Hans van Breukelen

Johannes Franciscus "Hans" van Breukelen (born 4 October 1956) is a Dutch former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.

Van Breukelen, born in Utrecht, started playing club football at amateur team BVC from De Bilt in 1964.

In 1974, he reached the BVC first team at age 17.

A few months later, Van Breukelen was transferred to FC Utrecht.

In his youth, he studied to become a teacher; even after he signed for FC Utrecht, he finished his study in pedagogy and taught at schools.

Van Breukelen started out in the FC Utrecht reserve team, but soon became the club's third goalkeeper behind Blagoje Istatov and Jan Stroomberg.

In 1976, he moved to FC Utrecht, where he played 142 matches.

On 20 March 1977, Van Breukelen made his official debut after being chosen to replace Istanov in the match against Sparta, which Utrecht lost 3–0 away from home.

He would later become the first-choice between the sticks for four years.

In the 1980–81 season, Utrecht reached the third place (its highest ever position to date) and a year later, Van Breukelen and his team reached the KNVB Cup final.

In 1982, FC Utrecht was facing bankruptcy and were willing to sell Van Breukelen in order to raise funds.

Initially, there was no sign of a transfer and he played two matches in the 1982–83 season.

But in September, Van Breukelen was eventually signed by Nottingham Forest.

In total, he played 142 Eredivisie games for the club.

After Peter Shilton had left Nottingham Forest, coach Brian Clough went on to pick Van Breukelen as his new goalkeeper.

The club paid £200,000 to FC Utrecht.

In his first match, he immediately kept a clean sheet in the game against Brighton & Hove Albion.

After thirteen league games, he suffered an injury which would sideline him for four months.

After his recovery, Van Breukelen returned in the Nottingham Forest starting line-up and the team went on to qualify for the UEFA Cup.

In the 1983–84 season, Van Breukelen played 36 league matches, keeping 11 clean sheets in the process.

The team ended third, six points behind title winners Liverpool.

In the UEFA Cup, Nottingham Forest were beaten in the semi-finals against Anderlecht.

During the season, Nottingham Forest and Van Breukelen had increasing arguments about his frequent international call-ups.

Not willing to sacrifice his spot in the Dutch team, he decided to leave England after the 1983–84 season.

Van Breukelen returned to his home country to play for PSV Eindhoven.

In his first year, the team missed out on the Eredivisie title and were also eliminated by Van Breukelen's old team FC Utrecht in the semi-finals of the Dutch cup.

But in the following two years, PSV did secured the league championship – Van Breukelen's first major trophies.

After two years with Nottingham Forest, Van Breukelen moved to PSV Eindhoven in 1984.

With PSV, he won six league titles and three domestic cups.

In a match between Feyenoord and PSV in 1987, Van Breukelen was involved in an error that became known in The Netherlands as ‘het polletje van Van Breukelen’ (‘Van Breukelen's tussock’).

In 1988, Van Breukelen also won the European Cup as part of the Treble after saving Benfica's sixth penalty in the shoot-out.

In the Netherlands, he was named Goalkeeper of the Year four times.

Van Breukelen played 73 caps for the Netherlands national team.

At UEFA Euro 1988 with The Netherlands; Van Breukelen stopped a penalty in the final.

He also appeared at the 1990 World Cup and UEFA Euro 1992.

After his career, he became an entrepreneur in different non-football business ventures, although he served as director of football at FC Utrecht and was a member of the PSV board of directors from 2010 to 2016.

Hans van Breukelen is one of five European players to ever win a Treble with their club and a cup with their national team in the same year.

The other four players are his teammates Berry van Aerle, Ronald Koeman, Gerald Vanenburg and Wim Kieft.

He was the technical director of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) from 2017 until 2018.

Van Breukelen grew up in De Bilt, where he played in the BVC youth academy.