Leo Canjels

Leo Canjels 1973

Leo Canjels (born April 1, 1933 in Breda ; † May 26, 2010 ibid) was a Dutch football player and coach . The striker was active at NAC Breda and was two top scorer in the Eredivisie . He was also used three times in the national team. As a trainer, he was responsible for NAC and Maastrichtse VV in his home country . He won the championship in 1973 with the Belgian first division club Brugge .

Player career

society

Canjels began playing football after the Second World War in the youth of VV Baronie in his hometown Breda, who played in the Eerste Divisie when professional football was introduced in 1954 , but was only third-rate in the following season. With the introduction of the Eredivisie, Canjels switched to NAC in 1956, who had finished second in the Dutch championship the previous season. The 22-year-old was able to integrate successfully into the team around national player Kees Kuijs . After a defeat at AFC Ajax in his first first division match on September 2, 1956, he showed his scoring quality on his home debut against NOAD from Tilburg a week later: in a 2-2 draw, he scored both goals for NAC. A total of 18 goals in 32 games in his first season . However, this did not make him one of the six best shooters - PSV striker Coen Dillen took the top scorer title with 43 goals.

Because of his hard shot, Canjels earned the nickname het kanon , "the cannon". The showed their shooting power in the following season 1957/58 : with 32 hits in 29 missions Canjels sat at the top of the scorer list in front of the established Tonny van der Linden and Coen Dillen. In the following season no one could get past the Bredaer; he was again top scorer with 33 goals from 32 games. In two games he scored four goals against clubs from Tilburg: he scored all goals in the 4-0 win against NOAD in the 1957/58 season as well as in the 4-0 win against Willem II in the following season . Despite these performances, NAC did not get beyond midfield positions in the Eredivisie at the end of each season. Canjels remained active at NAC until 1963; in his seven Eredivisie seasons he scored 114 goals in 147 games.

National team

In May 1959, bond coach Elek Schwartz used Canjels in three friendly matches for the Dutch national team. In his first match, a 0-0 draw in Istanbul against Turkey , and in his last game in Amsterdam in a 2-1 draw against Scotland , he went without a goal; on his second appearance in Sofia against Bulgaria , he scored both goals of the Nederlands Elftal in the 3-2 defeat .

Trainer

Canjels was initially a trainer at the KNVB coaching school in Zeist and then trained with VV Dongen . In 1963 he went to his former club Baronie and in 1964 to VV Internos in Etten-Leur , before moving back to NAC Breda in 1965 as an assistant coach. In 1968 he became head coach of NAC, but could not achieve any major success. In 1971 he went to the Belgian first division for Club Brugge, where he took his compatriots Nico Rijnders from Ajax and Wietze Veenstra from PSV, around whom he built a successful team. At the end of the season, with the same number of points, the number of wins decided the championship in favor of RSC Anderlecht . The team was strengthened by players like Ruud Geels , Georges Leekens and Ulrik le Fevre from Mönchengladbach , and in the following season the team won a championship title for the club again after 53 years. However, Canjels was dismissed a little later after he had complained in the Dutch trade magazine Voetbal International about the club's board. He went to the Eredivisie at MVV in Maastricht , where he stayed for two years. In 1975 he went back to Belgium and then coached Patro Eisden Maasmechelen and Beringen FC for two years in a row . In 1979 he came back to Bruges , but to the local rival of the club , Cercle Brugge , who had just been promoted back to the first class . In 1982 he left Cercle in a relegation battle. He went to KV Mechelen in the second division and led him back to the first class - the beginning of the successful time of the Mechelen with the European Cup victory in 1988 as the highlight. In 1985 Canjels had left the club again. He coached other Belgian second division teams in the following years, such as Eendracht Aalst , Overpelt and two more times Patro Eisden. In 1990 he ended his coaching career at FC Boom . He then stayed in Belgium as a private citizen, but settled near the Dutch border.

Web links

• Coach portrait at Club Brugge
• International match statistics at voetbalstats.nl
• League statistics at Voetbal International