Kluivert was born in the summer of 1976 in Amsterdam as son of a professional football player. His parents are from Surinam, a small South-American country. Kluivert learned how to play football by practicing it in the street. At age seven, after playing only 1 year in a local team together with Edgar Davids, he was already selected by Ajax to join the famous Ajax-youth. As a kid, his idols were Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, and years later they both became manager. Ironically, Kluivert got both of them as trainer (National Team (1998-2000), Barcelona (2002-2004), National Team (2004-), but as soon as the media turned on Kluivert, his very idols were afraid to burn their hands on Kluivert and so they dropped him.
Nothing of all of that could have been predicted in the beautiful summer of 1994. Since Stefan Petterson was leaving Ajax, Ajax needed a new striker and so trainer Louis van Gaal selected Patrick Kluivert to become the new striker of Ajax. In his debut for Ajax at 21 August 1994 - a game for the Dutch supercup, he immediately scored and continued to do so for the rest of the season. Except for winning the Dutch supercup, Ajax became champions of the Netherlands and surprisingly won the Champions League, the highest thing a club can achieve in Europe. In the final of the Champions League, AC Milan was beaten with 1-0 by a late goal by Patrick Kluivert. Suddenly all big European clubs wanted to sign Patrick Kluivert. However, Kluivert chose to stay at Ajax, while the rest of his team was leaving to other clubs.
In the next season, Ajax won the Dutch League again and won the world-cup for teams against Gremio after a penalty shoot-out. Ajax also reached the finals of the Champions League again. In the final against Juventus, the score was 1-1 after regular time. After a goal-less extra time, Ajax lost the penalty shoot-out. At that point Kluivert, aged 19, after only 2 seasons in Ajax, was destined to be the best striker in the game. And not only because of his display at Ajax, but also for his goal scoring in the Dutch National Team. Kluivert made his debute in the national team at 16 November 1994 in a goal-less match against Czech Republic. The Netherlands came second in their European Qualification group, so an extra qualifier match against Ireland had to be won to reach the European Championship 1996.
It was the second time Kluivert was allowed to play the full 90 minutes for The Netherlands. Kluivert held to the highest expectations by scoring both goals for The Netherlands: 2-0. However the next games, Kluivert had to watch from the bench. And so, when the games of the European Championship started, Kluivert was a substitute, only getting 15 minutes of play-time each game. In the last group match, the Netherlands was behind 0-4 at minute 70 against England. The Netherlands needed one goal to reach the next round and at that point Kluivert was brought in. A few minutes later he scored and he secured a spot again in the starting eleven. The quarter final against France ended goal-less and after a penalty shoot-out, The Netherlands was eliminated.
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