Veerle Buurman

Defender • Age 20 • #5

Veerle Tooske Janna Roos Buurman is a Dutch footballer who plays as a defender. She has represented the Netherlands at under-16, under-17, under-19, under-20 and senior international level.

Photo: IMAGO | IMAGO / Sports Press Photo

106 Appearances

9 Goals

2 Trophies

3 Awards

Fun Facts about Veerle

Quirky facts. Inspired by her game.

Veerle had already decided at the age of six that she wanted to become an Oranje Lioness, even though football had never previously played a major role in her parents’ lives.

Veerle’s butterfly goal celebration honours two people she has lost: her mother’s best friend, who died from breast cancer, and a former SC Bemmel teammate. The butterfly also represents her lucky number four, and shortly before the 2024 Under-20 World Cup, one landed on her leg.

When club rules threatened to separate Veerle from the boys’ team she had grown up with, one teammate declared that he would quit if she was not allowed to continue with them.

Veerle was never a “girly girl”: she spent her childhood playing football with her brothers, wrestling on the garden trampoline, building huts and regularly returning home in muddy clothes.

Education remained important throughout her rapid rise: she initially delayed a permanent move to PSV to finish secondary school and later arranged to remain in Eindhoven for another season before joining Chelsea so she could work towards completing the first year of her physiotherapy degree.

Less than two years before joining Chelsea, Veerle was still playing for SC Bemmel’s under-17 boys and selling toasted sandwiches in the club canteen at weekends.