Dutch professional footballers can be found in all corners of the world, from the spotlights of the major European leagues to the more adventurous jobs on other continents. In the Over de Grens section, Voetbalzone speaks weekly with a player who is active outside the national borders. With this time attention for Nino Roffelsen, who after years of bad luck in the service of the Finnish RoPS Rovaniemi has broken through in professional football.
By Chris Meijer
The Official Hometown of Santa Claus: this is how the local tourist office of Rovaniemi advertises the capital of Finnish Lapland on the internet. “You do indeed have Santa’s village here, I’ve been there once. It’s nice to go once, but that’s it. Now there is no snow to be seen, the sled is still stored”, laughs Nino Roffelsen. Anyone in Finnish Lapland who imagines temperatures dropping so low that normal thermometers cannot measure them, endless snow plains and horse-drawn sleighs will be disappointed at the moment. In fact, Roffelsen has even had to purchase an air conditioner for the past few months. The sun never sets in Rovaniemi between the end of May and the beginning of August.
“It really does affect your sleep rhythm, because you have to do your best to make it dark in your bedroom. When you see it getting dark around you, you automatically think: ah, it’s getting dark. Time to sleep. When it stayed light all day, I didn’t really feel the need to sleep. As a result, I didn’t really get tired, so to speak,” explains 23-year-old Roffelsen. How different the situation was when he arrived in Finland a little over a year ago. In winter, the hours of sunshine are scarce and people are not surprised by temperatures of twenty or thirty degrees below zero. “In the beginning it took some getting used to, then it was really cool. Especially in the morning when you walk out the door, it’s a different story. But we trained in an indoor hall, so you didn’t notice much of the cold because of that.”
Playing football on the Arctic Circle: it is an adventure that Roffelsen seized with both hands in January of this year after years of adversity. Until he was nineteen, the midfielder experienced a relatively carefree football life. Roffelsen was part of Feyenoord’s youth academy for ten years, until he received the message that he had to leave. “Feyenoord didn’t have a U23 team and the step to the first was too big, so I left. The period at Feyenoord was the best time of my life. It was quite difficult to get out of there, that the situation changed. Everything was pretty carefree. I am realistic enough to say that I have never been an exceptionally great talent. But I knew I had a good head on it, I got the most out of it every day and I think you can go far with that too. I’m the type of guy who comes first to the club and last to leave. Partly thanks to my mentality, I have always come to the fore. That’s the reason I still play football. I’ve continued where others would stop, I think.”
Azor Matusiwa fends off Roffelsen during the match between Feyenoord Under-17 and Ajax Under-17 in November 2014.
Roffelsen made the switch to ADO Den Haag and got off to a good start there, because in the preparation he still played with the first team. Until his heel started to hurt. “That turned out to be a heel spurs, a bit of a vague injury. It has been persistent with me, because I have not been able to play football for two years.” When Roffelsen was fit again after two years, he was given the opportunity to join Jong Sparta Rotterdam. Shortly before the start of the competition, he developed appendicitis. “Yes, also unhappy”, he sighs. “In the end I became a basic player and I played a lot, but everything was shut down in March because of corona. In April I turned 22, which made me too old for a U23 team and had to leave.”
“I thought it would be a good next step to perhaps start somewhere in the Kitchen Champion Division. That was difficult. Not only because of corona, but also because of my personal situation. I only had a handful of games to my name in the three previous seasons, so I just wasn’t interesting enough. Hard to say, but due to my injury I was out of sight and more or less written off in the Netherlands”, Roffelsen continues. There were some things going on in the summer of last year, for example in England. Due to the corona pandemic, that never became concrete. In the end he saw no other option than to register himself with second divisionist Noordwijk.
Roffelsen on behalf of Jong Sparta during the duel with De Treffers in the Second Division.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to move to the amateurs because something in me said it wasn’t ready yet. I’ve just been unlucky in recent years. I don’t want to say that I would have broken through in the Netherlands otherwise, but it did play a role. The fire to succeed as a professional football player was still burning. I’ve always kind of believed in it, I’ve always given it all and I’ve been investing for so long. I knew I had it in me. Yes, I got older. But at the same time I had the idea that I still had some stretch. Only I had no other choice and I would otherwise be without a club. I trained with Noordwijk until this adventure came.” RoPS came across his path through a Portuguese contact. The two-time cup winner played in the preliminary round of the Europa League two seasons ago, but had now been relegated from the highest level in Finland just after a bad season.
