Willy van de Kerkhof

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Willy van de Kerkhof
Willy van de Kerkhof 1975.jpg
Willy van de Kerkhof 1975
Personnel
Surname Wilhelmus Antonius van de Kerkhof
birthday September 16, 1951
place of birth Helmond ,  Netherlands
position midfield
Juniors
Years station
FC Twente Enschede
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1970-1973 FC Twente Enschede 93 (14)
1973-1988 PSV Eindhoven 418 (57)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1973-1986 Netherlands 63 0(5)
1 Only league games are given.
Willy van de Kerkhof, 1977

Wilhelmus Antonius "Willy" van de Kerkhof (born September 16, 1951 in Helmond ) is a Dutch former football player . He played in the Eredivisie for FC Twente from Enschede and for 15 years for PSV from Eindhoven , with whom he was multiple times Dutch and cup winners and won both the UEFA Cup and the European Cup . At two world and two European championship finals, he was in the squad of the Dutch national team together with his twin brother René, who was 30 minutes younger than him, and was twice vice world champion.

Club career

FC Twente

Willy van de Kerkhof's career is closely linked to coach Kees Rijvers . Rijvers discovered Willy and René van de Kerkhof at the Helmonder amateur club RKSV MULO. He actually only wanted to sign the younger René of the two strikers , but mother van de Kerkhof insisted on “both or neither”, so that the 18-year-old twins went to FC Twente in Enschede for the 1970/71 season . The association could probably afford the 1500 guilders additional costs, said Rijvers. Three years later, PSV paid 1.8 million guilders for the two.

While René went straight to the first team of the up-and-coming club - Twente was third in 1969 and fourth in the Eredivisie in 1970 - Willy initially had to make do with the second team. Van de Kerkhof suspected "that Rijvers let me train with the first team and then play in the second to see if I could play in several positions." Van de Kerkhof found his place in midfield - but never let himself be up there define a special role, but was just as present in attack as on defensive, in which he did not lose a ball, which ultimately earned him his nickname "vacuum cleaner". It only took a few weeks before he made his debut in the Eredivisie alongside his brother and also earned a regular place. Thanks to the van de Kerkhof brothers, striker Jan Jeuring , goalkeeper Piet Schrijvers and his defense around Epi Drost and Cees van Ierssel , FC Twente managed to establish itself behind the "big three" clubs Ajax , PSV and Feijenoord . Already in their first professional season the Kerkhof brothers played internationally; in the 1970/71 Messestädte-Pokal , Twente reached the quarter-finals against Juventus Turin . With third place in the honor division in 1972, the Tukkers qualified for the first time for the UEFA Cup , from which the team only had to leave after the semi-finals with two defeats against Borussia Mönchengladbach .

Despite their success, the van de Kerkhofs in Enschede were still semi-professionals. Willy van de Kerkhof had already worked in Helmond as an assistant to the management of a grocery store. During his time at FC Twente, he worked part-time for Albert Heijn in the Ensched district of Deppenbroek. He only became a full professional when he switched to PSV in 1973.

PSV Eindhoven

Kees Rijvers had already moved to Eindhoven as a coach in 1972 ( Spitz Kohn had taken over the position at FC Twente); the van de Kerkhof brothers followed him a year later. The beginning of two employment relationships that should develop into a long-term success story. As in his six years in Enschede, Rijvers built a young - and even more successful - team in Eindhoven. For Willy van de Kerkhof this meant in the next seventeen years that he was under contract with PSV (from 1988, however, the last two years with the amateurs): six Dutch championships , three KNVB Cup wins , one UEFA Cup victory and one win of the European Cup of National Champions .

National team

Amateurs and youth

The Van de Kerkhof twins were the last national players to make it from the Dutch amateur national team to the senior national team. In the autumn of 1969, when they were still active at the fifth-rate MULO in Helmond, they were appointed to the squad for the qualifying games for the European Amateur Championship . On October 25, 1969, they made their debut in the match in Wales , at that time still both as strikers, Willy on the right wing position , René on the left wing. The team reached the finals in Italy, defeated the Yugoslav team in Forte dei Marmi 4-0 and had to face the Spanish representation in the final. The match ended with a 1-1 draw after extra time; the Netherlands lost the replay the following day with 1: 2. The young players were hoping, then van the two days reminded de Kerkhof later, as a reward for second place later in the near Milan held European Cup final between Feijenoord and the Celtic FC visit to be allowed, but the KNVB ordered the journey home for the next day on.

