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European milestone up ahead for Dutch clubs
Wednesday 19 August 2009
There's a good chance that the
five Dutch clubs competing in the last qualification
round for the Europa League on Thursday will help Dutch
football to a new milestone.
PSV, NAC Breda, FC Twente, Ajax
and SC Heerenveen can score the 2,000th Dutch goal in
Europe.
Since the start of European football
in 1955 a total of 25 Dutch clubs scored 1.997 goals.
Ajax scored most.
The Amsterdammers netted 506 goals
in 287 games, that is more than a quarter of the entire
Dutch production.
Behind Ajax come PSV and Feyenoord
with 383 and 368 goals respectively.
There is one Dutch club that did
compete but never scored: Go Ahead Eagles.
The team from the city of Deventer
competed in the European Cupwinners Cup in 1965 against
Celtic, but remained goalless against the then European
giants: 6-0 and 1-0.
Looking at the individual production
it's all-time Dutch topscorer Willy van der Kuijlen
who bagged the most.
The legendary PSV-striker scored
29 European goals, more than any other player did for
a Dutch club.
Division per tournament
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European Cup/ Champions League
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673
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Cupwinners Cup
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289
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UEFA Cup
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1,071
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"The intellectualisation
of football has
always foundered
on a simple problem-
-the players. Doing
all your most
rewarding thinking
with your feet seems
to dull the philo-
sophical impulse.
Unless, of course,
you are Dutch.
According to legend,
Europeans played
a moronic, muscular
version of the world's
game, until Holland
proclaimed its vision
of total football in the
1974 World Cup,
and enlightenment
dawned."
From:
Brilliant
Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
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