Few would’ve expected 20-year-old central defender Veerle Buurman to make 24 appearances for Chelsea this season.
The youngster was signed from PSV Eindhoven ahead of the 2024/25 campaign but spent her first season as a Chelsea player back on loan at the Dutch club where she made her name.
Returning to London at the beginning of 2025/26, Blues head coach Sonia Bompastor handed the Netherlands international her debut against Leicester City in September, and from that point she went from strength to strength.
A steady presence in an injury-hit backline, Buurman wowed crowds with her inch-perfect sliding tackles, astute positioning and stunning late winner against Tottenham in the Women’s FA Cup.
Those performances saw her awarded the Rising Star gong at the Women’s Super League Awards at the end of the campaign, a deserved accolade after her standout performances at the highest level. Despite the high praise, though, Buurman is still struggling to process the attention when we sit down with her on a sunny day at Cobham before she went away for a well-deserved break.
‘Yeah, it's a little bit crazy!’ she says. ‘I didn't even expect it. It's really nice to win an award and to be given the Rising Star in my first season at Chelsea, my first season in England; it means a lot.
‘Receiving the award from Lucy (Bronze) was also really special. I never expected it, but I think I was growing through the whole season as a football player, but also as a person here in England.
‘It's not always easy coming from your home country to another country, but it went really well. I got a chance from Sonia, and I took it. It's really nice to play, to help the team and know they trust you at the back.’
Like many of our players, Buurman is realistic about last season’s achievements, but is also ready to reset, refresh and then go again in 2026/27 to move to even greater heights. It seems like she’s already looking forward to it.
‘I think it was maybe a hard season for us as a team,’ she acknowledged. ‘We won the League Cup and qualified for the Champions League by finishing in third place, but I think as Chelsea, you always want to win more trophies. I think it's hard, but we can learn from it and focus on next season.
‘It's always nice to play a tournament in the summer, but we don’t have that this year, so I have a lot of plans like going on vacation with some friends and seeing my family. I’m looking forward to going to the sun. It's really nice to have some weeks off to enjoy, relax, reset and then focus on next season.
‘I think we can improve on a lot of things, and we need to reflect on that, talk with each other and communicate with each other. Of course, next year we want to win more trophies. But also to play as a team and show the standards of Chelsea on the pitch.
‘We’re playing every WSL game at Stamford Bridge, which is so nice. Being there with the fans, playing games, winning games, learning from a lot of games and then at the end we want to win trophies.’