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Floris Wortelboer has been an international player for almost six years, has played more than seventy international matches and has already been European champion once. But due to years of bad luck, the 26-year-old hockey player will only make his world tournament debut on Saturday at the World Cup. “Under national coach Jeroen Delmée, it’s like a fresh start.”
For Wortelboer, the moment he boarded the plane to India without any physical discomfort in early January was already a highlight. “It’s really an important mark for me,” he said on the day of the last training on Dutch soil at the HC Rotterdam clubhouse.
It’s an understandable reflex, because Wortelboer knows better than anyone what it’s like to miss a tournament at the last minute. The HC Bloemendaal defender had to follow the 2019 and 2021 European Championships, the 2018 World Cup and – not unimportantly – the 2021 Olympic Games from the Netherlands.
Of course, Wortelboer occasionally saw a game of his teammates, but he mostly tried to seek distraction. For example, during games at the Games, he often sat on the water with his friends from Teteringen in Brabant.
The painful defeats in the final of the World Cup in 2018 (loss on penalties against Belgium) and at the Tokyo Olympics (eliminated in the quarter-finals by Australia) hardly affected Wortelboer. “If they perform well, you know what you’re missing. But if they perform less, nobody talks about it anymore. As painful as that is for these guys.”
One shoulder, the other shoulder and a “bad state of mind”
“Carrot”, as many call him in the hockey world, already became European champion in 2017 during his first tournament in Amstelveen. It seemed like the start of a glorious international career, but after that he celebrated little success. The red line in history? “It’s the recurring bad luck I’ve had with my shoulders.”
It started in 2018 with his left shoulder, which dislocated during a competitive game with Bloemendaal. Less than a month later he was back on the pitch, but just before the World Cup it went wrong again. He fell back on that conscious shoulder and saw his first world tournament pass.
Wortelboer was not present again at the European Championships in 2019. Then the Brabançon was overtaken because, according to then national coach Max Caldas, he had “no professional mindset “. A choice he still does not understand today.
‘Carrot’ has focused on and circled the European Championships and the Olympic Games in its agenda. He underwent surgery to finally say goodbye to his injury. The headache case seemed closed, until he suffered another shoulder injury in March 2021. Now not the left but the right. He trained as hard as he could, but Caldas didn’t dare to select him. He was back home for two tournaments.
“Let it be an unforgettable tournament”
Wortelboer is known as one of the mood makers within the Dutch team. On the day of final training on Dutch soil, this is immediately reflected in the way he has fun with his teammates. He is completely back under the rule of national coach Delmée, who replaced the former Caldas after the Olympics and brings him a breath of fresh air.
Due to the new staff, group and role distribution, the overall picture is much more correct. “It also has to do with how much you love going through fire for someone,” the 74-time international explains. “It’s like a new period for me since the arrival of Delmée. Or even a new start. I hope everything will be fine from now on.”
Wortelboer and his teammates are not the favorites in India, but the top men’s hockey world has been close for years. “So that it becomes a tournament that we will still talk about in twenty years. Then, I will also have gone there,” he says, laughing.
Wortelboer starts his World Cup with Orange on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. (Dutch time) against Malaysia. After that, New Zealand and Chile are the opponents respectively. The Netherlands are set to meet a major opponent for the first time in the quarter-finals.
WK programma Oranjemannen
- 14 januari (10.30 uur): Nederland-Maleisië
- 16 januari (10.30 uur): Nederland-Nieuw-Zeeland
- 19 januari (10.30 uur): Nederland-Chili
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