And now it's official... Nigel de Jong is 100th Ajacied in Oranje!
31 March: After several football publications
(including Ajax USA...) mistakenly thought that Johnny Heitinga
was the 100th Ajax player to make his début in the
Dutch national team (he was number 99), the Amsterdam club now
officially has it's 100th Oranje débutant:
Nigel de Jong. The born Amsterdammer replaced his team-mate,
Rafaël van der Vaart, in the 68th minute of the friendly
match against France in Rotterdam's De Kuip (0-0).
De Jong was also called up for Holland's previous friendly
against the United
States (18 February) but remained on the bench on that
occasion, while Johnny Heitinga played from the start to become
the 99th
Ajacied to make his Oranje début.
The incorrect announcement of several publications,
including Ajax USA and Holland's leading football weekly
Voetbal International, that Heitinga was the
100th Ajax player to wear the orange jersey was caused by an
error in the list of Ajacieden
in Oranje on the official Ajax website, Ajax.nl, which also
featured a player named Johan Zuidema. He played 77
official games for Ajax from August 1976 to May 1978. He also
played two games for Oranje, but that was in the
spring of 1975, before he joined Ajax. For this reason
Zuidema can not be counted. He was on the list in the history
section of Ajax.nl, but has now been taken off it.
The official club website did refer
to Heitinga as #99 in its post-match reports of
the Holland vs USA game. For those reports, so
it turned out, Ajax.nl did not check the list in its
own history section (which included Zuidema), but relied on the
(correct) statistics of Ajax spokesman Jacob Bergsma. He and
Ajax.nl editor Monique Janse deserve the credit for
clarifying the matter. Nigel de Jong has now become the 100th
player to play for Oranje while being on an Ajax
contract. Heitinga was #99, Wesley Sneijder #98, Andy van der
Meyde #97 and Rafaël van der Vaart #96. Ajax
USA updated its news archives accordingly after the
Holland vs USA fixture, so that all information on this
website is now correct.
The first ever Ajacied to make his début for The
Netherlands was Gerard (or Gé) Fortgens, who played
against Belgium on 19 March 1911. Just over 93 years later #100
has arrived. Ajax had no Oranje débutants for
almost 4½ years until October 2001, when
Rafaël van der Vaart made his début. Since his
first Holland appearance a new generation of young Ajacieden
has been called up for the first time.
Against France, in sold out De Kuip, John Heitinga played
the full 90 minutes as a central defender, while Rafaël
van der Vaart started as one of two forwards, but was replaced
by De Jong. Out of the fifteen players that saw action for
Holland, nine once wore the red and white Ajax
jersey.
The three Ajax Dutchies were not the only one to play for
their respective countries. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored the only
goal for Sweden against England in Göteborg. The Ajax
striker reportedly had a superb game and was praised by Sweden
boss Soderberg. Jelle Van Damme's match for Belgium was not as
pleasant. The Ajax defender, who saw 59 minutes of action,
was powerless against Germany: 3-0.
The most remarkable performance by an Ajacied, however, was
Jari Litmanen's return to competitive action for Finland. He
last saw action for Ajax in December 2003 and scored his last
Ajax goal in July 2003. In Finland's friendly against Malta he
didn't only play for 15 minutes, but he also scored a
decisive second goal, making it 2-0. The Finns eventually won
by the score of 2-1. (MP)
Source: Ajax.nl
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