The Kitchen Champion Division has been a nursery for national and international talents for decades and this season too, many football players with potential are walking around on the second level. Voetbalzone, the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division, highlights one of these talents every week, this time focusing on Boris van Schuppen, who made a dream debut at NAC Breda.
By Jordi Tomasowa
“No, no, this is really a personal interview”, Van Schuppen says with a laugh to goalkeeper coach Gabor Babos. The former goalkeeper of NAC sees the twenty-year-old talent walk into a back room at the training complex in Zundert and jokes that he cannot understand why there is an interview request for the public’s favorite of NAC. the Pearl of the South has been requested. At the beginning of this season, Van Schuppen made a debut that will never be forgotten, then showed his value several times for the team of trainer Edwin de Graaf and so the interest in his person should not be too much of a surprise.
As a resident of Breda and child of the club, Van Schuppen is loved by the supporters of NAC.
Back to August 8, 2021. NAC will face VVV-Venlo on the first match day of the Kitchen Champion Division. With just under fifteen minutes left on the clock, the Breda players are trailing 2-1 in De Koel. De Graaf checks his watch, takes a look at the sofa and decides to bring Van Schuppen within the lines. “I didn’t really have the feeling that I would come in again, but we didn’t have such a very wide bank at the time either,” recalls NAC’s youth product. “We often take turns warming up. I finally made my debut in the 78th minute at the same time as Vieiri Kotzebue. The moment I came on the field, all the tension was actually gone.”
While the injury time has started and the faith among the away supporters is slowly fading, Van Schuppen saves NAC from a defeat during the season opening. “Ralf Seuntjens put the ball back and I shot in really well with my left. It was 2-2 and of course you want to win, but for me it felt like a kind of victory. You are a team, but when you achieve something like that personally: scoring on your debut, not many do that.” The debut tasted like more and while Van Schuppen mainly had to make do with substitutes in the first weeks of the season, his long-awaited first base place against FC Eindhoven followed at the end of September. “We lost 2-0, but I didn’t play badly at all,” Van Schuppen said. “I shot the post. After that I came in a few times again, including against Excelsior, which was able to take the first period at home with us. We were leading 2-1 and I think I came on fifteen minutes before time. In the final phase I was good for two assists in two minutes.”
Because of this strong comeback, Van Schuppen finally got the chance to show himself in his favorite number 10 position for a longer period of time. This also happened in the third round of the TOTO KNVB Cup, where VVV-Venlo was again the opponent. Since regular time and extra time did not result in a winner, a penalty shootout had to provide a solution. The midfielder stole the show during the penalty shootout by giving VVV goalkeeper Delano van Crooij in a full Rat Verlegh Stadium with a Panenka. “I already knew I was going to do this. I had already arranged it with one of my best friends. I said to him: ‘I will do a Panenka on my first penalty in professional football,’ says Van Schuppen with bravura. The tour de force earned him praise from Johan Derksen, among other things. “I happened to be watching NAC – VVV, that little number ten, what a great football player!” said the analyst at the table at Today Inside† “What a great football player with sagging socks, he played great.”
Van Schuppen always played as an attacking midfielder in NAC’s youth academy, but was forced to be used as a striker in December due to an injury to Mario Bilate. “That was a switch indeed,” he says. “It turned out really well in the first game, because I scored a goal and gave an assist. I just quickly noticed that it is not my position. I felt that I played less free. I was also substituted a few times at halftime. Then you get a little less confidence.” The uneasiness ensured that Van Schuppen entered into a conversation with his trainer during the winter break. “I indicated that it doesn’t matter which position he wants to use me in and that I will always give everything because that’s who I am. I just wanted to indicate that I feel more at home in midfield. Against FC Eindhoven I then played the entire game in the striker again, I did not hit a marble and a few weeks later I disappeared from the team.”
Van Schuppen had a debut for NAC that will not soon be forgotten.
Whether Van Schuppen spoke to De Graaf about his reserve role? “No, the trainer recently said during the meeting: ‘Believe me, I will draft the best players. If you don’t play, it’s up to you.’ I just have to let my feet do the talking and I’m trying to do that as best I can now.” Van Schuppen expects that the hard work will soon be rewarded with a basic place. “I hope the same in the postseason. I think I’m a player who can then make his mark. I’ve been sitting on the couch for a while now, but I’ve noticed during recent raids that I feel a bit freer again.”
