It is a horror scenario: in May 2024, in Orange-Rood’s last home game of the season, goalkeeper Vera Beukers (26) tears her cruciate ligament for the third time in her career. What follows is a rehabilitation process that is not going as hoped. On Monday, after much deliberation, she announced via Instagram that she is quitting top field hockey.
Beukers: ‘When I got injured over a year ago, I was still combative. For example, I just played out the game. Once I realized it was wrong, I thought I could still make it to the next season. My knee felt surprisingly good at first, so I decided not to have surgery. All I had to do was train it up. But as soon as I stepped onto the field again during preparation, I knew enough. I couldn’t go full out. At most at about 80 percent. And that is simply not enough for me. I always want to give everything: 100 percent, no less. Reality dawned on me: I had to go under the knife. And that meant another rehabilitation of at least nine months. For the third time already.
How much bad luck can a person have? Three times her life was turned upside down by a cruciate ligament injury. The first time she ended up in a nightmare was in 2017 during preparation, shortly after her transfer from youth to Push Ladies 1. Two seasons later, just after she made a transfer to Tilburg, she slipped into another dark period of her career: she again immediately tore her cruciate ligament. As if a curse had been cast upon her.
Quitting was not an option for the mentally indestructible goalkeeper at the time. For three seasons, during which she transferred to Oranje-Rood, she was spared another horror injury. But at some point her luck ran out. During that particular game in May 2024, against Hurley, she fell in a duel and her left knee was completely in ruins. A new blow, after the two previous cruciate ligament injuries to her right knee.
Under the crossbar at Oranje-Rood. Photo: Willem Vernes
Several times a week there are patients on her treatment table in Eindhoven with a cruciate ligament injury
The pain of having to stop is echoed in her voice. Ideally, she would have loved to be under the bar for years to come. But she is too realistic to fool herself. ‘At some point you start thinking. I would have loved to play in the big league for years to come. But I’m also 26 now. I also want to make strides socially. Slowly you start weighing the risks: what if I tear my cruciate ligament again? Suppose I sustain permanent damage… Is it worth it to me? No, it’s not. Of course it isn’t. That is why I have tied the knot. With pain in my heart. I’ve had it.
Cruciate ligament injuries run like a thread through her life. Not only because she was a victim of it herself three times, but also because she works with it every day as a physiotherapist at the Anna Topsupport expertise center in Eindhoven for rehabilitating top athletes. Several times a week there are patients on her treatment table, with the exact same injury that brought her life to a halt so often. Sometimes she looks at them and for a moment sees herself lying there again. The doubt in their eyes, the frustration in their voices, she recognizes it effortlessly.
Beukers: “A lot of what patients describe, I recognize immediately. I know exactly which pain is normal. And which ones are not. I understand what they are talking about without having to explain everything. I also know the little tricks that help immediately after surgery, such as how best to support your leg. Maybe I recognize it all better than I care to. We often make that joke here: that I had understood it even after one cruciate ligament injury. Three times was really not necessary.
Goalkeeper Vera Beukers falls into the arms of teammate Sophie van Grimbergen after promotion to the big league, in 2023. Photo: Willem Vernes
Now she is physiotherapist with Orange Girls Under 16
Yet it is not only on the treatment bench where she shares her experience. Since March, Beukers has also been physiotherapist at Oranje Girls Under 16. The ideal role to pass on her resilience and unwavering perseverance to young talents. Had she still been under the bar herself, she probably would not have been able to fulfill this role. Her own dream ran aground, but in this new role she now helps others make theirs come true.
Beukers: “I wanted to stay involved in field hockey. It is a world I know well and where I feel at home. Eventually that is also something I want to keep doing in the future: working with top athletes. And precisely because of my own injury trajectory I know how important it is to be well coached as a player. I have personally experienced what such rehabilitation does to you: physically, but certainly also mentally. I now take that experience with me in my work. Precisely so that I can help others come back stronger from their injury.
