Andries Jonker the new national coach for Dutch women's football

Andries Jonker is the new national coach of the Oranje Lionesses. He starts immediately and signed a contract until the European Championship in 2025, the Dutch football association KNVB announced on Wednesday.

According to the KNVB, Jonker was briefly the interim coach for the women’s team in 2001 and has since gained extensive experience as a coach in men’s football. He was the coach of Willem II, Wolfsburg, and Telstar and assistant coach under Lousi van Gaal at FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Jonker will lead the Oranje women for the first time during matches early next month, including the World Cup qualifier against Iceland on September 6 in Utrecht. He is honored with the position. “I have experienced before how nice it is to work with a group of ambitious, dedicated players,” he said. “We have ambitious goals, but also an enormous amount of quality and talent that we can draw on for the 2023 World Cup.”

Jan Dirk van der Zee, responsible for women’s football on the KNVB board, called Jonker “an obvious choice.” “It is not for nothing that we polled Andries before. He’s been on our list for a while. It is good news that he is able and willing to step in so quickly and lead the team towards qualifying for the World Cup,” he said. “We are very much looking forward to our collaboration.”

The Oranje Lionesses' previous coach, Mark Parsons, stepped down earlier in August after France eliminated the Netherlands in the quarterfinals of the European Championship in England.