Micky van de Ven has risen from the Dutch second division to starring for Tottenham... but the speedy defender credits his undercover cop dad for helping him to 'enjoy' the chaos football brings

There's an old saying of his father's that Micky van de Ven often draws upon while he laces up his boots to help clear his mind and settle the nerves.

'Peace is a weapon that never refuses.'

You know the chaos is coming, his dad says. Accept it, stay calm and do your thing. Or, as Van de Ven once phrased it: 'Just don't give a s**t.'

If anyone knows the importance of staying calm under intense pressure, it's Van de Ven's dad Marcel.

Marcel spent his younger days as an undercover agent tackling the most serious crimes in Holland and went on to become a household name as lead detective on their version of the television show Hunted, where members of the public go on the run and try to evade detection.

He leads another show where he rescues kidnapped children taken to foreign countries. No wonder he's also written a best-selling autobiography.

'I didn't know everything he was doing because it was quite dangerous,' says Van de Ven. 'For me, it's just my dad so I see it normally. I was really young but, yeah, he was an undercover agent, so he was working on the highest-level criminals in Holland. I can't say too much, of course. He did his work with other agents. They were based somewhere in the Netherlands and he was always there, every day. He came back late and always in different cars, you know what I mean?'

All of a sudden, welcoming Nottingham Forest to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a bid to secure a place in the top four of the Premier League and the Champions League doesn't quite seem such a big deal.

This level of perspective, though, instilled by his father during his young career is what the 22-year-old believes has been the key to his journey from Dutch second-tier side Volendam to Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga and, finally, to Tottenham in the summer for £43million.

'The first couple of times when you are a young guy and you play in big stadiums, you are nervous,' says Van de Ven. 'He always taught me just to accept the chaos. 

'When I went to the Bundesliga, that was really when this helped me. He was always saying, like, just in the warm-up, just enjoy what you see. Enjoy the people around you.

'Just enjoy the vibe of the stadium and everything. And then, when you have to go in and come back out, just switch on. Just accept everything what's going on around because you know it's going to happen and you can't do something about it so he was just like: 'Accept it.' And that was the moment that I was like, when I went on the pitch, I just felt: 'Okay. Accept everything.' I know that it's going to be chaos. I know it's going to be weird for so many people but just do your job and then it went well.'

It's not always been so smooth, though. There was a moment, while Van de Ven was in the under-16s, when it was undecided whether Volendam might release the young centre-back. He stayed there until under-19s but, once again, his progress halted.

'I went through, through, through the levels and then I came to the under-19s and I played this whole year but the gaffer, he didn't see the potential of me.'

Van de Ven doesn't want to the name the coach. 'He was like, no, the guys who are playing right now are way better than you. You are not fast enough.'

Not fast enough? Anyone who has seen Tottenham play this season will know pace is far from low on Van de Ven's list of attributes. In February, in fact, Van de Ven broke Kyle Walker's record for the fastest speed ever clocked in Premier League history reaching 23.23mph when he chased back to catch Brentford's Lewis Keane-Potter. So, yes, the words of his coach came as a shock.

'That was maybe the most strange thing for me that a coach was telling me that I was not fast enough,' he says. 'I was like: 'Ehhhh?! Haven't you seen me sprint?' I had to accept it because I was younger and he was saying we don't really see the potential for you to become a first-team player in a couple of years.'

Van de Ven sought his dad's advice. Should he quit and go and play in the amateur leagues? 'He said: 'No. Just keep pushing and pushing.' I don't know what I would have done if I didn't become a footballer. But then Wim Jonk, the current Volendam manager, came in. He'd seen me play. He gave me a contract straight away. He'd only been there for a week. I went to the under-21s and became captain straight away. I played six to eight games and then, boom, first-team.'

He's hardly looked back since. He joined Wolfsburg in 2021 and played all but one game last season in the Bundesliga. He set the top speed of any defender in the league that season too.

He's always been quick, he says. When Van de Ven broke the Premier League speed record in February, social media jumped to point out that when Usain Bolt set the 100m world record his average speed was 23.35mph. Average speed versus top speed, of course, but, hey, not a bad a comparison.

'I like Usain Bolt but I don't want to compare myself to him!' says Van de Ven. 'It's genetics. When I was younger I was really fast. I was an attacker then. I would outsprint everyone.'

Ahead of his move to Spurs last summer he travelled to London with Marcel and his agent to meet Ange Postecoglou.

'His vision of football, I liked it a lot. The way he spoke to me and the trust he gave in me convinced me, my dad and my agent that this is a good step.'

Van de Ven's fitted in well. He's been key to Tottenham this season. Spurs lost four of the nine league games he missed with a hamstring injury earlier in the season.

He's bonded with James Maddison over darts, too. Van de Ven teamed up with 2023 world champion Michael 'Bully Boy' Smith last month to take on Maddison and Nathan Aspinall.

Van de Ven also took part in the Nine Dart Challenge at Alexandra Palace, or Ally Pally as its best known, the home of the world championships where went up against legendary caller Russ Bray.

'I was nervous! When I was standing there and the board was further away than I thought. Imagine throwing three darts outside the board and everyone is like "what is this guy doing?!" At least I won!'

Unlike most of the darts crowd, he steered clear of fancy dress.

'Maybe I can go undercover one time and nobody will know,' he says.

That shouldn't be too difficult. Such things run in the Van de Ven family. Just ask his dad.