Van de Ven lives the dream

When Kirsten van de Ven made her Netherlands debut in 2005, they had just come through a UEFA European Women's Championship qualifying campaign where they had finished 12 points adrift of even the play-offs. Four years on, she and her team-mates are celebrating reaching the quarter-finals.

Denmark defeated
Van de Ven scored in the first two Netherlands games, a 2-0 defeat of Ukraine and a 2-1 loss to Finland in which she scored a stunning solo goal. On Saturday her team beat much-fancied Denmark 2-1 to secure second place in Group A and a last-eight tie on Thursday in Tampere, and the 24-year-old Willem II midfielder is elated.

Goal achieved
"It's tremendous!" she told uefa.com. "Before we came to the tournament we were just hoping to survive the group. Now to end up second with six points, we are happy!" Not that Denmark made it easy in Lahti. "I think we were under pressure most of the time. But our counterattack was perfect, I guess, we had two counterattacks and we scored."

Hard work
While thoughts are naturally on the knockout encounter with Norway or France, Van de Ven is well aware already of just how much has been achieved for the Netherlands to be in with the cream of European women's football. "Our head coach Vera Pauw has done a lot of work, and more people behind her," Van de Ven said. "We have trained hard and she has taken us the right way. We had to do a lot of practice against hard teams. At the start we couldn't win at all but with that experience we got better and better and stronger and fitter."

Tactics pay off
Pauw was already considered one of Europe's leading technicians before her 2004 appointment by her home nation, and she showed her tactical acumen on Wednesday when she told her team to hold on when 2-1 down against Finland to protect their goal difference and group position. "When I was on the pitch I didn't get the message, I thought, 'What are we doing? Come on let's go for the equaliser.' But after the game she explained it, it was understandable and I guess it worked out. I think we played much better against Ukraine [than against Denmark], but you might say we got lucky but that was our plan. It is amazing for us to beat Denmark."