Jaap Stam waves football good-bye

Sunday 27 July 2008

Jaap Stam last night officially waved the football world good-bye.

The robust man from Kampen (NL) did so in a testimonial match between Stam's football friends and the first team of Ajax.

The match - which was interrupted by a storm for 40 minutes - ended in a 3-3 draw after Stam's friends took a 3-0 lead.

Stam, who abruptly quit playing at Ajax in November 2007, was never a player who wanted to be the center of attention.

His wife Ellis and his agent Henk van Ginkel had to convince him to agree to a testimonial.

"But it was the right decision now that I see that you have all attended," Stam said in a word of thanks to the 10,000 in the stadium of FC Zwolle.

"These are superior forces. There's nothing you can do against this," he said when a fierce thunder storm interrupted the game for 40 minutes.

Stam played with Ajax in the first half and for his Friends-team led by Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti, coach of AC Milan, in the second.

Among others that team was made up by players such as Dennis Bergkamp, Frank and Ronald de Boer, Wim Jonk, Michael Reiziger, Bert Konterman, Philip Cocu, Clarence Seedorf, Marc Overmars, Edgar Davids, Ronald Waterreus and René Eijkelkamp.

The team took the lead by a Cocu goal and increased that lead by goals from Overmars and again Cocu to 3-0.

In the second half Van Basten's team managed to equalize and end the game at 3-3.

Dick Jol was the referee.

For him it was also his last match in professional football.

The ref from The Hague was requested by Stam personally.

Career
Stam's career at the highest level had a slow start.

He was already 23 when he was scouted by PSV Eindhoven at modest Willem II Tilburg .

After three years at PSV - winning the VVCS Footballer of the Year award in 1996 - and a fantastic 1998 World Cup in France, where he put on one of the most impressive defensive displays ever seen at a World Cup, he was transferred to Manchester United.

In England he arguably played his best football until injuries plagues him for two seasons and United-manager Alex Ferguson decided to let him go.

Ferguson recently admitted that it was the only transfer decision he had ever regretted, as Stam grew close to the level of his first two years in Manchester at Lazio Roma, despite the club's financial and sportive decay in that period.

Ferguson also said that Stam was " the best defender he ever worked with".

His achievements in Rome earned him a transfer to AC Milan where he had two decent years before he moved to Ajax Amsterdam.

There he suddenly decided halfway through his second season that the fire had gone out and he couldn't motivate himself any longer.