Hard, a great rubbish staircase and cynical humor, but outside the field, Iron Rinus did not hurt a fly

More than 34 years after his regular football buddy Theo Laseroms, the other half of Feyenoord’s hard -hard defense duo died. Rinus Isräel, the first Dutchman to hold the European Cup for national champions (now Champions League), died at the age of 83.

Marinus David Israel grew up in a red nest in Amsterdam-Noord. He earned a living as an henchman: he had to lug sand and stones to the street maker. During the weekend he played, initially as a right hall, at the Amsterdam amateur club DWV.

Israel earned his first professional contract with Stadgenoot DWS in 1963. “I signed my contract blindly, I was so happy,” he looked back Het Parool. At DWS he formed a strong defense duo with the experienced Daan Schrijvers. He copied his attitude on the field – with the chest forward. “I had the nerves for every game, but I didn’t show that on the field.” DWS celebrated his first and only national title in 1964.

One of the world’s best liberos

In 1966, Israel moved to Feyenoord for much more money. With his cynical humor he had few adjustment problems in Rotterdam-Zuid. In that period, after Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore, he was one of the world’s best liberos.

His companion Laseroms became one of the most feared mandakers. “Not a football player, but a cowboy without lasso,” the Northern Irish Dribbelaar George Best expressed the game of his teasing spirit, after he had counted the bruises and thick bumps.

‘Theo de Tank’ and ‘IJzeren Rinus’ were almost unacceptable in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They initially played side by side, until Feyenoord trainer Ben Peeters noticed that they both missed starting speed and could give each other better back cover.

Israel: “Theo had the ball or the man. And I sometimes handed out a cone. While we both didn’t hurt a fly outside the field.” Jan Mulder, former player of Ajax and Anderlecht, once said. “If Theo had kicked you down, and you were creating on the floor, Rinus turned his studs in your chest again.”

“If they were to play now like us, they would have few players left,” Israel told the NRC-Reporter who, after the introduction, mainly remembered his solid handshake. “Pleasant to get acquainted.”

Headlight

Israel was a head strong and had a beautiful rubber. He brought both specialisms in practice on May 6, 1970. In the European Cup final in Milan, the captain made the tying run with a kind of arc head ball against the Scottish Celtic and offered match winner Ove Kindvall with a distant, free kick just before time. But the Swede scored from the difficult corner and a little later his captain received the ‘Cup with the big ears’.

Zoom in

“Milan is a bit of Feyenoord, San Siro belongs to us,” was the winged comments from Herman Kuiphof in millions of living rooms. “God’s precious, we have the cup,” was Israel’s first reaction. A few months later he also received the World Cup from Queen Juliana, after two battles against the Argentinian Estudiantes.

Under Ernst Happel, the successor of trainer Peeters, Feyenoord’s game was further refined. Compact combination football: Coen Moulijn and Willem van Hanegem were the technicians, Wim Jansen the hole filler and Eddy Pieters Graafland the decent keeper without nerves. “PG saved me against Celtic when I gave the wrong play ball at the goal line,” Israel recalls one of his few mistakes in Milan.

Sofa

Feyenoord belonged to the world top in the early 1970s, just like Ajax and the Dutch national team. Israel played 47 international matches, but was on the reserve bench during Oranjes Highpunt, the 1974 World Cup. He was already 32 and his knee showed wear. Yet he had won the UEFA Cup with Feyenoord a month earlier.

Then he was discarded by Feyenoord because of his knee complaints and moved to the small fellow townman Excelsior. He was named ‘Footballer of the Year’ in 1975. Israel played his last professional years at PEC Zwolle, until he could hardly walk and stop at the age of forty. “Van IJzeren Rinus was not much left,” he said cynically. His trainer career was not a great success. “I was not diplomatic enough, scoured everyone rotten and did not take the different characters into account,” he said in Het Parool His more or less failed second career.

Zoom in

He served PEC, FC Den Bosch, Feyenoord, ADO and the Dutch national team (as assistant coach) and was also active abroad for eight years: in Greece, Romania, Ghana and the Emirates. “Those years have shaped me as a person. I have seen a lot of poverty and understand the refugee problem better.”

He was often in a bicycle shop in Landsmeer, just above Amsterdam. Then he chatted in ‘his’ fixed corner of the workshop with tire stickers. One of them said in Het Parool: “His wife pays storage money to not have him at home for a few days.”

‘That chair is for Rinus’

Israel had been on crutches for a while after he had had surgery to avert a threatening paraplegia. The self -proclaimed family man visited top handball matches of his granddaughter Rachel De Haze. “That chair is for Rinus,” said the room guard if someone had accidentally taken his place.

Rinus was together with Greet, a school friend of his sister for more than seventy years. “I never searched for another girl.”

To share





Mail the editors