Willy Dullens

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Willy Dullens (1967)

Willy Dullens (born January 29, 1945 in Broek-Sittard ) is a Dutch former football player . He played in the Eredivisie for RKSV Sittardia , a predecessor of Fortuna Sittard . For the Dutch national team , he completed four internationals .

Career

Dullens played at Almania in his hometown as a teenager before moving to Sittardia at 18. The ambitious boy was football-obsessed, trained eight hours a day, had built a rowing machine for himself and a pendulum headed ball in the garden , on which the rather short Dullens practiced until he could finally jump up to 2.23 meters high. At Sittardia he made his debut in the 1963/64 season in the first team that played second class in the Eerste Divisie . With 18 goals, the attacking midfielder played a major role in Sittardia's promotion to the Eredivisie. Despite the relegation immediately following, Dullens - one of the greatest offensive talents that Dutch football has ever had, a better technician even than Johan Cruyff , as he himself stated - stayed with Sittardia. After the 1965/66 season he was named Dutch Footballer of the Year - although he only played in the Eerste Divisie, but had once again ensured the rise of Limburg .

After a collision with defender Bart van Ingen from SBV Vitesse , Dullens suffered serious knee injuries in a friendly match in 1966: both cruciate ligaments were torn and both menisci had to be removed. Then he was under contract for two more years at Sittardia, where his friend and team doctor Thei Jessen treated his injuries. Dullens tried to get back to his old form, but his knee did not heal in the way that professional football was possible in the long term. After the merger of Sittardia with Fortuna'54, he was able to achieve two league goals in the 1968/69 season at the club, which now operates as FSC (Fortuna Sittardia Combinatie). After he was injured again in a game against DWS Amsterdam , he had to end his professional career prematurely at the age of 24. In August 1969, a benefit game was held for him in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam , in which the AFC Ajax played against Alemannia Aachen in front of 60,000 spectators . Almost 150,000 guilders came together with which Dullens should build a new existence.

National team

In the national team , Dullens played four games under bond coach Georg Keßler , all in 1966. He was part of the squad in the first match in which Keßler was in charge of the Elftal . On March 23, 1966, however, he did not get beyond the role of reservist in the friendly against Germany . But already in the next meeting, on April 17th in the friendly against Belgium , he made his debut in Orange . Operations against Scotland and Czechoslovakia followed. But the European Championship qualifier against Denmark on November 30, 1966 should have been his last international match. Well-known teammates of Dullens in the Elftal were among others Wim Suurbier , Piet Keizer , Rinus Israël and once Johan Cruyff. In all encounters, Dullens was on the pitch for the full 90 minutes, but he failed to score.

After the active career

After he had to end his career early, Dullens struggled with depression for a long time . He switched to cycling and looked after cyclists from the region. In 1980 he used the money from the 1969 charity game to buy a hairdressing salon , which he ran himself until 2000. When the Dutch team played at the European Championship in Germany in the summer of 1988 , Dullens had to be treated psychologically for a long time because of overwork and extreme emotional stress. Reason: Dullens drew parallels between the long-injured Marco van Basten , who was initially not featured in the European Championship, and his own football fate.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Dullens had to give up work in the hairdressing salon; The reason was a torn shoulder tendon . Dullens returned to the football business: he initially became a "technical advisor" at his old club Fortuna Sittard and has been working in the same position at VVV-Venlo since 2009 .

It was "stupid" of him, he said in 2008, to open the hairdressing salon back then:

“I should have stayed with football. But at the time I couldn't help it. It all felt so unfair. I had always lived like an ascetic for my sport. Why did the misfortune have to hit me like that? I still ask myself the question sometimes today. But I'll take this question with me to the grave. Because there is no answer to it. "

- Willy Dullens

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dullens' international match record at voetbalstats.nl
  2. ↑ “'Stom', zegt hij nu. 'Ik had in het voetbal moeten blijven. Maar op dat moment kon ik dat niet aan. Het voelde zo onrechtvaardig. Ik had altijd als een asceet voor mijn sport leefd. Waarom moest uitgerekend mij het noodlot zo meet? Ik vraag het me soms nog steeds af. Maar die vraag neem ik mee het graf in. He is geen antwoord op. '” , Quoted in: Iwan Tol, Willy Dullens: voor altijd een' blessuregeval ' ( Memento from 7 October 2008 in the Internet Archive ), DePers.nl from June 19, 2008, viewed November 30, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Dullens, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Broek-Sittard