Dutch Football - Women - European Championships - AZ main purveyor for national women's team

Coach Vera Pauw of the Dutch national women's team has named six players of AZ into her squad for a friendly the Dutch women play against France on Sunday in Compiègne

SC Heerenveen, Willem II and FC Utrecht provide three players each.

Pauw can not dispose of Manon Melis and Annemieke Kessel-Griffioen.

Both Holland and France have qualified for the European championships in finals in Finland in 2009.

The squad: Dyanne Bito, Loes Geurts, Claudia van den Heiligenberg, Daphne Koster, Latoya Mitchell, Chantal de Ridder (AZ), Petra Dugardein, Manoe Meulen, Karin Stevens (Willem II), Petra Hogewoning, Tessa Oudejans, Shanice van de Sanden (FC Utrecht), Marije Brummel, Sylvia Smit en Sherida Spitse (sc Heerenveen), Karin Legemate, Sylvia Nooij (ADO Den Haag), Lianne de Vries (HvA)

"The intellectualisation
of football has
always foundered
on a simple problem-
-the players. Doing
all your most
rewarding thinking
with your feet seems
to dull the philo-
sophical impulse.
Unless, of course,
you are Dutch.
According to legend,
Europeans played
a moronic, muscular
version of the world's
game, until Holland
proclaimed its vision
of total football in the
1974 World Cup,
and enlightenment
dawned."

From:
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football