A year and a half ago I was in Perth for an FFA function, arrived early for the event and made my way to the function room. There was only one other person in the room at the time. I introduced myself and, to my astonishment, the other person introduced herself as Hesterine De Rues, the newly appointed Matildas National Team Coach. It was one of her first days in Australia.
The next time I met up with Hesterine was at a Matildas mentor session. Joey Peters and I spent the whole day with her as she went about imparting her football knowledge to the Matildas. I came away from that day feeling very upbeat, knowing that our national team was in exceptionally good hands.
Much water has gone under the bridge since then and the Matildas loss is, without question, a huge gain for IFS. We are very pleased to have Hesterine doing some volunteer coaching at the college and I asked her to share her thoughts on what she’s observed so far.
A former Dutch international, Hesterine is a UEFA Pro License coach, a qualification not many can boast but shared with other esteemed former internationals such as Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal), Philip Cocu (Barcelona) and Patrick Kluivert (AC Milan).
Developing players is Hesterine’s passion and she describes working in this area as “doing the greatest hobby in the world”.
I asked her what motivated her to come to IFS and other thoughts around the college.
“I’d like to share my knowledge with the IFS. Back in 2007, the KNVB (Dutch Football Association) asked me to establish a professional youth training program. All of this was geared towards creating a high-performance atmosphere in order for the Netherlands’ women players to develop into top-level players. Thus far, the project has developed to such a level that there are three training centres within the Netherlands.
Most players are aged between 15 and 19. All of them hail from different regions within the Netherlands and are required to move to Amsterdam to follow a combination programme consisting of studying and playing football. Approximately 80% of these players eventually make it to the professional women’s league. This development occurs after two to three years.
IFS is currently in a start-up phase. We have a wonderful location with a highly motivating atmosphere where players can realise their full potential. It is now about making progress, every single day. The kind of progress needed to offer (the best) players the best (high performance) programme. It’s therefore quite the challenge for the organisation as a whole to get the best possible structure in place. Contrary to what I’ve done in the Netherlands, IFS players can follow a long-term youth training from the age of three up until 12, using the FFA Curriculum as guiding principles.”
Hesterine is a high-performance instructor who is often requested by the UEFA and FIFA to train coaches all over the world. Beyond that, she travels the globe looking for trends to develop a clear picture on future developments within women’s football.
In this capacity Hesterine recently travelled to Vietnam at the invitation of FIFA where the Women’s Asian Cup was held. IFS has benefited from this trip with Hesterine bringing the latest technical developments relating to football in Asia and sharing them with IFS colleagues with a view to their possible implementation.
Hesterine has a positive feeling about the vision behind IFS. Aware of the fact that much remains to be done, she firmly believes in the college’s efforts. And should the college choose to continue to develop, she can see it evolving into an exemplary youth training centre in Australia.
Brett Melverton says
Got to briefly meet Hesterine tonight. The question is, how long are we blessed to have here? (not expecting an answer really) My son is loving her as a coach, she was great with the boys tonight and money can’t buy that kind of experience. Thank you Hesterine and thank you IFS for accommodating Hesterine in her stay. A really exciting opportunity that I’m encouraging Blake to soak up. When Hesterine does move on we’ve still got you Julie and that’s pretty damn good too
julie says
Thanks very much for your feedback Brett. I am, of course, very excited that Hesterine is currently at the college and coaching our players. Her knowledge and experience is second to none and we recognise the invaluable input she will have for our football program. I’m pleased you had the chance to meet up with her and hope as many as possible in the IFS community are able to do so.