John Heitinga is 99th Ajacied in Oranje
18 February: Two young Ajax defenders were called up for the
Dutch national team for the first time in their tender careers:
John Heitinga and Nigel de Jong. Heitinga was in the starting
line-up, becoming the 99th Ajacied to play for
Holland during his Ajax career. Nigel de Jong
started on the bench and could have become number
100. But he remained benched. De Jong is generally
expected to become #100 soon.
John Heitinga, 20 years old and a product of the
Ajax youth system, is one of Ajax's central
defenders, but started as Holland's right fullback in the friendly
fixture against the United States (1-0), played at the
Amsterdam ArenA. He played the full 90 minutes and
performed well. After the game the Ajax rookie did not swap his
jersey with an American opponent. He wanted to keep his
very first Oranje shirt himself.
"Two match jerseys were given to each of us", said Heitinga.
"I will put one of them in a frame. The other one's for
grandpa. He was on the stands. So was my entire family, by the
way. I think he'll be very proud of me."
Heitinga is the 99th Ajacied to play an Oranje
match during his career at Ajax. The first one was Gerard
(Gé) Fortgens, who played his first game for
Oranje on 19 March 1911, against Belgium in
Antwerp.
Several Ajax and general football publications,
including Ajax USA and Holland's leading football weekly
Voetbal International, claimed that Heitinga was
actually the 100th Ajax player to wear the orange jersey of The
Netherlands. This turned out to be incorrect. The reason
for this error was a player named Johan Zuidema, who 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 erroneously listed as an
'Oranje Ajacied' on the list of Ajacieden
in Oranje on Ajax.nl (but has now been taken off
that).
However, the official club website did get it right
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: John Heitinga is the 99th player to play
for Oranje while being on an Ajax contract.
Wesley Sneijder was #98, Andy van der Meyde #97 and Rafaël
van der Vaart #96. Ajax USA will update its news archive
accordingly.
Interestingly enough, the book 100 Jaar Ajax by
Ajax historian Evert Vermeer and Marcelle van Hoof has a
correct list of 'Ajacieden in Oranje' (without Johan Zuidema).
However, the book also lists all Ajax players who only played
for Holland before or after their Ajax career. That list in
Vermeer's book turns out to be incomplete, as Zuidema is
missing...
Johan Zuidema is not the only player who played for
Oranje before or after he was an Ajacied. To be
precise: that list consists of 19 names, including Dutch greats
such as Cor van der Hart, Wim Jansen and Willy Brokamp, as well
as fairly recent names such as John van den Brom, Frank
Verlaat, Ferdi Vierklau and Martijn Reuser. They did
not play for Holland while being an Ajacied, but were
called up for the national team while playing for other
clubs.
The phenomenon of internationals who were not
called up during their stay in Amsterdam is also a factor to
keep in mind when looking at the list of non-Dutch
players to have played for both Ajax and their respective
national teams. That list consists of 60 players in total.
However, players such as Walter Meeuws (Belgium), Inge
Danielsson (Sweden), Brain laudrup (Denmark) and - most
recently - Yannis Anastasiou (Greece) only played for
their countries while being on a contract with another club
than Ajax. Out of the 60 internationals to have played for
Ajax, 46 were also called up for their national team
during their spell in Amsterdam.
Ajax USA apologizes for this error and thanks Monique Janse
of Ajax.nl for her information. (MP)
Source: Ajax.nl
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