Does the Dutch team play with twelve men? How faith in God sustains young football professionals

• Rens Went

  editor NOS Sport

In the Oranje dressing room you can hear angels singing. National coach Ronald Koeman can send an entire team of openly religious football players onto the field on Saturday in the Netherlands’ Nations League match with Hungary (8:45 p.m.).

Cody Gakpo posts Bible texts on social media, the Timber brothers cross themselves when they enter the lines, Denzel Dumfries gets strength from praying together before the match and Wout Weghorst wears a cross as an earring.

The word of God spreads within Orange and across other Dutch and European fields.

Jeffrey Sarpong hears it and sees it. The recently retired attacker (36) has been giving Bible readings to football players his entire career. Three times a week, a group of Dutch football professionals who play all over Europe meet online. They pray together. They read the Bible together.

“I call it Bible study,” says Sarpong. “We start with a prayer, look at what everyone has experienced that week, what they are having a hard time with and whether there are any prayer points.”

All kinds of Bible verses come along. And it must remain practical. “We follow the Bible, we follow Jesus. And we always try to relate it to your own life as a football player.”

“To the ups in downshow we stay humble, how we deal with injuries, when we don’t play because a trainer doesn’t see it in you, the insecurities as football players and how we combine that with a steadfast faith.”

That support is desperately needed, says Sarpong. “From the personal messages that are shared, we notice that there is great need. Many players are having a hard time mentally.”

Bible studies cannot replace therapeutic sessions with a sports psychologist, Sarpong emphasizes. But: “I believe that God should always be your foundation. From there I believe you will make progress mentally.”

Religion can indeed help top athletes, studies show. “Athletes who are religious and pray experience more peace,” says Mariecke van den Berg, theologian at VU Amsterdam and Radboud University. “They can deal better with injuries, feel less stress and are less likely to use doping.”

“It also gives football players something to put into perspective. In that materialistic world you quickly become very big and important. Faith helps them to see that there is a deeper layer to life.”

Young footballers cling to their faith while a majority of the Dutch has no faith and the social trend for years has been that the number of believers among young adults is decreasing.

Yet more than half of all Dutch players do believe, how is that possible? “A number of players have a migration background,” says Van den Berg. “And migrant churches are precisely the churches that are doing well. They are vibrant, they are growing. A vital part of Dutch Christianity.”

And, says the professor, here and there you see a revival. “We’re seeing a broader trend of return or conversion. You’re seeing more and more reports of growing churches, young people becoming Eastern Orthodox, it’s reversing.”

You rarely see professional football players who make themselves vulnerable. But talking about personal struggles is becoming more and more normal. Also coming out about religion.

“In the past, you were pushed into a corner. It was better to be quiet and secretly go to church. Secretly read your Bible. Secretly pray,” says Sarpong, who made his debut for Ajax in 2005. “Now you notice: it is actually cool and brave to be yourself.”