Former Ajax, Barca and Holland star Patrick Kluivert opens up to TOI in a freewheeling chat
MUMBAI: It may have happened nearly three decades ago, but mention his 85th-minute winner for Ajax in the 1995 Uefa Champions League final against defending champions AC Milan and Patrick Kluivert beams as he reminds you of a record still in his possession. "I'm still the youngest goal scorer with the winning goal (in a Champions League final)," says the former Dutch striker, now 46, during a chat with TOI on Sunday.
That the goal helped Ajax end a 22-year wait to lift club football's most coveted trophy for a fourth time, is actually irrelevant in terms of where it places Kluivert in the record books. Aged 18 years, 10 months and 23 days when he beat Milan goalkeeper Sebastiano Rossi in Vienna that night, after coming off the bench only 15 minutes earlier, Kluivert, until today, remains the youngest player to have scored in a Champions League final. To think it may have all turned out very differently if, as Kluivert reveals, Louis Van Gaal's Ajax managed to beat arch rivals PSV Eindhoven to the signature of a rising Brazilian star by the name of Ronaldo in the summer of 1994.
"I was 18 years-old and I was playing in the highest youth team at Ajax and it was Van Gaal who picked me from the youth team to the first team," he recalls.
"Normally you go from the youth team to the second team and then the first team. But Van Gaal took me from the youth team and put me directly in the first team because that was the time Ajax was also thinking about signing Ronaldo - The Phenomeno.
"But Ronaldo went to PSV and Van Gaal wanted to have a young striker. Normally, if Ronaldo would have come to Ajax, I would have played in the second team but thanks to Ronaldo, actually, going to PSV, my jump to the first team was open," he says with a laugh.
After leaving his boyhood club, Kluivert endured a frustrating season at AC Milan. However, the striker reunited with Van Gaal at Barcelona after the 1998 World Cup and was a rejuvenated player, scoring 15 goals as the Catalan giants romped to their second straight La Liga title.
Even after ending his playing career, Kluivert didn't hesitate over the opportunity to work as Van Gaal's assistant with the Dutch national team in 2012, their partnership again proving effective as Holland finished the 2014 World Cup in Brazil in third place after falling short in the semis on penalties against Lionel Messi's Argentina. With the veteran tactician coming out of retirement last year to take charge of The Netherlands for a third time, Kluivert, who was in India as LaLiga ambassador, believes the Dutch are in safe hands going into next month's World Cup in Qatar. "He's a coach that can bring the best out of a player and that's the most important thing, that a coach knows the player. Some players need a kick on their butt while the other needs a pat on the shoulder, and that is something he knows - how to manage a team," says Kluivert, expressing concern, though, over the current status of Barcelona duo, striker Memphis Depay and midfielder Frenkie de Jong, whom he considers "key players" for the national team. "Both at the moment are not playing. Memphis is injured and Frenkie is there but not in the starting 11, so it's difficult because if you want to be sharp and fit for the World Cup, you need to play."
The only World Cup Kluivert featured in as a player was at France 1998, a tournament which began in dubious fashion for the young striker who was sent off in his team's opening game against Belgium for an elbow incident but saw him bounce back to score crucial goals in the dramatic quarterfinal clash with Argentina and the semis against fancied Brazil. So technically gifted was Guus Hiddink's side that France legend Thierry Henry is quoted to have said how relieved the hosts were to see Brazil and not The Netherlands make the final.
"I had the same feeling because if we would have won against Brazil, I think we would have won the World Cup. And if I speak with my fellow teammates now, they had the same feeling. We had such a strong team," says Kluivert.
Switching topics from Holland to Haaland, just what does Kluivert have to say about the most talked about footballer on the planet currently? "At the moment, (Erling) Haaland is the best striker you have. If you, in three home games, score three hattricks, it's unbelievable.
"He's only 22 so he's making life difficult for himself, because if you do this already at 22, people are going to think 'What's he going to be at 23 or 24?' So he's raising the bar for himself. But if he doesn't score for a few matches, he needs to cope with the critics as well," he says.
