Lieke Martens: Dutch dazzler

Dutch forward Lieke Martens may have had doubters, but winning Euro 2017 and joining the biggest club in the world has put them firmly in their place

Winning the European Championship on home soil must be a special feeling (although FFT wouldn’t know), but throw a glut of individual awards and a dream switch to Barcelona into the mix and you are talking about a near-perfect year. Moving to Spain will certainly not have daunted 24-year-old Netherlands star Lieke Martens, not least as she had already played in four different countries in a senior career that started only eight years ago.

The forward was a part of the KNVB’S ‘sport schools’ programme and had played alongside boys until she broke through into the first team of SC Heerenveen Vrouwen aged just 16.

A spell at Vvv-venlo was followed by stints in Belgium (at Standard Liege) and Germany (Duisburg) before she won a move to one of the supreme competitions of the women’s game – the Damallsvenskan in Sweden. Her transfer to Kopparbergs/goteborg gave her the chance to play with, and learn from, the Dutch national team’s all-time top scorer, Manon Melis. Not that she needed much guidance.

“Lieke’s a great player for us and has everything that a good football player should have,” said then-manager Stefan Rehn. “Her game play, speed and technique are good and she’s good with both feet.”

Strong showings over two seasons meant that, at 22, the speedy left winger was signed by reigning champions and record Damallsvenskan winners FC Rosengard, where she teamed up with one of the greatest players in the women’s game – five-time FIFA World Player of the Year Marta. But Martens was growing into a star in her own right, catching the eye with her Champions League performances.

“When Marta left Rosengard [in early 2017], she left very big boots to fill,” says journalist Sophie Lawson. “But Martens stepped up in a way that few others could and produced some of the best attacking football seen anywhere in Europe.”

“She hit the form of her life, silky smooth in all that she did. Yet when you watched her on the ball for Rosengard, there was a sense that she was finishing off an appetiser and hungry to dig into an international main course over the summer.”

On the back of an impressive season with Rosengard, Martens came into the Euros well aware of the expectations that accompany being one of the star turns for the host nation. But unlike the men’s side, the women have been more than capable of matching expectations.

“I have always been a follower,” Martens told Voetbal International ahead of the tournament. “[When I was younger] the boys were sitting together in a dressing room; I was in a referee’s room. They celebrated victory; I was already waiting in the canteen. I have always been the outsider, a shy girl who just said nothing. I’m still not yet a player who wants to lead from the front or stand in the centre.”

Martens may be a quiet, calm presence on the pitch, but her talent is such that she drags her team-mates along regardless. She is adept at twisting and turning to explode out of tight spaces, thanks largely to many years of playing football on her village streets with boys who were bigger and more physical. The enduring image of Martens during Euro 2017 was her bounding away from two Belgian defenders, after a Cruyff turn that sent them crashing into one another.

There was no question that she was the player of the tournament: not only did she dazzle with her skills and effortlessly slalom past the opposition, she also delivered when it mattered most – scoring in the quarter-final win over Sweden as well as in the final against Denmark.

As a child, Martens had looked up to players like Rafael van der Vaart and Ronaldinho and wanted to play for Van der Vaart’s old club, Ajax, who formed a women’s side only in 2012. However, this summer she was offered the chance to join the club where her Brazilian idol spent his most successful years.

Martens had been one of the best players on the pitch when Barça beat Rosengard in last season’s Champions League quarter-finals and, alongside Manchester City striker Toni Duggan and Paris Saint-germain forward Natasa Andonova, formed a hat-trick of marquee signings by the Catalans this summer.

Now Martens is settling into life in Barcelona. She’s started to learn Spanish and is also preparing for a course in marketing and football business at the city’s Johan Cruyff Institute.

It has been an incredible year, although there’s been one sour note. In its infinite wisdom, FIFA scheduled its rebranded ‘The Best’ awards ceremony to clash with a round of 2019 Women’s World Cup qualifiers, meaning Martens and many of her peers were unable to go to London.

“This is a very special moment in my life – one which I would’ve liked to have experienced,” Martens admitted on being crowned The Best FIFA Women’s Player. “It is a pity they’ve timed it as such.”

The fact FIFA denied Martens the chance to experience such a proud occasion hints at the perception of the women’s game from the very body expected to run it, though Martens isn’t dwelling on the negative.

“I am now a ‘kind of well-known Nederlander,’” said Martens. “That means you’re an example for the younger girls, too. It is precisely that which gives me satisfaction. When I first wanted to play football, I was laughed at. I had no female role models. That I myself am an example now is crazy, and above all very special.”