Women’s Hockey India League: Dutch star Yibbi Jansen justifies top billing as Odisha Warriors blank Delhi SG Pipers
If it was up to her, Janneke Schopman said after the Hockey India League (HIL) auction in October last year, she’d have assembled a squad with all the top Indian players she had worked with during her time as the national head coach. Indeed, from the start of the auction, she put her paddle up for a lot of the first-team Indian players, but crucially, didn’t go overboard for any of them. Because she was waiting for the one name she really wanted: the Netherlands’ Yibbi Jansen. When her name came up, Schopman went all out to ward off the interest from the other teams.
The FIH Player of the Year in 2024, Jansen is a superstar of the all-conquering Dutch women’s team. She was the leading goalscorer at Paris 2024 as the Netherlands clinched gold. And it was Jansen who starred on the opening ni...