During his playing career, he wore an orange shirt.

With the Dutch national team and his club HC Bloemendaal - and his successes and titles often led to duels with German teams.

Teun de Nooijer was one of the best hockey players in the world in his time.

The Dutchman has not only given his country two gold and two silver medals as a formative force at four Olympic Games between 1996 and 2012, he has changed the game itself with his outstanding skills because he has mastered the game like hardly anyone.

And since the end of 2019 he has been on the coaching staff of the German women's selection.

"Felt good from the start"

Applied to football, it would be roughly the same as if Messi would act as co-coach of the German women's national team after his active career.

Of course, the world of hockey is much smaller, more permeable and enormously interconnected.

Other Dutch people are also working for other hockey nations in Tokyo.

But the German players were amazed when this legend of their sport suddenly appeared on them.

“Working with such a talented group with huge potential and with a chance of winning an Olympic medal felt good from the start,” says de Nooijer. He is already connected to Germany since he hooked up with the German national player Philippa Suxdorf during the 1996 Olympics. The couple has long been married and has three daughters.

The three-time world hockey player is specifically responsible for midfielders on the German coaching staff. And it has the task of the Germans acting a little more Dutch in this part of the team. In the conversation, de Nooijer used the phrase “play right forward” several times. In other words: The ball should get into the opposing circle of fire faster and in more creative ways, with a high pass quality and almost blind understanding among each other. Sometimes with surprising actions “Create chaos with the enemy without causing chaos for us at the same time. That's how my game was, ”says the 45-year-old with the experience of 453 international matches (219 goals) in central midfield and attack.

De Nooijer's exceptional ability has also often seen national coach Xavier Reckinger in duels and, as a Belgian defender, often suffered.

The defense is a special task for the German team Reckinger.

He was able to attract highly decorated assistants for the other parts of the team.

Former England goalkeeper Jimi Lewis takes care of the goal women and Florian Keller, the 2008 German Olympic champion, takes care of the attackers.

“It's not just that the exercises in training are great fun,” says midfielder Amelie Wortmann.

"You just notice in every video meeting that Teun played at an unbelievably high level."

For medals against the Netherlands?

The German team showed itself to be at a good level in their first appearances. The important 2-1 win over Great Britain was followed by the sovereign 2-0 win against India. It continued against Ireland on Wednesday. After the 4-2 success, the quarter-finals are already perfect. "We improved from the first to the second game and want to continue growing into the tournament," says de Nooijer. In view of the good development of the German selection and the stable international dominance of the Dutch women, it does not seem improbable that the two nations could still face each other in a duel for medals at these games. "Then it would be like that," he says with a smile.

Of course he knows a lot of Dutch players inside out.

Before starting his engagement at DHB, he gave up his head coach for the women of HC Bloemendaal in 2019 after three years.

Basically, he sees himself more as an assistant than as a head coach.

Especially since de Nooijer has also made his way off the artificial turf - he is a partner at an international personnel consultancy.

De Nooijer's participation in the German women is agreed as a temporary Olympic project.

Whether it will continue after the games is open.

A German coup in Tokyo would definitely have a light orange paint.

To see a Dutch hockey legend like de Nooijer cheering in a tracksuit with a federal eagle would still have something unimaginable.