Max is not the kind of person to only use the Olympic phrase ‘participating is more important than winning’. “We are here to perform anyway. We have to see how our level compares to the rest, how far we can go. I think we will gradually determine our goal during the tournament. Let’s start by not coming last, scoring a goal, drawing a draw or winning. That is already profit for us, that we can celebrate such a unique moment together, which we can look back on later. Then we’ll see where we end up.”