​Cathrine Paquette of https://thewomensgame.com has written a great article on the new recruits for Adelaide United including Natasha. Natasha is soooooo pumped and is busting to get to Adelaide and begin training with her new team. This has been the longest pre-season ever for her and she is just keen to get playing. The current Covid restrictions are making things challenging but she is working hard to get to Adelaide asap.

Natasha finishes her first season with top level football in the Netherlands and what a fantastic season it was as she overcame sooooo many challenges to have an incredible influence of the teams game results. Some of the challenges included exiting a 3 month house arrest lockdown in Spain to move to the Netherlands and a first week of training that included a mountain of old school running as well as a change of country, culture,  climate, football styles, training styles, professional level training and so much more….. but there were two changes that required much more adaptation then she ever considered. One change was that the Dutch female players are much taller and much more solid structure than the Spanish players and therefore that makes training and games much more physical and the other is that the artificial grass pitches in the Netherlands are much softer than the hard Spanish pitches. This was very difficult and took Natasha many months to adapt especially after coming out of a 3 month lockdown.

While VV Alkmaar had a difficult season, Natasha’s goal for the season was to adapt to top level football and to influence game results and she did that extremely well. In fact VV Alkmaar only won league or cup games when Natasha played. That is an entire season where the first team only won when Natasha played. That is amazing ? !!! While Natasha would have liked to play more games and did play in some losses the fact remains that the team only won their league and cup games when she played. See the above video for a more detailed analysis. An incredible season for Natasha and she will look to build further on influencing game results next season and now VV Alkmaar will always hold a special place in her heart.

Natasha scores her first goal in the Eredivisie League in only her second game as striker to help VV Alkmaar to their second win of the league over 5th place Heerenveen. Natasha constantly troubled the defence in scoring a goal taking several shots, keypasses and attacks as VV Alkmaar were cruising to a win before two late goals by Heerenveen meant that Alkmaar had to score a late goal to win 4-3. 

Image by: Mike Schoonenberg Photograhy – https://mikeschoonenberg.com/

This was a difficult game for VV Alkmaar as they came up against the form team of the competition FC Twente who gave them an absolute masterclass in top level football. Natasha entered the game with alkmaar totally under the pump and the game already out of reach and while she had limited opportunities with the ball she added some energy and she still produced several positive plays.

VV Alkmaar went from their first win of the league last week to a very disappointing 1-4 defeat at the hands of ADO Den Haag in a performance they will want to improve very quickly as their next game is against FC Twente who are absolutely on fire. They have one week to fix many issues.
After a very good 89minutes last week Natasha played 10minutes at the end of this game, entering when the score was 0-4. While she didn’t get many opportunities with the ball she still completed her passes at 100% forced some turnovers won a foul and did a nice short dribble with a penetrating forward pass.

Natasha’s league debut resulted the first league win of the season for VV Alkmaar and a strong performance by Natasha as she constantly troubled the Excelsior defence with her penetrating dribbles and precise passing game. She provided numerous key passes and had several shots at goals as she played a key role in helping VV Alkmaar secure a very convincing win.

VV Alkmaar produced a solid but hard fought win over Excelsior to claim their first win of the season (4-3).

Natasha played approximately 30 minutes on the wing where she played a little in her junior football but hasn’t played for many years now. She created a number of attacks and looked dangerous with the ball but it was great to see her open the burners and unleash that speed that she has spent years developing. Many people commented on just how fast she is and with more game time she will continue to terrorize defences with her speed and ball skills.