Latest news with #Knoester
Daily Record
27-07-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
Mats Knoester confident after stunning Celtic as Aberdeen star looks to smash Hearts hoodoo
The Dons haven't won at Tynecastle since 2017 and kick off their season in Gorgie against old gaffer Derek McInnes and a team in form Mats Knoester believes Aberdeen can smash their Hearts hoodoo – after crushing their Celtic curse to lift the Scottish Cup. The Dons haven't won at Tynecastle since 2017. But Cup hero Knoester is confident that is about to change when Jimmy Thelin 's men head there for their Premiership opener on Monday night. The 26-year-old Dutch defender stated: 'They're a good team, a big team as well. I think it's going to be an exciting game. 'It's not going to be an easy game away, but I think it's going to be interesting to see. 'Always the first game in the season is interesting to see how the teams are after the pre-season. 'We're aware that it's a tough game, away at Hearts, but I also think the past doesn't really matter. 'And if I can go back to Celtic at Hampden – we don't have a really good record against Celtic and then you win the game. 'So, in football I don't think you should go too much back to the past and then look forward.' Hearts have appointed former Dons boss Derek McInnes and Knoester expects them to be one of their main rivals for third spot. He accepted: 'Yeah, if we look a bit further, I think they're also one of the competitors. 'Of course, as Aberdeen, you're one of the bigger teams, and Hearts is that as well. 'So, in that way, I think we should compete with each other. 'But I prefer to just go week by week. I do that with myself and also with the team and their goals.' Knoester knows that Aberdeen's Cup win will mean they will have a target on their backs this season, but he is confident Thelin's men can handle the extra pressure. Knoester admitted: 'Yeah, it can be. (It's) No problem. If they want to see it like that, it's fine.' The Pittodrie side wrapped up their pre-season with defeats to English Premier League Fulham and Ipswich, who were relegated from the tip flight last term. They lost the games 4-1 and 3-1, respectively, but Knoester believes the games were exactly what Aberdeen needed. He claimed: 'I think that was the goal, to have some big opponents, let's say, like Fulham and now Ipswich, especially going into Europe as well. 'We have a tough season coming, so I think if you want to improve something, you also have to play against the better teams, because they will show you what's needed to be on that level. 'I think one big difference was consistency – you see how consistent they are, and if they do make a mistake, they make up for it. They make a foul or they're back fast enough. 'Also, if there's a rebound, there's somebody there who taps it in, while we just miss it. 'Stuff like that, I think we can learn from that. You're the one that sets a standard for yourself.' Boss Thelin also experimented in the two games and former Ferencvaros stopper Knoester added: 'What we wanted to do is play a high line, maybe a bit more extreme than what we normally do. 'Just to try and create pressure on them and take a bit more risk. 'That's one thing that makes it sometimes a little bit more difficult or challenging to cover every space. 'Obviously we need to adjust a little bit on that towards next Monday.' Guaranteed European group stage football will also put an additional strain on the Aberdeen players. Former boss Barry Robson lost his job when Dons struggled with European games last time but Knoester believes that won't be the case now. He said: 'We trained under really heavy circumstances, in pre-season a lot of high-intensity metres. 'We did everything we could to be ready for that.'
