Andy van der Meijde

Athlete, TV Presenter

45 min

NL

Personal development,
Top sport,
Football,
Influencers / Vloggers

Motivate,
Dealing with adversity,
Winning

Former professional soccer player Andy van der Meijde tells his life story with great anecdotes and the necessary humor. During his turbulent soccer career there were many ups and downs. He likes to share the life lessons he learned from this with his audience. Want to book Andy for your event? Make a no obligation request on ShowBird now!

Andy is primarily available for sessions in a Q&A format or interview setting, answering questions from an attending chair of the day, presenter or audience. He is not available as an independent speaker.

Andy van der Meijde has gained much experience in his turbulent career both on and off the soccer field. He wants to share these life lessons with others in order to guard them for this. He is therefore available as a speaker for lectures and presentations at, for example, companies or soccer clubs. With a long soccer career behind him with many ups and downs, he can tell those present an inspiring life story laced with humor and anecdotes but with a clear message. This story can be tailored to the theme of the meeting.

Clinics:
Andy can also be booked for clinics at soccer clubs where he can tell talented children and young people (and parents) with a dream of becoming a soccer professional, for example, where the challenges and pitfalls lie. In his soccer career many things have gone well but he has also made many mistakes. He can teach the attendees a lot about these experiences. After the theoretical part he can provide a field training where he will also use his current training as KNVB Youth trainer. This clinic can be completely tailored to your needs.

Radio and TV programs
As table host or other guest appearances for radio, and TV programs he is available to give his opinion on (soccer related) topics in the no-nonsense way we are used to from Andy van der Meijde.

About Andy
Andy van der Meijde, grew up in the Malburgen neighborhood in Arnhem in a family with 2 sisters. The van der Meijde family did not have a lot of money. Sometimes they didn't even have anything to eat at home partly due to the gambling addiction of his father. At the age of five he started playing soccer at a club in the neighborhood where he stood out because of his talent.

Career
His soccer career began to take more serious shape at the age of 10 when he was asked to join amateur club Vitesse 1892 in Arnhem. After several years, scouts from Ajax discovered him and asked him to join the youth academy. November 12, 1997 was the big day of his debut in the first team. This was followed by a brilliant career at other national and international clubs such as Internazionale and Everton. He also played for the Dutch national team where he was of added value. Unfortunately, this fame also had a downside. Especially in times of injury, the attraction to bad habits was great and he succumbed to them. Which he continued to do even when he did play. The result of this was he got injuries even faster because he was not fit, in addition it caused a mess in his private life.

Private life
Andy is a proud father of 5 daughters. Andy is training as a youth coach at the KNVB and is currently doing an internship at WSV in Apeldoorn. He also provides lectures and clinics for companies, associations, soccer clubs. In these he can transfer the instructive experiences he has gained in his turbulent career to, for example, talented soccer players and people from the business world.

Book
In November 2012, the biography of Andy van der Meijde was released, written by Voetbal International journalist Thijs Slegers. The book titled 'No Mercy' describes how he ruined his soccer career and private life through bad habits. 'No Mercy' has sold more than a hundred thousand copies, making it a 2012 bestseller.

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