20 years ago, Patrick Kluivert won the Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam. Now he wants to go to the World Cup 2018 - with the small Island Curacao.
imagoPatrick Kluivert, 20 years ago you scored the winner in the champions-league-final. How do you remeber that moment? I sat on the bench for 68 Minutes, the clock was ticking. But I knew that my time would come. Eventually Luis van Gaal sent me on the pitch. In minute 85 Marc Overmars got in a quite unpromising situation at the left corner. But he managed to pass the ball back to Frank Rijkaard. Frank saw a gap in Milan's defense and passed the ball through. I reached it with the tip of my toes and scored. 1:0 against the great AC Milan. Five minutes later the game was over - and we were Champions-League-Winners. Last year, Mario Götze scored a comparable goal in the World-Cup-Final. Like you 1995, Götze is still at the beginning of his career. Ever since his goal, Götze seems a bit restrained. What impact did your goal have on your career? I felt a huge pressure at first. I had the feeling, that all eyes were on me. Always. But eventually I got along with it quite well. I want to encourage Mario Götze that he can overcome this pressure as well. He is a talented player. He has abilities I didn't have at his age. Was the goal against Milan the most important goal of your career? It accellerated my career for sure. But there were plenty of important and beautiful goals, especially in the national team. The goal against Argentina in the quarterfinal of the 1998 World Cup is definitely one of them. Dennis Bergkamp scored the winner in that match. You two played side by side for a long time. Was Bergkamp the best strike partner you ever had? Dennis was fantastic. But I played alongside George Weah at Milan. And later on I played side by side with Ronaldino. Don't forget Ronaldinho, no matter what he's doing nowadays. He is one of the greates players of all time. Ronaldinho and George Weah are on a par with Dennis Bergkamp. The Champions League 1995 was Ajax' last international title, the generation with Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf and yourself was outstanding. Will Ajax be able to take that up in the near future? You can't compare the situation back then with today's. Our team was a mixture of experienced players like Frank Rijkaard, Jari Litmanen and the de Boer-Brothers, and young, ambitious players like Clarence Seedorf and me. It was a stable and tight-knit squad. It will be very hard for Ajax to put together such a team ever again. A majority of the dutch national team in the mid-nineties played for Ajax. During the Euro 1996 however, rumour has it that the squad was divided in two parts. Edgar Davids accused Coach Guus Hiddink of racism and told him publicly to "take his head out of the arses of some white players". What do you think of this after all this years? I still think that the media misinterpreted and twistet the story completely. The problem between Davids and Hiddink had nothing to do with racism. There was no racism in our team. Your son Justin is a winger in Ajax' youth team. What do you think of his abilities? He's also member of the Dutch Under-16 national team and shows big talent. If he proceeds like this on and off the pitch, he'll have a great future.
VERÖFFENTLICHT: 26.05.2015
Tobias Zwior 170