Spitse was closing in on 140 appearances when she wrote one of the finest chapters of her international career – captaining her country to glory in front of record crowds on home soil at Euro 2017.
Handed the armband after the second match by then head coach – and current England boss – Sarina Wiegman, the set-piece specialist scored two vital group-stage penalties. Then, in a six-goal thriller against Denmark in the final, she unleashed an expertly placed free-kick to hand her team a lead they never relinquished.
Ever-present throughout that tournament, Spitse missed just 20 minutes of her side’s run to the World Cup final two years later under Wiegman again, where they lost to the USA.
It had been a different story for Spitse and the Netherlands, though, at Euro 2009 – their first major tournament.
Spitse was 19 with 35 caps by then, but with Pauw largely fielding the same starting XI in Finland, she watched every minute from the bench, including an extra-time semi-final loss to England.
“She never, ever, said anything negative about it,” said Pauw. “That’s exactly what I meant when I said she had everything within her to become a legend because it was just football. She understood the unwritten laws of elite sport.
“I think everybody will say that, she puts football first and always knew what was needed to perform at that level and to grow.”
Part of that growth has been the development of Spitse as a leader, a quality that current Netherlands boss Jonker says he saw in her within days of his appointment in 2022 and one that he believes his players appreciate in her too.
“Within her character, there is this leadership, of being the boss, so she tells the team we are leaving, we are stopping, we’re waiting,” he explains.
“The older players are used to her, they know this is who she is and this is what she does, and they accept it, even if they don’t agree, they think ‘this is what Sherida wants, it’s OK’, because they know there’s always a good intention behind the things she says or does, and the younger players have huge, huge respect for her.”
