Marco van Basten

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Marco van Basten
Marco van Basten © Paul Blank
Personal information
Full name Marcel van Basten
Position(s) Striker
Team information
Current team
 Ajax (manager)

Marcel "Marco" van Basten (31 October 1964 in Oog in Al, Utrecht) is a Dutch football manager, currently in charge of AFC Ajax, having stepped down as coach of the Dutch national team upon their exit from Euro 2008. Previously, he was a football player who played for Ajax Amsterdam and A.C. Milan in the 1980s and early 1990s. He is regarded as one of the finest forwards of all time and scored 277 goals in a career cut short by injury. Known for his strength on the ball, his tactical awareness and spectacular strikes and volleys, Van Basten was named European Footballer of the Year three times (1988, '89 and '92) and FIFA World Player of the Year in 1992. Van Basten was voted eighth in a poll organised by the French weekly magazine France Football consulting their former Ballon D'Or winners to elect the Football Player of the Century.[2]

Playing career

Marco van Basten was born on 31 October 1964 in Utrecht, where he started his football career at the age of seven. Van Basten's first club was a local team, EDO. After one year, he went to UVV Utrecht. After spending ten years there, he moved to another club from Utrecht, Elinkwijk, where he played very briefly, just before Ajax signed him. He played his first game for Ajax in April 1982, scoring at his debut in the 5-0 victory over NEC Nijmegen.

Van Basten became a prolific goalscorer while at Ajax and displayed a brilliant technique. During the 1982-83 season he had European top scorer, Wim Kieft, as his main rival for Ajax's centre forward position, which caused him to play only 20 games, scoring 9 goals. However, Kieft was sold to Serie A club Pisa the next season, and Ajax continued the mid-eighties with the teenage forward.

He became top scorer in the following four seasons (1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987), scoring 117 goals in 112 matches. A highlight of this run was the season 1985-86, when he scored 37 goals in 26 matches (including six against Sparta and five against Heracles) in the Eredivisie, making him the winner of the European Golden Boot that year. In the 1986-87 season, Van Basten scored the winning goal in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final against FC Lokomotive Leipzig.

In 1987, Silvio Berlusconi brought Van Basten to Milan, with fellow countrymen Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard joining him in 1988. In his first season Milan won their first scudetto (league championship) in eight years, but Van Basten played only eleven games and was constantly troubled by an ankle injury. Despite this, Van Basten scored five goals in Euro 88: a hat-trick against England, the winning goal in the semi-final against West Germany, and a spectacular volley in the final against the Soviet Union, as the Dutch national team won the European Championship.[3] He was top scorer at the tournament, and also the only player to score more than two goals.

Helped by his form in international competition, Van Basten had an excellent season in 1988-89, winning European Footballer of the Year and scoring nineteen goals in Serie A as well as helping Milan demolish Steaua Bucharest by scoring twice to win the European Cup. In 1989-90 he was Capocannoniere (Serie A's leading goal scorer) and Milan defended their European Cup successfully against Benfica. The Dutch national side had a poor World Cup in 1990, going out to West Germany in the second round.

Domestically Milan's 1990-91 season was disappointing as Sampdoria won the scudetto. Van Basten fell out with Milan's manager Arrigo Sacchi and Berlusconi sacked Sacchi to placate him. Managed by Fabio Capello the following season, Milan did not lose a single game in the league and won the championship, van Basten scoring 25 goals and becoming Capocannoniere again. Internationally, the Netherlands reached the semi-final of Euro 92 where they lost to Denmark in a penalty shootout, van Basten having his penalty saved by Peter Schmeichel. In November 1992 he scored four goals against IFK Gothenburg, which is still a UEFA Champions League record for the most goals scored by a player in a single match (it was later equalled by Simone Inzaghi in 2000 and Dado Prso in 2004).

Milan stretched their unbeaten run into the 1992-93 season, going 58 matches in total before they lost a game. Van Basten played exceptionally well in the early part of the season and was voted European Player of the Year for a third time (equalling the record of Johan Cruyff and Michel Platini) before his troublesome ankle injury [4] recurred in a game against Ancona. Van Basten underwent another series of operations and returned to Milan for the final few domestic games before they lost the Champions League final to Marseille. The final was Van Basten's final game for Milan. He spent more than two years fighting to make a comeback, but finally conceded defeat in 1995 and announced his retirement from playing.

He did come back for Demetrio Albertini's testimonial match at San Siro however (December 2005), and scored a goal (from a header) before being substituted early in the first half.

On 22 July 2006 he again returned for testimonial football to celebrate the 11-year Arsenal playing career of Dennis Bergkamp, in the first game at Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium. He played a fair part of the second half for the AFC Ajax legends team, appearing as part of a double substitution that also introduced Johan Cruijff.

During March 2007, Sky Sports named Marco Van Basten the number 1 on their list of the great players who had their career cut short.[5]

Managing career

Van Basten while manager of the Netherlands.

Van Basten officially left Milan in 1995 and retired from football, stating he would never try management. However, he changed his mind and took a course with the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB). His first stint as a manager was as an assistant to his former teammate John van 't Schip with the second team of Ajax in 2003-04. On 29 July 2004,[6] Van Basten was named the new manager of the Dutch national team, with van 't Schip as his assistant.

