Just like the Orange Girls, the Orange Boys U18 also had a winning start to the European Championship in Krefeld. With two striking drag pushes, Joost Tolboom laid the foundation for the 7-0 victory over Poland. ‘This European Championship is already the coolest thing I’ve experienced.’
The European championship is not the first international tournament for Tolboom in which he participates. In addition to the various internships, he played with the Orange U16 last year during the Eight Nations Tournament in Zwolle.
‘That tournament was already super nice, but this is different, a lot more serious’, Tolboom starts. “There is more focus on the tournament. For example, you call me now for an interview. And the decoration of the tournament is also bigger. You have to buy a ticket to enter. There are food trucks and after the match a Player of the Match is chosen.’
FIFA in the hotel room
While the Dutch compete for the European title on the field, another battle is going on this week. That battleground is the hotel room. Tolboom plays the football game FIFA on the PS4 together with Isaac Jozefzoon, Pepijn van der Valk and Jacky van Hout. According to Tolboom, sparks fly from time to time. ‘I hope that both controllers make it to the end of the tournament’, Tolboom laughs. ‘Pepijn is quite fanatical and he doesn’t like it when I score against him. I will hear that from him. But he only scores ugly goals.’
That group feeling appeals to Tolboom. ‘That’s the great thing about playing for Orange. That you are together. I like the combination of talking and fooling around with those guys and playing hockey.’
With his height of 1.94, Tolboom is a striking appearance in the Dutch defence. ‘I sometimes get in my way with those long stilts,’ laughs Tolboom, who interferes with the build-up from behind and is the first penalty corner taker for the Orange squad.
Despite the fact that it was his first European Championship match, Tolboom says he did not suffer from nerves. After nine minutes he had already scored twice from the head of the circle. Before the break, the Orange scored again, after which the team of national coach Peter Jonker ran out to 7-0 after the break.
“It’s nice to push two in, but I should have made more. On the other hand, by pushing a lot of corners you get into a rhythm and you get used to the field. That’s very viscous.’
Tolboom’s corner has a lot of speed, but he says he still needs to work on the direction of his drag push. That speed was twice too much for the Polish defense in the first quarter.
With the first goal, the Polish goalkeeper still got his glove against the ball, but that was not enough to score the goal. Tolboom’s second goal could not be stopped by the line stop.
The penalty corner
Tolboom’s interest in the penalty corner started around the C’tjes when he played at Deventer. ‘Scoring is the best thing and then you can have the penalty corner with it’, laughs Tolboom. The ‘love’ became more serious when he made the transition to Kampong as a first-year B, where he played in the JO18-1 of the Utrecht club last season.
A bridge to Jip Janssen was therefore quickly built. Kampong’s criminal corner gun scored 34 goals in the Tulip Hoofdklasse last season and scored fourteen times in fifteen international matches in the Orange squad.
Despite the club connection, Janssen is not an example for Tolboom. “Of course I look up to him. The way he takes the corners is not normal. But he is not necessarily an example. I want to stay and become myself.’
Tolboom previously trained with the Orange squad with former penalty corner gun Taeke Taekema. “I trained with him on specific aspects of the corner, such as when does the acceleration come? It is also a matter of doing a lot. And then not fifty balls after a training, but for example 25. It is an intensive movement. I felt quite a bit of acidity in my upper left leg after the match.’
The acidification will have disappeared when the second game is played against Spain this afternoon. “I expect them to be very fast and technical. It’s going to be an exciting pot. I’m excited. We will try to break them and hope to take a big step towards the semi-finals.’
Netherlands – Poland 7-0
4.Joost Tolboom 1-0 (sc)
9.Joost Tolboom 2-0 (sc)
21.Guus van den Boezem 3-0
35.Sam van der Weijden 4-0
52.Jacky van Hout 5 -0 (sc)
53.Rein Spanjaart 6-0
59.Jan van ‘t Land 7-0
by Hockey.nl
