The Dutch have a long-standing love affair with football. Glancing through the annals of footballing history, it is impossible to avoid moments of Dutch majesty. Dennis Bergkamp’s impudent turn and finish for…
As featured on Guardian Sport Despite its obvious and very pragmatic function, the humble umbrella has proven itself more foe than friend to football managers. The modern game’s umbrella-related history is short and…
Johan Cruyff is one of the true legends of football, and without any doubt the biggest Dutch star of all time, however it wasn’t always that way. In his younger years at…
Ajax Amsterdam are one of the most successful football clubs in the world and the most famous of the Netherlands’ club sides. Famed for their highly successful youth academy, the early to…
In an era where the influence of the Eredivisie is waning and being widely written off, one young Mexican is continuing a tradition of Latin American inspiration in the Netherlands. Hirving Lozano, affectionately…
At the turn of the Millenium, football was suffering a decline in the southern Dutch region of Limburg. All the main local clubs found themselves in dire financial straits, yo-yoing between the first…
SET TO THE BACKDROP of a harsh and heavy winter sky, a January evening spectating at the Johan Cruijff Arena can feel an unforgiving endeavour. The air’s damp chill – aided by…
TRADITIONALLY, ‘while Amsterdam dreams, Rotterdam works’ – or so the saying goes. Extending the stereotype, Ajax Amsterdam often appear to mirror their hedonistic city’s defiant confidence. It appears – wrongly – as…
BARRY HULSHOFF – beard unkempt, socks rolled down and a mullet with a life of its own – was something of a prototype. Looking something like the love child of Rod Stewart…
BACK WHEN I WAS NINE YEARS OLD, we had a family vacation in England. As we were walking down the street in Cobham, Surrey, my father spotted a couple of Chelsea players,…
The date is 13 June 2014. It is the 44th minute at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, Brazil, and the Netherlands are playing defending champions Spain in their first group stage match…
TO SOME, HE’S ONE OF THE BEST MANAGERS OF THE PAST TWO DECADES, willing to sacrifice style for substance and flair for formality. To others, he’s an unnerving disciplinarian, an expert at…
To a child falling in love with football right now, there’s a world of difference between FC Barcelona and Ajax Amsterdam. Barcelona play in a popular league with megastars in every position,…
When the monstrous army of Persia trampled over the slaughtered remains of a patchwork Greek force of a few thousand at the mountain pass of Thermopylae in 480BC, it could have been…
FOOTBALLERS TEND TO decline as they move into their 30s, with dimming enthusiasm and an assortment of injuries tending to slowly draw the curtain on their careers. But goalkeepers are the anomaly…
Pareidolia – the perceiving of familiarity where none exists – is a more common psychological phenomenon than you might think. Frequently reported examples include; finding images in cloud formations, visualising a man…