What happened to Holland?

Dutch clubs have found it increasingly hard to hang onto homegrown talent; Ajax star Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is a frequent transfer target. Phil Cole/Getty Images

By Klaas-Jan Droppert, Special to SI.com, World Soccer

Holland gave everything to Euro 2008. The team played dazzling soccer against France and world champion Italy. Pundits swooned over an updated version of Total Football and praised the individual skills of Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart & Co.

Between 80,000 and 150,000 fans, clad from head to toe in orange, packed the streets of Bern and Basel to support them. The Swiss authorities, not known for their spontaneity, thanked the Dutch fans "for a party they will never forget."

Holland once again showed what a small country is capable of. It was a publicity coup for Dutch soccer, securing a moral victory even though the national team again failed to secure the right results at the right time.

But there's a downside to success, and it's felt by the domestic league. For years, the top division (the Eredivisie) has compared unfavorably to Europe's top four (Italy, Spain, England and Germany), with some Dutch pundits describing it as a Mickey Mouse competition.

And the gap is increasing, mainly because of the inbuilt inequalities of the Champions League. Each year, Italian, Spanish and English clubs earn more and more cash from the competition -- no wonder they dominate European soccer. The days when Dutch clubs ruled Europe (they won no fewer than six European trophies and three World Club Cups in the 1970s) are long gone. The last time a Dutch club reached the final of the Champions League was in 1996, when Ajax lost to Juventus. The last European silverware was Feyenoord's UEFA Cup of 2002.

The wealth gap in Europe has had its own negative effect on the domestic game. Some might argue that Ajax's failure to qualify for the Champions League for a third year running is a sign of the Dutch league's strength in depth. But while unfancied Twente Enschede -- which took Holland's second Champions League berth behind Eredivisie winner PSV Eindhoven -- and unheralded UEFA Cup qualifier Heerenveen may look like ambitious clubs en route to a bright future, by the time they compete in Europe, their key players will have been sold to wealthier ones at home or abroad.

The mediocrity of the Eredivisie, along with an unfavorable tax system, means the Dutch league is no longer attractive to top foreign players. Little progress is expected on this front in the next few years.

Perhaps it's time to recognize that Holland just isn't big enough for its clubs to compete effectively in Europe. Although more and more spectators are attending domestic-league games -- not least because grounds have been revamped or built in recent years -- selling the product to the fans via television has proved far more difficult.

Many foreign clubs make big money from selling their broadcasting rights on an individual basis, but in Holland, the rights are sold as a package for the whole top division, meaning the country's big three clubs -- PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord -- must share the total amount with the other 15.

Holland is just not a big TV market. In the 1990s, a specialist soccer channel, Sport 7, was launched, only to go off the air within a few months. But television bosses hadn't learned their lesson. Citing the English Premier League as an example, the Dutch league broadcasting rights were, for the first time, sold to commercial channel Talpa in '04 in a deal worth $54 million a season. When the contract expired three years later, Talpa had gone under but resurfaced as a new business. So a new auction was held and the rights were sold for just $32 million a season. Meanwhile, pay-per-view TV had only a low take-up.

Perhaps staying small isn't the biggest danger for the Dutch league. After all, top players have been going abroad since the end of the Second World War, before Holland even had professional soccer. From Faas Wilkes' 1949 move to Inter Milan, through Johan Cruyff's to Barcelona in '72, Ruud Gullit's to Milan in '87 and Sneijder's to Real Madrid last year, Holland's best players have consistently competed in Europe's biggest leagues.

The Dutch youth system, especially that of Ajax, was famous for producing a constant flow of talent. But in the past, these players could at least be admired in the Eredivisie for a couple of years before the foreign clubs came knocking. The current situation is far more dangerous, with English Premier League academies "kidnapping" Dutch youth players before they even make their first-team debuts.

Tim Krul (Newcastle), Nacer Barazite (Arsenal), Jeffrey Bruma and Patrick van Aanholt (both Chelsea), and Jordy Brouwer (Liverpool) are examples of the increasing number of youth players going overseas. And Dutch clubs can do little about it: Not only are they unable to compete when big money is offered, but Dutch law forbids contracting players before the age of 16.

"English clubs promise them the world," says former Ajax director Martin van Geel. "What they don't tell these youngsters, who still have to make a name for themselves, is that nine out of 10 fail."

It isn't all doom and gloom. Holland still plays a major part in international soccer. Apart from the national team's own performances, there is the country's coaching prowess: There were four Dutch coaches leading teams at the last World Cup, for instance -- Dick Advocaat, Guus Hiddink, Marco van Basten and Leo Beenhakker -- more than any other country.

Hiddink's achievement in leading Australia to the second round in that tournament came in the wake of his miraculous work with South Korea, which he led to the semis four years before. This year, of course, he was at it again, steering Russia to the Euro 2008 semis. Advocaat had a Russian triumph at club level this past season, leading Zenit St. Petersburg to the UEFA Cup.

Individual Dutch players also had success last term. Manchester United keeper Edwin van der Sar was the hero in the Champions League final, saving Nicolas Anelka's kick in the shootout to bring his side victory over Chelsea.

Van der Sar continued a recent tradition of Dutch players winning the Champions League. In '07, it was Clarence Seedorf with AC Milan, the year before it was Giovanni van Bronckhorst with Barcelona.

So Dutch soccer still has a highly respected reputation and a fundamental place in the world game. It's such a pity that the Eredivisie is paying the price.

This article originally appeared in the August 2008 issue of World Soccer magazine. To subscribe, click here.