Stats and strategies are used to build some World Cup stories. Then there are the ones that stop you in the middle of scrolling because they are almost too human to handle. Cody Gakpo and his partner Noa van der Bij have been through the second type of grief: grief that is carried quietly across an ocean and through one of the loudest sporting events in the world.
Noa van der Bij has never been someone who wanted to be the center of attention. Before this tournament, she was mostly known in the football world as Gakpo’s girlfriend. She would sometimes show up in his social media posts to support him without acting like she was doing it for attention. She’s 25 years old, and most people say she’s built her own life without his fame. That’s important because what she said in public at the end of June wasn’t meant to get attention. It was just the truth, and it was terrible.
Van der Bij wrote a message on June 27 that most people would find hard to write, let alone share with hundreds of thousands of strangers on Instagram Stories. Their second child, a boy named Elijah Raphael Gakpo, died while they were still with child. A few weeks earlier, on May 30, the couple shared the news of their pregnancy with the simple caption, “Our little family is growing.” In retrospect, there’s something about that phrase that feels heavy.
Gakpo shared her message again and asked for privacy. “This is an incredibly difficult time for our family,” he said. The Dutch Football Association said he would stay with the team. Ronald Koeman, the manager, was careful about how he talked about it. He said that Gakpo had been able to spend time with his family and that the player had never asked to leave. Gakpo and Noa are the only ones who could say for sure if staying was the right choice. From the outside, it looked like two people were doing their best in a situation that no one planned for.
Gakpo played against Morocco in the Round of 32 two days later in Monterrey. Late in the second half, he scored the first goal. He then got down on his knees. His teammates ran over right away. He held his arms up high. It wasn’t a planned party; it was real, like something that even he wasn’t expecting. Van der Bij shared a picture of that exact moment from the stands or from home, writing only “So proud” with a prayer emoji and an orange heart.
A partner seeing a grieving friend score a goal and feeling proud through the pain is the kind of detail that doesn’t need to be added on to.
Gakpo and Noa van der Bij also have a son together. His name is Samuel and he was born in April 2025. A lot of people were moved by something she wrote in her first message about Elijah’s death: “After lighting a candle at church, she and Samuel walked to the nearby playground, where there was only one other child.” Joshua was his name. It’s the kind of coincidence that sounds like a story but makes more sense when you know it’s true. She told them straight out, which might have been smart.
People often write football partners into the news as if they don’t have any important roles. Van der Bij fights back against that framing not by speaking out, but by being honest. She was warm when she told everyone she was pregnant, honest when she told everyone she had lost, and found something to hold on to when she watched her partner play the biggest match of his tournament season. There’s no plot there. That person is just getting through a rough few weeks with as much grace as anyone could muster.
In the end, Morocco beat the Netherlands on penalties. Their goal of Gakpo wasn’t enough to get them through. But what he and Noa van der Bij told the world in those few days—they didn’t mean for it to become a story at all—is likely to last much longer than the outcome of the tournament.
