With 11 refugees on the counter against VV Kesteren

Gijs van de Logt, coach of the fifth team of football club WVV from Wageningen, points to the line-up on the whiteboard on the wall of the dressing room. “Emre, you are the vacuum cleaner today, do you know what I mean by that?” Emre Kilavuz looks at him questioningly. “That is the player who clears all the balls that fall over the defense,” his coach explains. “Like a vacuum cleaner, you know? It is a free role.” Emre lets the message sink in for a few seconds and then agrees. “That sounds good. That’s how I like to play.”

In the cramped changing room, fifteen players put on the green and white striped uniform of WVV while Van de Logt tells his story. Rolls of adhesive tape are passed around to tape the shin guards down, the goalkeeper ties a brightly colored bandana around his head. It took a long time – a little too long as far as the trainer is concerned – for everyone to get in, so he wants to keep it short, otherwise there will be no time for the warm-up on this freezing Saturday morning in December.

“Today we are playing very defensively,” Van de Logt explains the tactical plan. “We play 5-4-1, like a Christmas tree, Mohammed is the only attacker. We have to let them come and then strike on the counter. Think about two weeks ago, when we were overrun. Now we are playing against the leader, so you can assume that they are even better.”

For the first time on a large field

The expected superiority of opponent VV Kesteren 3 from the nearby church village does not lie in a surplus of athletic ability, as a look at both teams shows when they line up for kick-off half an hour later. Van de Logt’s team can also easily keep up with the opponent in terms of talent and mentality, he says. WVV 5, although a senior team, still has to get used to the competition – and to each other. Everyone is new to the club, most of them are even playing eleven against eleven on a large (artificial grass) field for the first time.

Since the beginning of this season, WVV 5, active in the fifth division, has consisted entirely of refugees from two nearby asylum seeker centers. This makes the team a rarity on the Dutch amateur fields. Of the approximately three thousand football associations in the Netherlands, almost a hundred are involved in “initiatives aimed at the participation of asylum seekers”, estimates the KNVB football association. Usually it means that they participate with existing teams.

The Wageningen amateur association has chosen to form one team, although some of the best players have now been assigned to the higher teams. Or better: that’s how it came about, from an initiative by a KNVB coach (Ingrid Peperkamp) who wanted to give football training once a week at the Wageningen asylum seeker center. There appeared to be great interest in this among the mainly male residents of the reception location, so great that the center’s playing field soon became inadequate.

That’s how Peperkamp ended up at neighborhood club WVV, initially only with the request to be allowed to train there in the summer. The football club, which was affiliated with professional club FC Wageningen until its bankruptcy in 1992, had plenty of space. Like more modest amateur clubs in the Netherlands, WVV is increasingly struggling to maintain its already small membership base. There are no more youth, they play at the big club around the corner. WVV relies on a handful of senior teams. “We could really use some extra recruitment,” says club volunteer Reinald van Huenen, a manager at the Royal Military Police who has been with WVV since he was five.

Lots of potential

Van Huenen was impressed by what he saw. More asylum seekers participated every week. In the joint app group they encouraged each other to come. And there was fanatic training. “It was all very serious,” says Van Huenen. “I also saw potential. The differences were of course big, but a number of players could play football really well.” All in all, enough reasons to make it a WVV team, he concluded at the end of the summer.

Registration was no problem, with a valid ID anyone could become a KNVB and association member. But practically there was a lot to consider. The refugee team needed a permanent trainer and supervisors. Hardly anyone had football boots and shin guards, nor the money to buy them. With contributions from the shelter locations and the municipality, WVV purchased materials and uniforms. And then there are the away games, often too far away to cycle. The asylum seeker centers involved appeared willing to organize bus transport.

Apart from the arrangements, it was especially exciting how other association members would react to the refugee team. Van Huenen initially noticed “some reluctance” within WVV, he says. “That makes sense, those boys come from all over the world, especially from Africa and Arab countries. Then you wonder if everything is going well.”

That happened, says Van Huenen. He was wary of confrontations with opponents, how they would react to a team with Arabic and English as the main languages. “That wasn’t too bad either,” says Van Huenen. “The language barrier may also prevent you from swearing at each other. The focus is on football.”

Heated discussion

Hang out with the players of WVV 5 for a while and you notice how important the team has become to them. Fierce discussion during training about who can take a penalty kick, afterwards a debate in the canteen about the substitution policy. Does everyone have the right to equal playing time, regardless of the score? Or does the win count and the best players get preferential treatment? The majority leans towards the latter. “We are fanatical,” says 43-year-old captain Tata Zubairu. “Ultimately we want to become champions and take this team to the fourth division.” Just before the winter break they are in the middle bracket.

What everyone agrees on: WVV 5 has quickly become like a family for the players, despite the very different backgrounds and ages. For example, Zubairu, a stocky attacker and father of four, says he successfully imported cars into the English-speaking Sud-Ouest region in western Cameroon, until the war between separatists and the army reached his village and he fled.

Defender Emre Kilavuz from Istanbul is only eighteen. He is the son of a judge and says he fled his country “for political reasons”. Kilavuz forms a couple at the back with 23-year-old Somalian Omar Farah Jama, who, he says, came to the Netherlands because of clan violence in his hometown of Galkayo.

Midfielder Mohammed Halima (33) even experienced two wars, he says. Halima escaped from Syria in 2013 and ended up at the University of Dnipro in Ukraine through a friend. After the Russian invasion he fled to the Netherlands.

The players of WVV 5 usually do not know each other’s stories or only partially know them. They hardly talk about it among themselves. “No matter how different the details are, at the core we share the same experiences,” says Halima. “And everyone came here alone. We have been busy with our worries all week, so it is nice not to be reminded of them at the club. We talk a lot about football.”

Sudden farewell

The future can present itself at any moment in the form of a sudden farewell. After all, everyone is awaiting a decision on their asylum application. The 28-year-old Nigerian Gods Power Imadi, a strong midfielder, has just heard that he can stay in the Netherlands. In Nijmegen to be precise, because that is where he is assigned a home. He is very happy with it, says Imadi, but he will miss WVV 5. “We have become very close in a short time, football is without a doubt the best thing that has happened to me here.”

It won’t be difficult to find a replacement for Imadi. New players regularly report from reception locations in the area. But first the match against VV Kesteren awaits. The defensive tactics initially work out well. Kesteren hardly creates any chances, WVV becomes dangerous a few times via counters. Just before half time things go wrong when the opponent’s tall striker heads in a cross. Ultimately, Kesteren wins 2-0.

After the final whistle, Emre Kilavuz, the best of the bunch, lies defeated on the field. He is exhausted, he says when a teammate asks if everything is going well. Then the trainer of the second team of WVV steps onto the field. He doesn’t have enough players, is there anyone who wants to play a match this afternoon? Kilavuz jumps up. “What time do we start?”