Patrick Kluivert

Patrick Stephan Kluivert (born 1 July 1976) is a Dutch former football player, coach and sporting director.

He played as a striker, most notably for Ajax, Barcelona and the Netherlands national team.

He was most recently the manager of Süper Lig club Adana Demirspor.

Kluivert was born on 1 July 1976 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

His father, a professional football player, was born in Suriname and his mother in Curaçao.

Kluivert learned to play football on the street.

After a year at football club Schellingwoude, he joined the Ajax Youth Academy at the age of seven.

He played several different positions as a youth, including defender.

He was strong in technique, football intelligence, and speed, but was considered too impulsive.

Kluivert played for the Dutch national teams under-15, under-16 and under-17.

He was part of Ajax's Golden Generation of the 1990s at the age of 18, scoring the winner in the 1995 UEFA Champions League Final.

Kluivert was part of Ajax's Golden Generation of the 1990s.

Kluivert played for the Netherlands national team from 1994 to 2004.

With 40 goals in 79 appearances, he is the fourth highest top goalscorer for the Oranje.

He made his debut in the senior team of Ajax on 21 August 1994 at the age of 18 in the Dutch Supercup win against the old arch rival Feyenoord, in which he scored his first goal.

He went on to top score for Ajax in the 1994–95 Eredivisie with 18 goals in 25 appearances, as Louis van Gaal's team won the Dutch championship without losing a match.

The 1994–95 season also saw Kluivert make his mark – along with a host of youngsters from the Ajax youth academy, including Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf and Edwin van der Sar – on the European stage with a triumph in the UEFA Champions League.

Kluivert came off the bench to score an 85th-minute winner in the 1995 Champions League Final against A.C. Milan in Vienna, Austria.

He was the youngest player to score in a Champions League final, being only 18 years, 10 months and 23 days.

He was again the top scorer for Ajax in 1995–96, with 15 goals in 28 appearances, as the club won five trophies, including the Eredivisie.

He scored the winning goal in extra time of the season opening Dutch Supercup against Feyenoord, and also scored the team's away goal in the 5–1 aggregate win over Real Zaragoza in the 1995 UEFA Super Cup.

On 28 November 1995, Kluivert was the only Ajax player to miss his kick in the 4–3 penalty shootout win over Grêmio in Tokyo that saw de Godenzonen win the Intercontinental Cup.

Kluivert was also in excellent form during Ajax's defence of their Champions League trophy, scoring in away wins at Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, but a knee injury prevented him from participating for the full 90 minutes in the team's loss to Juventus in the 1996 UEFA Champions League Final.

At the end of an injury hit 1996–97 season, in which he made only 17 league appearances, Kluivert joined Milan on a Bosman transfer, after rejecting Ajax's offer of a new contract.

He ended his spell in Amsterdam with 39 goals in 70 Eredivisie matches.

Kluivert's career at Milan started well, with the striker scoring a sensational goal against Juventus in the Trofeo Luigi Berlusconi.

However, he spent only one season at the San Siro, scoring six times in 27 Serie A matches, as the Rossoneri finished in tenth place.

He played in three European Championships and the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and was joint top scorer at Euro 2000, where upon the scoresheet he tallied a total of five times.

On 28 August 1998, an hour before the transfer deadline, Kluivert signed a four-year contract with Barcelona for a fee of £8.75 million.

Kluivert was reunited with Louis van Gaal, a mentor from his days at Ajax.

Kluivert scored 16 league goals and formed a successful partnership with Rivaldo, which enabled Barça to defend the Spanish La Liga in 1998–99.

The following season was also a successful one for Kluivert.

Although Barcelona failed to win a third consecutive league title, Kluivert finished the season as the club's top scorer with 15 league goals.

He spent six years with Spanish club Barcelona, where he formed a successful partnership with Rivaldo, and where both won the Spanish La Liga championship of 1999; Kluivert scored 124 goals from 249 appearances in all.

In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers chosen by Pelé as part of FIFA's centenary observances.

He is considered one of the best Dutch strikers of all time.

Kluivert began his coaching career as an assistant at AZ and NEC, as well as in Australia with the Brisbane Roar, before managing Jong Twente to a national title in the Dutch reserves league.

He was an assistant to Louis van Gaal with the Dutch team that finished third at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

In 2015, he took over as head coach of the Curaçao national team for the country's 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying and the 2017 Caribbean Cup qualifying campaigns.

He then served as a sporting director for Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona's academy, as well as coaching the Ajax A1 (under-19) team and assisting Clarence Seedorf for the Cameroon national team.