Daily Record
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
Mats Knoester ranks Aberdeen Scottish Cup win above league title joy and reveals 'fast' contract extension decision
The defender previously got his hands on a league title with Hungarian side Ferencvaros Mats Knoester admitted lifting the Scottish Cup with Aberdeen will live with him forever and was a money can't buy experience. The Dutchman had previously won the league with Ferencvaros but reckons ending 35 years of Dons' frustration made this one even bigger. Knoester made the perfect start to his Pittodrie career, as within five months he had helped Jimmy Thelin 's side to beat Celtic and deliver their first trophy in 11 years. The enormity of it all didn't hit him until he saw the Granite City turn into a sea of red and white as it celebrated their Scottish Cup homecoming. Knoester said: 'It is hard to describe in a few words, it has been amazing. ' 'The expectations of a lot of people were not high, but in the team you felt we believed in it and then to see everybody explode, the city and the stadium was amazing. 'You could feel it was very big at the game but maybe a bit more after. Also, the days after the parade almost everybody was out. I didn't know so many people were living in Aberdeen because the streets were full. 'You can definitely see that it means a lot and it is so nice. You can't buy that experience. It has to be in a club, like the soul of the club. It is an experience for life.' Knoester admitted why his Aberdeen medal edges out his Hungarian success. He claimed: 'A trophy is always nice, but the way of winning the trophies was different. 'At Ferencvaros, there is an expectation that you have to win it. That is a whole different experience and there was pressure all season because it was a league. This was a cup and it was a few games. 'The emotions after winning the Scottish Cup meant a lot more. That was logical because it had been 35 years. 'Ferencvaros it has been six years in a row. I am not going to downgrade the trophy in Hungary because it was my first and special, but this one was a different type of trophy and different emotion. It was very special.' The 26-year-old was rewarded over the summer with a contract extension until the summer of 2029. He admitted it was an easy decision. The Aberdeen star confirmed: 'I was quite fast that we agreed. 'I had a good half year with a great ending, of course. If I take that away and look at how I got here and was welcomed, for me and my family, it has been really good. There weren't a lot of things to agree on the contract.' Knoester is back at it, as the Dons prepare to get going again in their pre-season training camp in Portugal. He stated: 'It is good to get started again. The break was important as well, I am not going to lie. It was good to get a good rest but I am ready to get going again. 'It is good to know everybody better and it is good to get to know the new boys. It is intense but you need to do it to get to know each other as quickly as possible.' Aberdeen have already brought in Nicolas Milanovic, Nick Suman, Kusini Yengi and Emmanuel Gyamfi. Manager Thelin is an important factor in getting his squad to gel. Knoester confirmed: 'He is a good people person. I enjoy working with him. Also, not all his meetings are about football. They are about life and the philosophy that can also bring a team together. 'There is also more important stuff, more than football and tactics to bring a team together or to get an understanding with each other. It has been a good cooperation with me, the team and Aberdeen.' It is about gearing up for a fast start, with some big opening challenges in the Premiership and in their Europa League qualifier. They open up away to Hearts and host Celtic before they play their European play-off games, which will determine whether it is group stage football in the Europa League or the Conference. Knoester can call on his own group stage experience at Ferencvaros. 'It is really nice,' Knoester, speaking to RedTV, insisted. 'I have played there and now I have the chance to play Europa League games again. 'It is very nice for me and everybody else at the club. It is a big thing to play in Europe and it is an amazing stage to show as a club and individuals. It is a great thing to add to Aberdeen for this season.'
Washington Post
04-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Why youth sports is such a potent political target
A friend of mine has a daughter in high school and one in middle school, both much older than my own kids. So I was taken aback when he explained how competitive school sports had become. Students didn't have much choice but to join external programs and get additional coaching, he said, to be able to play on their high school teams. And this is in Silicon Valley, not exactly a place generally known for its focus on athletics. What Silicon Valley does have, of course, is a lot of money — and that makes a difference. Ohio State University researchers this year reported finding that success in ascending the competitive ladder of youth athletics is correlated with nonathletic factors. 