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Kees Rijvers, celebrated after winning the league title at PSV Eindhoven

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This life was long.

How long can be judged by the fact that Kees Rijvers played his first game for NAC Breda when the world war was raging around him in Europe.

When he made his first international appearance, the war had only been over for a year.

When he moved to the French league in 1951, the first long-playing record with 33 revolutions was introduced.

Kees Rijvers, who died on Monday at the age of 97, accompanied, observed and shaped football for over 80 years.

As a player, as a club coach, as a bond coach for the Netherlands.

A century of football.

When Rijvers, the shoemaker's son from Breda, was called up to the Dutch national team for the first time in 1946, this game against Luxembourg was the very first international game he saw in his life.

There was no television and traveling in war-torn Europe was arduous.

The flair of this game grabbed him immediately, he wanted to get out of the confines of Breda. When AS Saint-Etienne asked in the early 1950s, he said to his wife: "We're going to France, there's no discussion there. « Saint-Etienne, he had no idea where exactly it was, he had never heard the city name before.

It doesn't matter, the main thing is the big, wide world.

He showed up at the French house with a box weighing ten kilograms, filled to the brim with screw studs, something that was unheard of in France at the time. At AS Saint-Etienne they were amazed at this strange guy from the Netherlands.

Nickname Dreikäsehoch

He signed for the top French club three times in his playing career, twice he left AS and returned again, most recently at the age of 34.

In France, the fans loved him and gave the attacker two nicknames: "Trotinette", which had to do with his high step frequency, and, less flatteringly, "Trois Freitag", which could be translated as three cheese high.

Rijvers was only 1.65 meters short.

During his time as a bond coach, there is a picture of him standing between the tall players Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten, he is almost two heads shorter.

Dutch football in the 1950s had nowhere near the reputation of later decades, the era of Johan Cruyff, and yet it was a time in which some of the greatest footballers the Oranje have ever known played.

Rijvers played in attack with Faas Wilkes and Abe Lenstra, two names with a magical sound in the Netherlands to this day.

Together they formed the so-called “Gouden Binnentrio”, the Golden Triangle.

Wilkes and Lenstra were two headstrong guys, decried as egoists, but geniuses on the field.

Abe Lenstra in particular was considered a troublemaker, an unlikable person, even among his own teammates, but a legend at least since the day he converted a 1:5 deficit for his SC Heerenveen against Ajax Amsterdam into a 6:5 success.

Wilkes, who scored 35 goals in 38 international matches for Oranje, stormed alongside him and was only replaced decades later by Dennis Bergkamp as the Netherlands' record goalscorer.

The end for professional players

Rijvers was the third in the group, the fame came mainly to the other two, but without Rijvers' contribution, Wilkes and Lenstra would not have shone as well.

In any case, it was a short episode with the Golden Triangle; in 1951 the association banned professionals from playing in the national team.

The door was closed for the French professional Rijvers and Wilkes, who earned his money at Inter Milan.

The association only changed its mind again after the Dutch foreign professionals got together for a charity game against France in 1953 to raise money for the victims of the terrible storm surge in the Netherlands in January 1953, which left almost 2,000 dead.

The Netherlands, with Rijvers and Wilkes at the helm, won the so-called Waternoodwedstrijd 2-1, then it dawned on the officials that things would probably go better with the professionals.

Rijvers was pardoned and made a total of 33 international appearances until 1960.

That year Rijvers also ended his playing career, which had also taken him to Feyenoord Rotterdam between his stints at Saint-Etienne.

He showed up there with his Simca from France, which he had just paid for, while all the other players were still coming to training on their bikes.

That didn't create a good atmosphere, and Rijvers quickly sold the car again.

From Twente to Eindhoven

He took up his first notable coaching position in Enschede at FC Twente.

He prescribed the team offensive football like the one he had played himself.

Rijvers' role model was Hungarian football in the 1950s; he hitchhiked to London with a friend in 1953 to watch the Hungarians, led by Ferenc Puskás, play against England at Wembley.

What he saw there took his breath away.

He later said that the famous 6:3 win by the Hungarian miracle team left an impression on him for life.

That's how he wanted it to play.

But Twente didn't have a Puskás, so it was enough to lead the team to third place in the league.

Rijvers also blamed his player Eddy Achterberg for not being able to do more, because he did not perform as hoped in the key game of the season against Ajax Amsterdam.

But Rijvers apparently didn't hold a grudge: Achterberg later became his son-in-law.

PSV Eindhoven became aware of him through his work in Enschede.

What Rijverrs later described as his “perfect time” began.

Three times champion, twice cup

He celebrated his greatest successes as coach of PSV, winning the club three times in the 1970s, in 1975, 1976 and 1978. The team also won the UEFA Cup in 1978.

Rijvers also won two cups.

The team around goalkeeper Jan van Beveren, the brothers Willy and René van de Kerkhof, the two Swedes Björn Nordquist and Ralf Edström and the midfield director Willy van der Kuylen were a close-knit bunch.

Even Ajax, the benchmark in Europe in the early 1970s, found their match in the Rijvers team.

In those years, the rivalry between Ajax and PSV arose, which continues to this day.

In 1976 the team was at its peak, it seemed ready for the big time, but Rijvers' heart team of all people stood in the way in the European Champions Cup.

In the semi-finals, AS Saint-Etienne narrowly beat PSV and challenged FC Bayern in the final.

After seven years, Rijvers left Eindhoven.

It seemed like the logical step that he would then take over the Dutch national team.

Rijvers was in charge as bond coach for three years from 1981 to 1984, and the “perfect time” was over.

The Oranje team was in a state of upheaval after two runner-up championships, and the old stars were gone.

Rijvers tried several times to persuade the aging Johan Cruyff to return to the national team, but Cruyff first agreed three times and then declined again.

Working from home, Rijvers' wife had even removed the third Adidas stripe from Cruyff's Orange jersey because he had another sponsor and refused to wear the Adidas logo.

But it was all of no use, the old star never made a comeback.

Reconstruction initiated

Rijvers made a virtue of necessity and called up unknown young players to the national team: Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Jan Wouters, the brothers Ronald and Erwin Koeman and the defender Adrie van Tiggelen.

With this young team he missed qualifying for the 1982 World Cup and the 1984 European Championship. The Oranje were almost certainly qualified for the European Championship.

Rivals Spain needed a win by eleven goals against Malta to move past.

The game ended, what a surprise, 12:1.

Rumors that the game had been bought by the Spanish never stopped.

Rijvers had already suspected that this would happen.

While the nation sat in front of the television and watched every new Spanish goal in horror, the bond coach was said to have been playing cards with his neighbors.

Spain went to the European Championships and became European runners-up, the Netherlands watched, and Rijvers had to leave and retired to his cottage on the French Atlantic coast.

The only thing he misses about the Netherlands, he bitterly told the TV station NOS, is playing billiards.

The young players he had promoted, Gullit, van Basten, Koeman and Rijkaard, became European champions themselves four years later under his successor Rinus Michels.

To date, it is the only major title the Oranje have won.