_Ahead of Arsenal’s FA Cup quarter-final tie at home to Liverpool this weekend, Daphne van Domselaar sat down with Arseblog News and two other outlets to discuss life at Arsenal, looking ahead to the Euros with Netherlands and how she became a goalkeeper. The questions from Arseblog News are italicised. With thanks to Tom Maher from the Halfway Line and Helen Jerome from the Women’s Football Magazine who asked the other questions._
**On how she keeps her concentration during a game, especially in reference to her last minute save in the West Ham game…**
The whole game had a lot of emotions to it, especially if you come back to 4-3 and you score that goal, you know that everyone has that same commitment to not concede again. That save happens from me, but then Beth Mead overhead kicked it away and then everyone literally put their bodies on the line. We were all so focused and especially the last ten minutes of the game. When you come back to win a game, as a goalkeeper it is quite a lonely thing sometimes, isn’t it? Because everyone else is right up the other end and you’re just by yourself. But I am used to that now playing a lot of games. We still conceded one goal in the second half, so I had something to do still. You just need to stay in the game, so I tried to be still included in what’s going on.
**On the differences of playing for Netherlands and for Arsenal…**
At the national team we play more like 352. So there’s a different job for me, I’m more behind the back line and I’m less included in the build up but they still expect lot of me. So it’s completely different in that way, but at the same time, we still want to play football, still want to play out from the back. So it’s different, but both are really challenging in in that way.
**On how far Netherlands can go in this summer’s Euros…**
We know that we have a really tough group but the other teams think the same. It’s a nice challenge to to see where we are and I think we prepare as best as we can and try our best but we’ve got to see it game my game and we just need to make sure that we win one of the two games against either France or England. So from there, it’s always a bit a mini tournament- you never know how far you can go and if you get in the right mentality, you can get far and maybe even further you think.
**On how she has developed since arriving on the international scene at Euro 2022…**
I’m really a person who lives in the moment. But even with the Euros, I knew that that was sort of the kick off for me for my career. But at the same time I wanted to leave the Netherlands but at the best time possible, and that’s why I choose to actually stay and spend a year longer at Twente to see if I could keep up the same level of of playing. So I got a year to mentally be there for the next step and then I just felt like I had to go to a club where I could make minutes to see where I’m at in the in a new league as well. I know there’s a big difference in the leagues and you need to teach yourself. I live in the present, so I’m not trying to look that far ahead.
**On whether she had any goalkeeping rolemodels when she was younger…**
I have to say that I never really watched that much football. I never grew up with it, so when I was younger, the only thing I could see was the Dutch national team but I never had a particular idol to look up. I loved watching Casillas and then for the Netherlands Martin Stekelenburg and van der Sar, I remember them well.
_**On how she became a goalkeeper when she was younger…**_
I always played with the boys at school and then I was playing volleyball with my dad. So I was used to catching balls in a different way and then I start playing football when I was 10 or 11. I think I was good with the ball in my hands but also with my feet and I really enjoyed stopping the ball. We had a rotating system where you had the smaller goals we just never really had a full-time goalkeeper so when it was my turn I was good in goal and I felt like I was better than the others. I thought I better just stay in goal and make sure that we have no goals conceded. So that was the moment when I started in goal and I never left!
_**On the differences preparing to play out from the back at Meadow Park compared to the Emirates and how that factors in preparation…**_
Before the last game we knew the pitch wasn’t the best before the National team camps and you keep that in mind but you still want to play your style of football. The second half against West Ham I think we had to push for that goal so you will be more direct and play forwards to score that goal. So that made sense but we definitely need to keep that in mind as well. In the end we needed to win, it was a tough game with good opponents. In our preparation we are definitely going to think about that but it should not mess with our game plan.
_**On conceding two goals from corners against West Ham and whether that has been a focus in training this week…**_
I think we did really well before that game. We only conceded to a set piece twice before that, so we can keep that trust from how we did it before. But of course we we looked into it and we’re still looking into it- what can we do if we play against an opponent who has bigger players? That’s definitely something that we’ve got to work on, but having said that we did really well before and we can definitely learn from that.