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Continuing with our series on the greatest footballers of all time, here’s No. 15 on our list.
No. 15 – Marco van Basten
278 goals in 376 club appearances. UEFA European Championship winner (Netherlands – 1988). Three-time European Cup winner (1989, 1990, 1994). FIFA World Player of the Year 1992. Three-time European Footballer of the Year (1988, 1989, 1992).
And a host of other team as well as individual honors; there’s almost no accolade that Marco van Basten didn’t win in his career. One of the greatest strikers to ever grace the beautiful game, van Basten’s glittering career spanned over 13 years playing for the Netherlands national team and two clubs – Ajax and AC Milan.
Van Basten was born in the city of Utrecht, and as as a kid he dreamed, not of playing football, but of being a world-class gymnast – a trait that was transferred onto the football field with his impeccable technique in scoring some of the most stunning goals ever. He started playing football at the age of seven for a local team, before moving to a bigger club in UVV Utrecht, where he spent 10 years. After a brief year-long spell at another local club, Dutch football giants Ajax signed him at the start of the 1981-82 season.
Legend goes that when Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff was leading the Netherlands side during the friendlies ahead of the Mundialito (what we now know as the FIFA Confederations Cup) in 1980, he introduced a 16-year-old van Basten to former Italian and Internazionale great Alessandro Mazzola in Milan, saying, “Look at him, he’s the new Cruyff.” Talking about the incident years later, Mazzola recalled, “Cruyff showed us Marco; we understood immediately that we were in front of an amazing player.”
Van Basten initially had a difficult time breaking into the first team because of stiff competition for a place on the starting lineup. He finally made his professional debut for Ajax against NEC Nijmegen on the 3rd of April 1982, when he came on for Johan Cruyff – a fitting substitution for a young player who was to take over the mantle from the legendary striker both at club as well as national level for the years to come.
Game time continued to be scarce the following season too, with van Basten managing 9 goals in 20 appearances while competing for a starting place with European Golden Boot winner Wim Kieft. However, he barged into the limelight following the exit of Kieft next season and took the Eredivisie by storm, scoring an incredible 28 goals in just 26 league appearances. Over the six seasons he spent at Ajax, he racked up an astonishing 154 goals in 175 games in all competitions, the highlight being the European Golden Boot in the 1985-86 season, besides being the Dutch league top scorer for four seasons in a row.
His exit from Ajax might have been caused by a fall-out with then-Ajax coach Johan Cruyff, but van Basten maintains that Cruyff remains the biggest influence on his footballing career. In a recent interview to Champions League magazine, he spoke about the Dutch legend in glowing terms –
“If I look back now, there’s one person who has been close to me all the time and had the greatest influence on my way of thinking. That person is Cruyff. First as my coach, now as my advisor and friend. As a player and a coach, he was in a different class. It was his genius that showed me the best that football has to offer.”
In the meantime, he was a significant member of the Netherlands team that went on to win the UEFA European Championship in 1988. He was the tournament’s leading goal-scorer with 5 goals, which included a hat-trick against England, the winner against West Germany in the semis and a trademark volleyed strike against the Soviet Union in the final. His performance in the Euro resulted in him becoming the European Footballer of the Year that season.
Coming into the Euro, van Basten had endured an injury-plagued first season in Serie A, having signed for AC Milan the year before. However, the successful Euro campaign kicked off the most fruitful period of his career – he was a vital part of the great AC Milan team managed by Arrigo Sacchi which went on to win two back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990. At the same time, Marco van Basten also became the most-feared and lethal striker in Europe. He plundered 19 league goals in both seasons and also emerged as the top goal-scorer in the 1988-89 European Cup campaign.
His form dipped for a while, with disappointments both on the club as well as national front –Milan getting banned for a year from European football, and Netherlands crashing out early in the 1990 World Cup and losing against Denmark in the 1992 Euro semis due to a missed penalty by van Basten. However, it was not long before he returned to his prolific self, getting his best Serie A season haul of 25 goals and leading AC Milan to the Scudetto. His contribution was recognized by his fellow footballers and he was voted as the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1992.
Van Basten was doing well until he suffered a troublesome ankle injury midway through the 1992-93 season against AC Ancona, which ruled him out for a long period of time. He returned towards the end of the season and also played in the UEFA Champions League final, which Milan eventually lost to Marseille. That game also happened to be the last competitive game Marco van Basten ever played, as he finally conceded defeat to injury two years later in August 1995.
So that was it for Marco van Basten – a sparkling career that was unfortunately cut short at the age of 29. Most footballers consider that age to be the peak of their career and one can only imagine what van Basten could’ve achieved if injury had not put a full stop on his career. Nevertheless, he remains one of the greatest footballers of all time and his name will be inscribed forever in the history of the sport and in the hearts of millions of football fans worldwide.
And now, here’s a video showing some of the most amazing goals scored by van Basten during his career:
Here are the other players who have made it so far:
No. 20 – David Beckham; No. 19 – Oliver Kahn; No. 18 – Jurgen Klinsmann; No. 17 – Luis Figo; No. 16 – Romario
Read the detailed write-ups on all the players in this list here:
The greatest footballers of all time
