I play basketball in a league with Raymond van Beveren, son of former Dutch and PSV keeper Jan van Beveren. I only discovered yesterday that he is Jan's son. I read up on Jan last night and found that some writers considered him to be the best keeper in Dutch history. The articles also discussed his bad relationship with Cruyff and how Jan's exclusion from the 74 and 78 teams probably cost Holland the World Cup. Can anyone that is more versed on PSV, Dutch voetbal, etc. give me some more insight on van Beveren?
Van Beveren! I can tell you he came to the US to play for Ft. Lauderdale Strikers - at the prime of his career. And he was UNBELIEVABLE. UN^$*^%$BELIEVABLE. But didn't he blow off the Dutch national team? I thought that was the main reason people don't rave about him when they rave about players of the 70's or ex-NASL stars. God, he was amazing.
From what I read, van Beveren was really critical of the way Cruyff got different treatment than the rest of the team. Cruyff would smoke in the locker room, blow off team functions, etc. and Jan was outspoken about this. Jan picked up an injury in early 1974 and this allowed Cruyff to politic to have him not selected for the Cup, even though it was speculated that he would've been healthy by Cup time. So, from what I gathered, it seems that he was blackballed by Cruyff.
Cruijff v van Beveren Ah… what would Dutch football be without a little internal conflict. Here’s an interesting article on the topic: http://www.worldcuparchive.com/GUESTS/ruud20010525.html The author is a bit harsh on Jan Jongbloed… “a mediocre, elderly goalkeeper” doesn’t get to the WC final without conceding a single goal and one of the “two soft goals” vs. Germany was a PK.