Pien Meulensteen: ‘Commentary was never something I thought I was going to get into’
Daughter of former manager René Meulensteen on overcoming her doubts and the growth of women’s game
Clipboard in the centre, team sheet at the front and Rowntree’s Randoms to the right. Pien Meulensteen likes everything to be in the correct place and jokes that her commentary setup is almost as meticulous as Rafael Nadal’s water-bottle arrangements.
Most striking is what is on the clipboard: carefully crafted notes, printed on sticky paper using a document template she formatted to ensure everything fits precisely. The substitutes’ details, attached to a monitor to the left, flap gently in the Arctic-temperature wind, and as each one is brought on, that player’s sticky note is carefully placed on top of the player they replaced.