The fact that, as an up-and-coming talent, he currently has to make do with considerably fewer playing minutes than during the first half of the season is understandably a mental challenge. “Sure, although I think I’m handling it well,” says Van Schuppen. “We are now running a bit more smoothly and when things are going less well with the team you want that opportunity faster and faster. Then you think: I am someone who can make a difference. Only there are probably more on the couch who also think the same.” He describes himself as ‘a technically skilled player, who is reasonably two-legged’. “I can also make a lot of progress and take my own team with me in the pressurization,” adds Van Schuppen.
“If you really have a player who I think can scan his environment very well in midfield, then I really look up to Frenkie de Jong,” Van Schuppen responds when asked if there is a player to whom he can relate. is mirrored. “I’m really enjoying Barcelona at the moment anyway. It’s always a club I like to watch, but now it’s really fun with Pedri, Gavi, Busquets and Dembélé starting to get into shape.”
In his first season in the Kitchen Champion Division, Van Schuppen played 1,595 minutes. “I have learned enough in the past three and a half years. For example, choosing position or delaying certain passes.” He says he learned the most important lesson in the mental field. “I’m quite the type who says something very quickly when I think something about something,” says Van Schuppen. “Now I know that sometimes I also have to keep things to myself and be smart, you can’t say everything. My personal trainer, Niek Ripson, is a former football player. He once said to me: ‘Sometimes you might be a little too smart for the football world and you have to think a few times before you speak. I’ve learned that you can’t say everything anymore. You have guys who do it, but they also go on their mouth a few times.”
As a boy from Breda and child of the club – Van Schuppen has been playing for NAC since 2012 and went through the entire youth academy – he was immediately embraced by the supporters. “I notice that I am recognized more often in Breda”, says the midfielder with a smile. “I do get used to it more, but never completely. When I go back to my old amateur club JEKA children come up to me and ask: ‘Are you really Boris van Schuppen? Can I have a picture with you?’ Or that the supporters have their own song for you: Boris from Breda, from Breda, Boris from Breda (to the tune of KC & The Sunshine Band – Give It Up, ed.). They’ve actually been singing that since my debut.”
For Van Schuppen – who has visited NAC matches since he was four – playing in the Rat Verlegh Stadium was a dream. “It’s not normal, but every other week I play in the Rat Verlegh and every week I’m happy when I can play there. I scored my first goal for my own audience against MVV in October. When you look back at that goal and you see me cheering, you see the real joy of a small child. That’s basically every goal. There is no such thing as casual cheering, if I score I will go completely crazy.” Last month, a fellow townsman and competitor left for the Japanese FC Imabari with Seuntjens. “Since day one he was here, we always got along well,” says Van Schuppen. “Outside of football we weren’t really friends or did a lot of things together, but here at the club we were always good together. When he left, he also indicated that I should now do it on ’10’. I now have jersey number 35, but I hope to get number 10 next season, just like in the youth.”
NAC has been negotiating with the City Football Group for weeks to be acquired. It causes a lot of unrest among the supporters, but within the selection the focus is only on the end of the season. “We want to make the play-offs. From the outside there is a lot of doubt, but I am actually convinced that we will just get it”, Van Schuppen sounds confident. “It has to be better, but everyone can see that. I now have five goals and four assists. I am not going to mention numbers, but I do want to increase that number.”
With his breakthrough in the first team of NAC, interest in Van Schuppen on social media is also increasing. Scrolling through his Instagram account, the many reactions with Indonesian flags from various followers on his posts stand out. “Am I an Indian myself? No,” he confesses with a laugh. “When I was a little younger I didn’t have any followers on Insta, then I once joked that my great-great grandmother is Indonesian and they posted me somewhere after that. I’ve never really said anything about that, because it’s a bit unusual to do that now. It’s funny. Since then they think I’m Indian, but I’m not at all.”
Name: Boris van Schuppen
Date of birth: Nov 22, 2001
Club: NAC Breda
Position: attacker
Strengths: speed, commitment, leadership
Voetbalzone is the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division
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