'Success depends a lot on the advantages young people have when they grow up,' sociology professor Chris Knoester explained when the research came out. Wealthier parents, he added, 'can find the best coaches, help choose the sports that offer the best opportunities for their children, they can figure out the hidden rules and strategies that aren't available to everyone.' This raises the floor for everyone else even as the number of slots remains constant. Over time, Knoester explained in an email to me, the rate of participation in youth sports has increased, mostly thanks to increased participation from young women and girls. Here, too, nonathletic factors play a role. White, wealthy girls are more likely to progress through the ranks of youth sports, often driven by what a 2024 study from the Ohio State team tactfully referred to as 'intensive parenting.' This mix of cost, personal investment and escalating competitiveness is anecdotally obvious. Parents of my kids' elementary-school-aged peers have elected to have their kids start kindergarten later so that they'd consistently be older then their classmates until high school — and therefore bigger and more athletically adept. Surgeries once reserved for elite athletes are now performed on high school kids. The trend is also backed by data. The Aspen Institute's Project Play has surveyed parents and found that the cost of paying for their kids' primary sport has risen faster than the rate of inflation since 2019. Add in additional sports and parents reported paying an average of about $1,000 last year. That's just the average; some parents reported paying more than $20,000 for both primary and other sports. The group's 2023 report found that 'half of survey respondents who played youth sports or who have children who have played said they have struggled to afford the costs to participate.' Project Play data released last week illustrated what parents hope to get out of their investments. High school sports can facilitate college admissions (as several well-known Southern California parents can attest) or — as about a fifth of parents foresaw in the new survey — lead to college athletic careers. One in 9 parents is more ambitious, anticipating that their young athletes might end up playing professionally or in the Olympics. Needless to say, 1 in 9 young athletes does not end up playing professionally. If you make your high school girls' basketball team, for example, you have about a 1 in 71 chance of playing Division I college basketball. There are of course plenty of reasons for parents to encourage participation in sports besides dreams of World Series home runs or gold medals. There are myriad positive effects from participation in youth sports, including increases to self-confidence and the life lessons that accompany winning and losing. But let's step back now and consider all of this in the context of politics. We have a group of parents who've often invested heavily in their kids' athletic success and who often have outsize expectations for where that success might lead. Other parents simply want their kids to experience fair competition. And here comes Donald Trump Jr. — one of the earliest and loudest voices on the issue — warning that trans students were coming to relegate their daughters to second-place finishes. It's important to recognize that this concern is both exaggerated and selective. The most famous voice against having trans athletes participate in girls' or women's sports is Riley Gaines, who has built a career in conservative punditry on having competed against trans swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022. What's often left unmentioned is that Gaines and Tomas tied — for fifth. Even in the track meet in California last weekend that earned a social-media mention from President Donald Trump, trans athlete AB Hernandez won the triple jump — but tied for first in the high jump and came in second in the long jump. Trans athletes are not necessarily going to dominate simply because they are trans. More important, there have been scores of other sporting contests this year in which no trans athletes participated. The NCAA estimated last year that there were no more than a dozen trans athletes playing college sports, out of half a million in total. Instead, hundreds of thousands of youth athletes lost to competitors who were faster or stronger by virtue of their own biological advantages — or because their parents could afford better coaches. Analysis of (preliminary) 2024 American National Election Studies data suggests that parents of kids who still live at home are more supportive of the idea that there should be a ban on transgender girls participating in K-12 sports. There are other splits, too: Republicans are far more supportive of the idea than Democrats and older people without kids are more supportive than younger ones. But the divide among Democrats is a central reason that the issue has been a centerpiece of federal (and even lower-level) elections. In addition to playing to transphobia, the issue stokes concern among parents about the youth-sports playing field being tilted away from their kids. What's elided in this debate is that youth sports is inherently unfair anyway. Some kids are bigger or faster or stronger or have better reaction times. Some kids have parents who can afford coaches or afford to move to districts where their kids can get more playing time. Some kids are handed the best shoes or swimsuits or balls or bats. The unfairness is, in many ways, inextricable. But only one perceived unfairness — no matter how uncommon or exaggerated it is — is seen as a way to get more votes. Post Opinions wants to know: Should we redesign youth sports to make them less expensive and more accessible? Share your responses and they might be published as letters to the editor.
