by James Kent

Created on: July 31, 2011   Last Updated: August 01, 2011

Marco Van Basten is Dutch football manager looking for his next challenge. As a player Van Basten will go down as one of the greatest ever football players. Van Basten was spotted by Ajax scouts as a 17 year old and went down to be one of their truly great players. The Dutchman played as a striker and his scoring record was impressive throughout his career. Van Basten regularly featured as Ajax’s top scorer, an example of his goal-scoring exploits were in 1986; when he scored 37 goals in 26 games. His impressive form for Ajax was beginning to attract interest from other clubs and a move was looking very likely. Although, Van Basten would move on from Ajax his record for the club was truly incredible and by the end of his time at the club, he had scored 152 goals from just 172 games. That meant that he averaged a goal better than every game, the sort of goal-scoring record rarely seen today.

 There were a host of clubs looking to sign up the young Van Basten and in the end he chose to join AC Milan. His time in Italy proved that he was capable and a world class player, even when playing outside his home country. Van Basten’s time at AC Milan coincided with a very successful time for the Italian club and that was due in no small part due to the goals that the Dutchman scored for the club. Van Basten was one of the few players that showed an ability to score goals on a consistent basis in a league known for its defensive qualities. Van Basten only played for two clubs and by the time he had finished playing the Dutchman had scored 124 goals from 201 games. This meant that he needed less than two games to score a goal in Italy.

There is of course a third aspect to Van Basten’s playing career and that is his international career. Van Basten played a very important part for the Dutch national team that involved leading the line and scoring important goals. In total Van Basten managed to score 24 goals from 58 games.

Since finishing his playing career, Van Basten has moved into coaching/management with two notable jobs with the Holland national team and Ajax. Van Basten did fairly well as an international manager, without truly excelling. In total Van Basten took charge on the national team for 52 games, winning 35 games – meaning that he had a win percentage of 67.31%. His spell in charge of Ajax didn’t last very long. In total he took charge of only 44 games, winning 26 – giving him a win percentage of 59%. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Marco Van Basten and if he can show as much promise as a manager as he did as a player.

Source:

http://www.marcovanbasten.net/biography.php

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