There is no doubt that Marco Van Basten He has been one of the best footballers of his generation, he has even achieved it despite the fact that his sporting career ended too soon: a serious right ankle injury forced him to retire 28 years, when he was one of the figures of the AC Milan at its peak. They were very difficult days for him, who has shared some details.
In an interview with EFE Regarding the publication of his autobiography ‘BASTA’, the former Dutch soccer player told how he lived the process that began December 21, 1992, when He had a third ankle surgery and was never able to play again.
“I had a very bad time, I lived with a lot of pain. The doctors didn’t help me with the treatments and my ankle got worse and worse.. I spent a lot of time on the couch, unable to walk, not wanting people to see me in that state. I got depressed, it was a very dark time. The pain was physical, but obviously it affected me a lot mentally. I had many years left as a footballer, to show everything that I could have been, “lamented Van Basten.
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Marco van Basten was champion of the European Championship with the Netherlands in 1988 (Shutterstock)
The foreword to his autobiographical book is shocking. Van Basten recounts how during that horrible period got up to urinate at midnight and he was heading to the bathroom crawling on all fours, without supporting that right ankle that made him scream in pain. “I tried to solve the ankle problem in many ways to try to continue with my football career, but it could not be”, he remembered.
Marco van Basten, who was inspired by “The reading of ‘Open’, the autobiography of André Agassi” to tell his own story, he also tells stories of his best years and considers his AC Milan era “better than Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona ”, two teams that coexisted between the late 80s and early 90s. “But Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona was better than Berlusconi’s Milan”he admitted.
“Guardiola is the one who is better expressing the way I understand football and also the way Cruyff understood it”, he opined El Cisne de Utrecht, one of Cruyff’s darlings.
In fact, after lifting the Eurocup of 1988 with the Netherlands team as one of the great protagonists, Van Basten received a proposal from Cruyff to play in the FC Barcelona –He had already had him at his command at Ajax– but the gunner did not want to accept. “I told him no. It was only one season that I had come to Milan from Ajax and, due to my ankle injury, I had practically not been able to play.. Also, at that time the best football was played in Italy. He wanted to show at Milan what a good player he was and the next two years we won the European Cup, “he said.
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Marco van Basten could play for Barcelona but rejected Cruyff’s offer (Photo: EFE)
When asked if he is happy now, Van Basten he acknowledges that he has plenty of reasons to be: “I have two children and a wife who love me, I can play sports and I lead a life that I like”.
And about his time as a coach, which was not very fruitful after trying in Ajax, Heerenveen, AZ Alkmaar and the national team, he said that the position causes him too much emotional suffering and he once again invokes the figure of Cruyff: “I will never be a coach again. What is the best teaching that Johan Cruyff gave me? There are so many… But above all his way of understanding football and life.”
(With information from EFE)
KEEP READING:
Why Cruyff did not play the 78 World Cup: where and with whom he saw the final between Argentina and the Netherlands Marco van Basten uttered a live Nazi phrase and was suspended He was branded as “stupid” by Marco van Basten when he chose Morocco over the Netherlands: two years later he took revenge