Jordy Cretier spends his days with a brush, canvas drop cloths, plastic roller trays and a tape. His best paintwork of this year was not on a building, but on a fairy tale.
Five months ago, Cretier was a 29-year-old who, despite 11 years of experience playing among the Dutch elite, had never been called up by the Netherlands. He’d all but accepted he never would be.
Yet Cretier was, to his surprise, named in Miguel Andres Moreno’s squad for the play-off against Finland for a place at the FIFA Futsal World Cup Uzbekistan 2024™. The fixo started the first leg, at the Topsportcentrum in Almere, on the bench. “I was hoping to get one minute of action on my debut,” he told FIFA. “I wanted to get at least sixty seconds.”
Cretier ended up getting a lot more action, and the Netherlands ended up getting more than they bargained for. One-nil down with less than three minutes remaining, he scored the equaliser that kept them in the tie.
“It gives me goosebumps thinking about it,” he said. “The crowd was amazing. I was hoping for one minute, but I ended up being given among the most minutes.
“To score a goal, such an important goal, on my debut was beyond my wildest dreams. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a childhood dream.”
Four days later, at the Energia Areena, he helped the Netherlands win one of the craziest games in futsal history on penalties. La Machina Naranja were back at the FIFA Futsal World Cup after a 24-year hiatus. Cretier was an automatic in their squad to go to Central Asia.
“I’m very, very excited,” he said. “It’s hard to believe I’m going to play in a World Cup. This seemed impossible six months ago.
In their warm-up friendlies, the Netherlands gave strong opponents Venezuela and Tajikistan really strict examinations in narrow defeats, but were soundly beaten by the mighty Spain.
“Now I know what the level of the top teams is like,” Cretier explained. “I found that out against Spain. Now that we’re aware, we can do much better against the very best teams in the future. The other results showed we can compete with strong teams.
“I’m hungry, we’re hungry. If we fall behind, we’ll stand back up and always keep fighting. We have a good team, a strong team.
“The group is very connected with each other. We do everything together as a team. There are no individuals. We switch who we sit next to at the table to eat. You sit with someone for breakfast and someone else for lunch and so on. We have a very strong bond.”
Teamwork may be key for the Netherlands, but they boast one stand-out individual.
“[Ayoub] Boukhari has special talent,” said Cretier. “He’s unique at one-v-ones. He’s a player who can win you a game out of nothing.”
First up for the Netherlands is hosts Uzbekistan in Tashkent on Saturday.
“It will be a great experience,” said Cretier. “I think it’s something every player would like to experience. It will be packed out, 12,000 fans. It will be a tough challenge.
“The crowd will make a lot of noise, be against us, but it was the same when we played Finland away. In Finland everybody was in white, there was a lot of noise, but we rose to the challenge. I believe we will do the same against Uzbekistan.
“You must always have a target at a tournament. Ours is the next round. We’re not scared. We’re not here just to say we played in a World Cup. We want to reach the knockout phase and I believe we can.”
That would paint another chapter in Jordy Cretier’s Oranje fantasy novel.
