European Championship winner Van den Berg announces farewell: ‘Been nice’

Mandy van den Berg is entering her last season as a professional soccer star. In a video message on Instagram, the 32-year-old PSV player says it is time “for a new phase.”

Van den Berg played 90 international matches and was part of the Oranje that became European champions at home in 2017. Van den Berg started as captain, but ended up on the reserve bench during the tournament and had to relinquish the captain’s armband to Sherida Spitse.

In the final against Denmark, she did get to fill in for then national coach Sarina Wiegman and took the European Cup together with Spitse.

Shortly after the tournament, she decided not to make herself available for the Orange anymore. Van den Berg later reconsidered, but she was no longer called up for the national team.

Van den Berg began her professional career in 2007 with ADO Den Haag, which grabbed the double in the 2011/2012 season.

She then played for clubs in Sweden, Norway and England and Spain. She returned to the Netherlands in the summer of 2020 when she signed with her current club PSV Eindhoven.

“It’s been nice and enough,” Van den Berg says in the video. “For me, it’s not the awards that have made my career. It’s the people I’ve met, the lessons I’ve learned and all the other precious moments that have come with it.”