Immediately after the diagnosis of a serious foot injury, Daniëlle van de Donk proposed to the KNVB to have her race against the European Championship clock followed by a camera. In a recently released docuseries, she shows her emotions during rehab, including her tears. “Sometimes I didn’t feel like a footballer anymore.”
Van de Donk sits in front of a camera in her apartment in France. It is 103 days until the start of the European Championship in England, the big target for the attacking midfielder after she suffered a rare foot injury in November last year. Her recovery is not going well yet. In a dark room she sighs and searches for words. She looks excited.
“I’m having a very hard time,” says Van de Donk, after which a long silence falls. “Heavier than I actually want to admit. I work very long days, that’s not bad at all. But I notice that I can’t handle that with my foot yet and that I’m not as far as I thought.”
The fragment symbolizes the candid insight that Van de Donk offers into Chasing the Euros† In the docuseries she not only shows her treatments and exercises in the physio room, but also her struggles and grief. In the teaser for the third episode, which will appear on Saturday, you can see how she cries in the car. “I don’t think this is fair. I work so damn hard.”
Van de Donk herself came up with the idea of making a docuseries about her rehabilitation. “When it happened, I thought: this side of top sport is never shown by anyone,” she says on Thursday along the training field in Zeist, twenty days before the start of the European Championship. During the interview, a cameraman shows images of her return to the Orange Women before the end of the series.
“I myself am not someone who shows much of himself or who makes himself vulnerable. But I thought: it is so special what I have, it has never happened before. And I would like to show people that you can work with hard it can come, if you just do everything for it.”
Daniëlle van de Donk appeared to have suffered a serious injury against the Czech Republic.
Daniëlle van de Donk appeared to have suffered a serious injury against the Czech Republic.
Photo: Pro Shots
‘It took a century before I could run’
The fatal moment on November 27 last year, in the World Cup qualifier against the Czech Republic, introduces the docuseries around Van de Donk. The attacking midfielder gives a pass with her left leg and then limps across the field. Only after the same has happened to her on a long shot, does she allow herself to be replaced. Her injury does not appear to be very serious.
The diagnosis a few days later in Lyon turns Van de Donk’s world upside down: she appears to have torn the anterior shin muscle from her right leg, an injury that rarely occurs. Doctors cannot estimate how long her rehabilitation will take. It is the start of a race against time for the European Championship, which is scheduled seven months later.
The long uncertainty during the rehabilitation gnawed at Van de Donk. “Every day I went to the club and asked: how does it feel today? What does it look like? Can we take the next step or not? Every day I had a lot of question marks. I think I’ve had it pretty well under control But towards the end, after some setbacks, it became more and more difficult.”
Van de Donk suffered from muscle tears and a bulge on her tendon, which forced her back into her rehabilitation. “Only I couldn’t take it easy for a week, because there was a time limit.” In addition, she saw her teammates at Olympique Lyon from the physio room on the training field. “I couldn’t get a good look at that.”
After all those missed matches at the Orange Women and Olympique Lyon, Van de Donk sometimes no longer felt like a footballer. “I was in the gym day and night, it took a century before I could run. I had a lot of trouble with that. Then you have a down moment every now and then.”
Daniëlle van de Donk will lead the way during the training of the Orange Women on Thursday.
Daniëlle van de Donk will lead the way during the training of the Orange Women on Thursday.
Photo: Pro Shots
‘People with a job also have struggles‘
Really, says Van de Donk, she didn’t turn on the camera every time she was sad. But she often did, like the time she had another calf kick and called her relatives via FaceTime.
“I broke down immediately when I saw them. After that I thought: I have to capture this, because it is such a big thing in my rehabilitation process. Then you are sobbing in front of the camera. I am not used to that from myself, but it have to.”
Yes, for Van de Donk it felt like a must to film her lesser moments. “Otherwise you only see our fun training sessions, our laughing and doing. But the rehabilitation was not just laughing, it was very hard. I think that people with a normal job also do a lot struggles and cry once in the car. I think it’s normal to show that, while apparently that’s not the case.”
For Van de Donk there was a happy ending to her docuseries: she won the race against the clock for the European Championship and made her return to Olympique Lyon more than two weeks ago. On Wednesday, the midfielder was on the training field with the Orange Women for the first time, with which she will defend the European title in England next month.
“I am proud to be here now. I have watched the episodes back, but I find it very difficult to watch myself, because I have always felt the pain myself. Then I can start crying again and I don’t feel like it in. I mainly want to inspire people with this.”
