More than 150 football celebrities remember Neeskens: ‘He deserves it like no other’

A hedge of football shirts from clubs where Johan Neeskens played or trained during his career illuminated the KNVB training center in Zeist. Many football celebrities, some of them still in a bad mood, reported on Monday night for a memorial meeting for the former Ajax and Oranje midfielder, who died at the beginning of this month.

At the feet of the statue of ‘De Nees’ in the garden in Zeist are flowers and wreaths from his former clubs. His death has been celebrated everywhere for two weeks. Fully justified, according to the guests in Zeist.

“A tribute to Johan Neeskens,” says Frank Rijkaard. “I think it’s great that it’s happening. He deserves this like nothing else.”

Friends, acquaintances and other guests from the world of football, about 160 in total, had traveled to Zeist. Not just Willem van Hanegem, Sjaak Swart and Jan Mulder. A delegation from Barcelona, ​​where Neeskens was called ‘Johan Segundo’, had also come to the Netherlands.

“A wonderful man,” said Guus Hiddink, also in attendance, who met Neeskens as an assistant coach at the Oranje at the 1998 World Cup.

“He was an example for everyone. A very nice boy,” said Bert van Marwijk, who went to the KNVB campus “with a very sad feeling”. Van Marwijk had known Neeskens for a long time.

“I can still see us coming here together. We were both sixteen, we came here together for the UEFA team. From that moment on we played all the teams together up to the Dutch national team. A great player on the field. We were all drawn to him. When things got bad, he led the way.

Neeskens was the brilliant link-up player in the midfield of the Ajax and Orange teams who brought Dutch football to its current status in the 1970s.

Sjaak Swart, who discussed his son Neeskens, is saddened by the number of players from that golden era who have died in recent years. “I’m a little worried because I’ve been playing with these guys for years, and it really hurts that a lot of them are missing.

Rijkaard, who was asked to say something at the memorial, worked closely at FC Barcelona with Neeskens, who was in the dugout as Rijkaard’s assistant in 2006. What do you say on an evening like this? That Neeskens works well in a team, that he transferred his football knowledge to the group of players without any excuses.

And: “I used to look up to him as a player of the golden generation. It was an honor to work with him,” says Rijkaard. “We grew up with the golden generation. They were our heroes. Dutch football was put on the map by these people. And Johan Neeskens was one of them.”