Wesley Sneijder: 98th Ajacied in Oranje

01 May: Ajax midfielder Wesley Sneijder (18) continues to to conquer the world of football by storm: within one year he jumped from Ajax A1 to Young Ajax, then to Ajax-1 and now to the Dutch national team. On Queen's Day of 2003 (30 April) Sneijder made his Oranje début in a friendly against Portugal (1-1) in Eindhoven.

Sneijder was brought into the team after the half-time break, in the 46th minute, replacing Edgar Davids. Holland was 1-0 up at that point, on a 27th minute Patrick Kluivert goal. It was the former Ajacied's 37th Oranje goal, thereby joining another former Ajacied (Dennis Bergkamp) at the top of the all-time ranking of Oranje topscorers.

There were three young Ajacieden in the Holland line-up in the second half: Van der Vaart, Van der Meyde and Sneijder. The team featured six more products of the Ajax school: Van der Sar, Melchiot, Frank de Boer, Overmars, Kluivert and Davids.

Simiao equalized for Portugal in the 78th minute. A well-deserved goal, given the fine play of the Portugese in the first half hour. However, the goal came to stand in a rather lucky way: Simiao's shot took a decisive deflection off a Dutch defender, leaving former Ajax goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar no chance: 1-1, a fair result over-all.

Wesley Sneijder is the 98th Ajax player to make his début for Holland. Gerard Fortgens was the very first one in 1911. Johan Neeskens was #50 (1970) and the most recent one (#97) was Andy van der Meyde (May 2002).

It's also interesting to take a look at the list of youngest Oranje newcomers since World War Two. Wesley Sneijder is 8th on that list (beautifully ranked in between Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard) with an age of 18 years and 325 days. Typically, eight out of the ten youngest débutants were Ajacieden.

Gerald Vanenburg: 18 years, 40 days
Piet Giessen: 18 years, 79 days
Patrick Kluivert: 18 years, 138 days
Rafaël van der Vaart: 18 years, 237 days
Clarence Seedorf: 18 years, 256 days
Wim Kieft: 18 years, 293 days
Marco van Basten: 18 years, 311 days
Wesley Sneijder: 18 years, 325 days
Frank Rijkaard: 18 years, 336 days
Ruud Gullit: 19 years, 0 days

Sneijder, after the game: "Forget about the game. Just congratulate me with my first minutes of play for Oranje. That's what you're all doing it for. Man, playing in a sold-out San Siro with Ajax, and now a whole half of play for Holland. And all that within one week's time. That's how fast things are going right now." (MP)

(Sources: ANP, Ajax.nl and VI.nl)