Did you know anything else about the club or the city?
“Well, basically the same thing you know more or less. I had done my research and knew that the club had had a very bad season. But a year earlier they were still playing European football and this is quite an established club in Finland. So yes, I did see opportunities to get started here. To train every day, to develop myself and to get the most out of it. I had nothing to lose, so I just went.”
To what extent did that ultimately work out as you expected or hoped?
“I think even better. My goal before coming here was to play a full season and put myself in the spotlight for a possible next step. We are now approaching the end of the season and I am well on my way in that regard. I’ve developed myself, play everything, I’m important as one of the captains and we are at the top: in that respect this step could not have turned out much better. I feel confident from the start and after three games I was given the captain’s armband, so that was a sign that they were happy.”
If one of only five foreigners in the selection are directly chosen as captain: that is quite striking.
“I think it has something to do with the fact that the Finnish guys are a bit quieter, you notice that on the field. I am someone who can take the lead, verbally. So that’s one reason I got the captain’s armband quickly, I think.”
Hasn’t that cultural difference made it a bit more difficult to find your place there? It must have taken a while before the ice was broken with your teammates?
“The Finnish guys are a little calmer, a little more down to earth if I compare that with a Dutch dressing room. I do not mind. I’m a pretty down-to-earth guy myself and you noticed in the beginning that guys don’t really look for a chat in the locker room. But that’s not necessarily something I’ve had a problem with. I had to get used to traveling before.”
Roffelsen has so far played nineteen official games for RoPS.
You can’t escape that from Rovaniemi.
“We spend ten hours on the bus to an away game. I can still remember one of the first away games of the season, in which our central defender got a red card after five minutes and we came behind very quickly. Then I thought: Jesus, did we sit in the bus for ten hours for this? That is also not optimal preparation.”
Don’t those trips affect your performance?
“It has a bit to do with the location where you play, coincidentally we have recently played a lot near Helsinki and that is easily accessible by train. Then we take the night train, depart from Rovaniemi around 7:00 PM and arrive in Helsinki at 7:00 AM. You can then sleep reasonably well for a night, so that is a lot easier to do than the bus. Moreover, afterwards we can sleep two or three hours in the hotel before we have breakfast and we stay there all day for the preparation and lunch. I am someone who can easily turn the switch if the preparation is slightly different than you are used to.”
Shouldn’t you have done that anyway? After all, the first cup matches of the season are played indoors.
“I also quickly adapted to indoor football. If you’ve trained in it for a week, you’re used to it. Football is really good here, but the way of playing is a bit different. Many teams play 5-3-2, so do we. It is a bit less physical than the Dutch competitions, partly because less is allowed by the referees. Many matches are decided by standard situations. I’m really having a good time. Actually, this adventure could not have turned out better so far.”
Can you now enjoy your time in Finland as much as the carefree time you had at Feyenoord?
“At the moment I can enjoy this as much as the carefree time at Feyenoord, yes. I’m in a good flow and that gives you so much positive energy. Of course it is sometimes annoying that you can’t be with your parents, girlfriend and friends, but you get so much in return. This step has been well worth it so far.”
The question is where Roffelsen’s future lies, as his contract with RoPS expires at the end of this calendar year. “Of course I’m slowly working on that, but the club hasn’t been clear yet. I think they are positive about it. But they don’t know yet if we’re going to get our PhD and what financial resources they’ll have next year. I think it will be decided late, but I would like to take a next step. I feel like I’m a bit more on the radar, I do hear positive things here and there,” he says. RoPS is currently on track to return to the highest level in Finland. The club leads the regular season – which runs over the calendar year in Finland – of the Ykkönen. After 22 matches, the best six teams will play each other one more time in a championship round.
“If we get a PhD, I would definitely see it as an option to stay here,” Roffelsen nods. “In Finland I am building a certain name and hopefully this can lead to the next step. It is a beautiful country to live in and a step to the Veikausliiga would not be wrong. But I don’t want to focus on that alone. A step to the Kitchen Champion Division would also be realistic. Returning to the Netherlands is always an option. If I’ve had a good season, played well and have been important: why shouldn’t it be possible?”