Sem Steijn is experiencing a season full of mixed feelings. While the attacking midfielder is increasingly becoming an important link at FC Twente, his father struggles as the coach of Ajax. The ongoing unrest around Maurice Steijn does not leave his son unaffected.
Recently, for example, against RKC Waalwijk. Twente lost 1-0, Sem Steijn was substituted after a flat performance. The man from The Hague knows why he did not get into his game that day. On the player's bus to Brabant, he learned how his father, as coach of Ajax, experienced a dramatic afternoon against Feyenoord.
The two have a very close bond. 'What happens with my father, it impacts me,' Sem Steijn acknowledges this week in VI. 'Ajax is always in the news. I just have to touch my phone, whichever app I click on, the messages immediately pop up on my screen. It's also constantly talked about around me. That's not pleasant. Against RKC, I really struggled with it. The trouble around my father bothered me, that's why I wasn't myself.'
Three days later, before the home game against Vitesse, Steijn deliberately chose to let the remainder of De Klassieker pass him by. He avoided the TV, ignored everything that was written and said about his father, and focused entirely on his own match. 'I wanted to prevent myself from getting irritated. It worked.'
Steijn scored the only goal at home against the people from Arnhem. This season, he already scored six goals in eleven official matches, including one against Ajax. During that match, Twente's 'number 10' could momentarily set aside his father’s fate. But that isn't always possible. 'It's your father; you don't want to see him like this. It remains difficult to completely shut myself off from that.'