STV News
03-06-2025
- Business
- STV News
Aberdeen announce extension of defender Mats Knoester's contract
Aberdeen have extended the contract of defender Mats Knoester following their Scottish Cup success. Knoester, who joined the club in the winter transfer window, was player of the match in the Dons' dramatic win over Celtic at Hampden, capping an impressive start to life as an Aberdeen player. The 26-year-old signed a two-and-a-half-year contract when he made the move from Ferencvaros in February but the Pittodrie club have moved swiftly to tie him down on a new deal that runs until 2029. Aberdeen say Knoester 'played a crucial role in the team's recent success and the new deal reflects the club's commitment to building a strong, stable squad for the future.' The defender said everything felt in place for his time at the club to be a success and he was happy to commit his long-term future to the Dons. 'The past few months have been very positive for me and since day one, my family and I have been made to feel very welcome,' he said. 'I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. 'Extending my contract feels like the right thing to do. The club has fantastic infrastructure, passionate supporters, and a clear direction for the future.' Manager Jimmy Thelin said: 'Mats has been an outstanding addition to our squad, both on and off the pitch, since his arrival at the start of the year. 'Securing his services for the next four years is a significant step for us as we continue to build a competitive team capable of competing on all fronts next season. We're pleased that Mats sees his long-term future here at Aberdeen.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Press and Journal
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Press and Journal
Mats Knoester: Scottish Cup win with Aberdeen is career highlight
Aberdeen defender Mats Knoester has added a Scottish Cup winner's medal to his collection and the Dutchman insists his latest addition is his most prized of all. Knoester has a KNVB Cup winner's medal with Feyenoord from 2018 and won the Hungarian league title with Ferencvaros in 2023. But the central defender has put his first Scottish medal to the top of the pecking order after playing a starring role in the Dons' penalty shootout win against Celtic at Hampden on Saturday. The 26-year-old said: 'This one is the best by far, even better than winning a league because it means more. 'At Ferencvaros, you have to win every year. Here you can see it's been so long. There are more emotions. 'You should just look around you and take it all in. It's a lot to describe. It means a lot and the man of the match award as well. Doubling up is really good.' Adding to the Aberdeen defender's joy was being able to celebrate his victory in Scotland with his family. He said: 'Everybody was here, my mum and dad as well, my brothers. It means a lot. 'You wouldn't see it on my dad's face, but inside, he would have been very happy, emotional and everything. 'In our family we are calm. You don't see it from the outside, but definitely from the inside, it means a lot.' Knoester, who was a powerhouse at the back alongside young team-mates Jack Milne and Alfie Dorrington, was primed to add another element to his cup final tale during the shootout. The defender was due to take Aberdeen's fifth penalty before goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov saved Alistair Johnston's spot-kick to bring the cup back to Aberdeen for the first time since 1990. The Dutchman joked: 'I was fifth. I was ready and Dimi saved it. I gave him the biggest hug afterwards. 'My penalties in practice were good so I had confidence. But, of course, it's nice if you can finish it early. The earlier, the better.' Jimmy Thelin's side ended a 30-game winless run against the Hoops and ended the league and League Cup winners' hopes of a domestic treble. Victory at Hampden also ended Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers' perfect record, both in the competition and at the National Stadium. Given the one-sided nature of the previous recent encounters, it is understandable why Celtic were such strong favourites. But Knoester and his team-mates' belief was unshakeable. He said: 'We had previous matches with Celtic, of course. They're a good team, they're a really good team. They win a lot of prizes. 'We knew we had to change our tactic and maybe do something different. This was our plan and it worked out well. So I'm very happy with that. 'They scored one goal out of a set-piece, not out of open play, which is frustrating. 'You know, you're defending so well and then you get a set-piece. 'But we said to each other, 'The one thing that can't happen is if they score a goal or we score a goal and we change'. 'That's happened in the past few games. 'So we said, 'Just stick to the game plan'. Then the longer the game went, it was still 1-0 and we got some good transitions. 'Then you start to feel, 'Okay, we only need this one half chance'. Then it goes in and then it actually happens. 'Of course, it has to work out in the end. But we did believe in it, yeah, definitely.' Aberdeen's cup win was one achieved by sheer grit and determination from the men in red. Knoester epitomised the effort by being the only member of the back three to last the full 120 minutes. He said: 'I didn't really feel it. Of course, you feel tired after 120 minutes, but I still felt like I could go on. It's a good sign that I'm fit. 'This was a good team performance. If you put it on paper, you would say Celtic are the better team. 'But then you need to come up with character and a team sticking together. That's what we did. 'For me, personally, it's just about belief in yourself, in your team, in the tactics. And shutting down all the noise around you. 'Then you prove them wrong. So, it's the best feeling.' The icing on the cake of course, was guaranteed European group stage football next season. Knoester said: 'We have it all now, huh? Nobody would say that before. So, I think that's the nicest thing.'