After their good performance with the amateurs, the twins would also play in the junior national team, which would compete in the UEFA youth tournament a few weeks later . René decided to go to Scotland, where the team also reached second place (after drawing lots in the final against the GDR selection); Willy, on the other hand, was closer to the club that was fighting for promotion to the Tweede class at the same time . Later the van de Kerkhofs played together in the juniors; Her teammates at that time included her later companions in the A-Elf, Johan Neeskens , Wim Rijsbergen and Johnny Rep .

A national team

Willy van de Kerkhof completed a total of 63 international matches after being promoted to the A-Eleven and scored five goals. He was twice part of the Dutch World Cup squad, both times Oranje was vice world champion. While Willy van de Kerkhof did not play in Germany in 1974 , unlike his brother René - he had only played one half-time in an international match, shortly before the World Cup on June 5, 1974 in a 0-0 test against Romania , and came only as a replacement for the injured Gerrie Mühren - both twins were part of the regular formation in Argentina in 1978 and played in all seven games. Both brothers scored one goal each. Their first “big” tournament had previously been the European Championship in 1976 , in which the finals in Yugoslavia only began with the semi-finals; the favored Dutch then had to make do with the game for third place, in which Willy van de Kerkhof scored his first goal in the Oranje dress in a 3-2 win over the hosts .

At the 1980 European Championship in Italy, Willy van de Kerkhof's duel with his direct opponent Bernd Schuster in the game against the German team was one of the decisive factors for the Dutch elimination . Van de Kerkhof, now almost 30 years old, could not get the 20-year-old midfield director under control in this match. Schuster prepared two of Klaus Allofs' three goals . Even if the Netherlands came close to 3-2 in the last ten minutes of the game thanks to a penalty from Johnny Rep and the fifth and final international goal by Willy van de Kerkhof, the German victory was never in danger. Since the last group game of an apparently listless Dutch team against the ČSSR ended in a draw, the EM was over for the team of bond coach Jan Zwartkruis .

Under the successors of Zwartkruis, his long-time club coach Kees Rijvers and then Leo Beenhakker , Willy van de Kerkhof was still part of the national team's permanent staff. After failing to qualify for the 1986 World Cup - Willy van de Kerkhof had his last appearance in the first relegation game against Belgium, but could only watch from the bench in the second leg as his team was eliminated due to the away goal of the Belgians - he finished at the end of 1985 after eleven and a half years his career in the Elftal .

Achievements and honors

  • From Pele was Willy van de Kerkhof, together again with René, to the list in March 2004 FIFA 100 was added, the 125 greatest living footballers.

Private

Van de Kerkhof's daughter Joyce is married to former Dutch international André Ooijer .

literature

  • Willy van de Kerkhof over EK '80: 'Vreijsen speelt, typically een beslissing van Zwartkruis' , in: Johan Derksen et al., Het Nederlands Elftal 1905–1989. De historie van Oranje , Weekbladpers BV / Voetbal International, Amsterdam 1989, ISBN 90-236-7211-9 , p. 314ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ At that time, professional clubs had to pay 1,500 guilders as compensation to amateur clubs for each poached player. 1500 guilders in 1970 correspond to purchasing power of around € 2,630 in 2008; calculated with the purchasing power converter Waarde van de gulden / euro of the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
  2. ↑ The total corresponds to a purchasing power of around € 2.5 million in 2008; calculated with the purchasing power converter Waarde van de gulden / euro of the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
  3. ↑ For 1500 guilders sea we ons geen buil vallen, zei Rijvers, toen wij alleen seeds wild komen. Three years later betaalde PSV 1,8 miljoen voor ons tweeën. Willy van de Kerkhof, in: Derksen et al., Het Nederlands Elftal , p. 315
  4. ↑ Ik think that Rijvers me bewust met de A-selectie liet trainen, maar met het tweede liet spelen om te kijken of ik op meerdere posities uit de voeten kon. Portrait on the FC Twente website, viewed on October 26, 2010
  5. ↑ On the EM 1980 see Het toernooi van 1980 verslag (PDF; 203 kB), viewed on October 27, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Kerkhof, Willy van de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kerkhof, Wilhelmus Antonius van de (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Helmond