As a coach, he soon established himself as a man of strong principles. Van Basten famously dropped regulars like Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids and Roy Makaay and benched Mark van Bommel, because he believed that they were either past their prime or constantly underachieving.

There were also calls for Van Basten to call up Dennis Bergkamp who had retired from the national team 6 years earlier for a final hurrah as he was retiring that season. Van Basten then revealed to the media that he never intended to do so despite Bergkamp's own willingness.

For probably the first time in decades, none of the "Big Three" Clubs (Ajax Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoven, and Feyenoord Rotterdam) provided the backbone for the national team. Instead newcomer AZ Alkmaar led the way with players like Denny Landzaat, Barry Opdam, Barry van Galen, Ron Vlaar, Jan Kromkamp and Joris Mathijsen. Other unheralded choices were Khalid Boulahrouz, Hedwiges Maduro, Ryan Babel and Romeo Castelen. Van Basten had also wanted to include Ivorian forward Salomon Kalou, but was thwarted when Kalou was denied Dutch citizenship by the immigration authorities headed by Rita Verdonk. Kalou eventually accepted a call-up to play for the Ivory Coast.

Van Basten (left) with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar during a training prior to Euro 2008.

Under his guidance, the team were unbeaten in their World Cup qualification group and made it through the group stages at the FIFA World Cup 2006, but were eliminated in a frenzied 1-0 loss to Portugal in the Round of 16. Van Basten was heavily criticised for dropping Ruud van Nistelrooy (who had scored twenty-eight goals for the Netherlands) before this game, in favour of Dirk Kuyt, who did not score throughout the entire tournament.

In November 2006, Van Basten recalled exiled Milan midfielder Clarence Seedorf for a friendly against England at the Amsterdam ArenA. In May 2007, Van Basten announced the end of his long-running dispute with Real Madrid forward Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had previously declared never to play for a Dutch national squad with Van Basten as its manager.[7] Other players, such as Roy Makaay, Mark van Bommel, Boudewijn Zenden, and Edgar Davids, however, remain out of favour.

Van Basten had a contract with the KNVB for managing the Dutch national side until 2008. The KNVB had expressed its wishes to extend his contract to include the World Cup qualification route to 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. On 22 February 2008 Van Basten signed a four-year contract with Ajax, starting from 1 July.[8] His last tournament thus was Euro 2008, where the Netherlands surprised with a strong round 1 performance. They were beaten by Guus Hiddink's Russia in the quarter finals.

Van Basten became trainer of AFC Ajax after Euro 2008.

Honours

Club honours

Ajax Amsterdam


A.C. Milan


International honours


Individual honours

Statistics

Player

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1981-82||rowspan="6"|Ajax||rowspan="6"|Eredivisie||1||1||1||0||colspan="2"|-||2||1 |- |1982-83||20||9||5||4||colspan="2"|-||25||13 |- |1983-84||26||28||4||1||2||0||32||29 |- |1984-85||33||22||4||2||4||5||41||29 |- |1985-86||26||37||1||0||2||0||29||37 |- |1986-87||27||31||7||6||9||6||43||43 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1987-88||rowspan="6"|Milan||rowspan="6"|Serie A||11||3||5||5||3||0||19||8 |- |1988-89||33||19||5||4||9||9||47||32 |- |1989-90||26||19||4||1||10||4||40||24 |- |1990-91||31||11||1||0||3||0||34||11 |- |1991-92||31||25||7||4||colspan="2"|-||38||29 |- |1992-93||15||13||2||1||5||6||22||20 Template:Football player statistics 3133||128||22||13||17||11||172||152 Template:Football player statistics 4147||90||24||15||30||19||201||124 Template:Football player statistics 5280||218||44||26||43||30||373||276 |}

  • Cup include domestic cups and supercups
  • Continental include European cups, European supercup and Intercontinental cup

Manager

Team Nat From To Record
G W D L Win %
Netherlands Netherlands 52 35 11 6 67.31
Ajax Netherlands

References

  1. ^ a b c "National Football Teams Profiles - Marco van Basten".
  2. ^ The Best x Players of the Century/All-Time
  3. ^ "Marco's late hook floors the favourites". Guardian. 1988-06-22. Retrieved 2008-09-16.
  4. ^ "How Capello won his nine league titles". Guardian. 2007-12-14. Retrieved 2008-09-16.
  5. ^ Top Ten: Careers Cut Short.
  6. ^ "Van Basten given Dutch reins". Guardian. 2004-07-29. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
  7. ^ Ruud makes his peace with Marco, yahoo sports
  8. ^ Van Basten takes ajax role, Sky Sports.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marco van Basten.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Dutch Footballer of the Year
1985 		Succeeded by
Preceded by European Golden Boot
1985 – 1986 		Succeeded by
Preceded by European Footballer of the Year
1988 – 1989 		Succeeded by
Preceded by European Footballer of the Year
1992 		Succeeded by
Preceded by FIFA World Player of the Year
1992 		Succeeded by
Preceded by World Soccer Player of the Year
1988 		Succeeded by
Preceded by World Soccer Player of the Year
1992 		Succeeded by
Sporting positions
Preceded by Dutch Eredivisie Topscorer
1983-1987 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Serie A top scorer
1989-90 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Serie A top scorer
1991-92 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Netherlands national football team manager
2004-2008 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Ajax manager
2008-present 		Succeeded by
Incumbent

Template:BD

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