Would ‘we’ have become world champions with Jan van Beveren in goal? It is a frequently asked question among older football fans. According to many, Jan Jongbloed was responsible for the lost World Cup final in 1974. He was transfixed by the two West German goals. And in the final of 1978, although he was not guilty, he had no chance with the three Argentine goals.
No, then Jan van Beveren. The goalkeeper of Sparta and later PSV dived for every ball, if necessary stepped sideways to one side to pick the ball from the top corner on the other side. ‘The Beef’, also known as ‘The Float’. First with bare hands, later with woolen gloves. A tall (show) keeper for whom the audience – remarkably many women – went to the stadium. Another nickname: ‘Butterfly in the sixteen’.
Van Beveren, making his debut in 1967, got stuck in 1977 on the paltry number of 32 international matches. He did win the UEFA Cup, two KNVB cups and three national titles with PSV. But he never played at a European Championship or World Cup. Partly due to injuries, partly due to feuds with his tormentor Johan Cruijff, who only played 43 international matches due to disinterest, sponsor interests or often feigned injuries.
In his thick biography Van Beveren: complex wonderkeeper Ruud Doevendans sketches a fairly complete picture of the tragic sports life of the late Jan van Beveren, who would have turned 75 this month. About his sensational talent, his complicated character, his dramatic relationship with Cruijff and his flight to the United States.
Whoever reads the book understands better why he has not lived up to his name and fame. The image of perpetrator Cruijff and victim Van Beveren is nuanced by Doevendans. He was a nail-biting nerve who, even when Cruijff wasn’t around, kept anything but flawless.
‘Great sense of justice’
Two born Amsterdammers with their heart on their sleeve. The self-confident and money-hungry Cruijff who packed press, public, teammates – not to forget the many (national) coaches – versus the apparently arrogant but deep down very insecure Van Beveren. The goalkeeper of Sparta and later PSV was also busy making money all his life. His transfer from Rotterdam-West to Eindhoven in 1970 involved one and a half million guilders – he was then the most expensive keeper in the world and earned more than Cruijff at that time.
In 1974 there was a first serious collision, when the almost-rehabilitated goalkeeper was subjected to a grueling recovery training by national coach Rinus Michels (read: Cruijff) a few weeks before the World Cup in the Zeister woods. As a result, his knee problems started playing up again.
There was also a business dispute behind the scenes. Van Beveren denounced Cruijff’s preferential treatment – he also received day money from the KNVB on the days he was still in Barcelona. “We have to get rid of that guy, he is too difficult, he is becoming much too dangerous,” Cruijff told Michels. Exit Van Beveren.
And so Michels and Cruijff were able to put the less talented but ‘playing along’ Jan Jongbloed of FC Amsterdam in goal. As a glorified libero, he suited Orange’s total football better than Van Beveren, who was wrongly called a line keeper. With high balls he gracefully jumped into the air. He only punched away if there was no other way, he preferred to catch him firmly. “This is choreography as it should be,” was a lyrical report during his promising early years.
Big mouth from the Amsterdammers
But the stylish keeper had no bending character. In 1975, one day before a European Championship qualifying match against Poland, he complained about the big mouth of the team from Amsterdam and demanded more say for the PSV players who had in the meantime overtaken the Ajax players in the Eredivisie. It seemed like a reasonable demand. With celebrities like Willy van der Kuijlen and the twins René and Willy van de Kerkhof, wasn’t he as good as the ‘Ajacieds’ Cruijff, Johan Neeskens (also at Barcelona), Ruud Krol and Wim Suurbier? Experts agreed with the PSV players. According to others, they suffered from the Calimero complex: ‘They are tall and I am small’.
A new riot was born. Cruijff, not used to contradiction, was furious and resentful. He got his revenge when Van Beveren was partly responsible for the 4-1 defeat against Poland a day later. “I didn’t play well and made mistakes”, Van Beveren looked back NRC. He did not mention that Cruijff was completely out of shape. He did not admire man, but the footballer. Despite their quarrels, he remained the best for him.
Read alsoThe necrology of Willy van der Kuijlen
Cruyff demanded an apology
Conversely, there was less respect. Cruijff demanded an apology for the return against Poland – which he did not get. Cruijff stoked the fire and mobilized the suburban football press. Tired of all the intrigue, PSV players Jan van Beveren and Willy van der Kuijlen decided to leave the training camp one day before the return against Poland (3-0 win, with Piet Schrijvers in goal).
“However much you think you are in your right, you can’t beat Cruijff,” Van Beveren said decades before Louis van Gaal explained the unequal battle in almost the same words. The many harassments left deep traces. “Of course there were only a few [Ajacieden], they controlled my life”, Van Beveren wrote in his biography. “A lifelong frustration,” his father said.
After he had declined this time for the World Cup ‘for private reasons’, he was invited to Hilversum in the summer of 1978 to comment on the group match against Peru. But when the Dutch TV audience (from above the rivers) became aware of this, so many threats followed Studio Sportsboss Bob Spaak called PSV manager Ben van Gelder. The guest commentator was kindly but urgently requested to drive back home.
traitor
He was denounced as a coward, hypocrite, swindler and traitor. He would keep for PSV for another two years – and be whistled at away games or (at Ajax) pelted with bicycle chains. But his decision was firm. “this is it” , he expressed his emigration plans decades later in a NOS documentary by Mart Smeets.
After a short-lived, successful adventure with the American professional club Fort Lauderdale Strikers, he led a fairly anonymous existence in Dallas and the surrounding area for almost thirty years. He worked in the stamp trade during the day and gave (goalkeeper) training in the evening. He was quite happy there, with his (grand)children and second, American wife. Homesickness he did not know. He visited his parents at most once a year. And said: “If they dropped me in the middle of the Netherlands, I wouldn’t know where to go. Yes, to Schiphol, for the first plane back to the States.”
Van Beveren died in the summer of 2011 in Texas at the age of 63 of a heart attack, he was found hanging over his laptop with a cigarette between his fingers. He received a wonderful tribute from the youth teams he had trained there. They had adored him, parents praised his gentle nature and listening ear.
How different were the reactions in his native country. At his first club Emmen – he made his debut there at the age of fourteen in the first – a stand is still named after him. And at his last Dutch employer PSV hangs a “bad looking” wall sculpture. At the national office in Zeist nothing reminds of the potentially best goalkeeper the KNVB has ever represented.
And yet he was proud of every international match in which he was not injured or passed. So proud that in 1999 he took part in the ‘match of the century’ organized by Cruijff in the Arena. Other former internationals saw him quietly sitting alone in the back of the team bus on his way to the stadium. It was not Cruijff’s fault this time, he acted remarkably nice. His wife Danny, on the other hand, would have looked at him falsely. And that left the hypersensitive Jan van Beveren awake again.