DENNIS BERGKAMP

Played in clubs Ajax (Holland), Inter (Italy), Arsenal (England). During 1990-2000, spent 79 caps for Holland.

Dutchman Bergkamp, ??who was born in Amsterdam, received his name after a famous Scot Denis Law, who played in the English Manchester United. The fact that an ardent fan of Manchester United was his father. Yet he added the name of the son of another letter "H" - that there was no obvious resemblance to the female name "Denise. "

In twelve years, Dennis came to Ajax in Amsterdam's famous football school club. Played in the youth team, and so much talent that even at seventeen first entered the field in the first team, and once in a European Cup game against Swedish club Malmo. And in 1987 the young Bergkamp with his club celebrated his victory in the Cup Winners' Cup: Ajax won the final match in Leipzig Lokomotiv.

The optimum position of Dennis Bergkamp on the field quickly and permanently defined: it plays just behind the forward of the assailants, but nevertheless differs enviable efficiency. However, he is famous and accurate pasami that display a partner in an excellent position to strike. Elegant and effective game Bergkamp quickly noticed and the coach of Holland. In 1990 dvadtsatiodnoletny striker played a part in her first match against Italy. And in November the same year, scored his first goal for the national team at the gate Greece.

In 1992, together with Ajax Bergkamp earned another international trophy - UEFA Cup: In the final match of the Dutch defeated the Italian club Torino. And in the same year as part of the Dutch national team Dennis Bergkamp went to Sweden, which hosted the European Championship.

That the Dutch were then the champions of the continent, having won the title in 1988, winning the final match of the USSR national team - 2:0.

Photo — «Dennis Bergkamp»

Heroes of the last championship - Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard - still defined the game and the Dutch national team at the new season. Perfectly fit into this stellar ensemble of young and Bergkamp, ??who managed to score three goals in Sweden. But to repeat the success the Dutch national team failed: passing group stage, then she dropped out of the fight, losing in the penalty shoot-out team from Denmark - the future of the new European champion.

Whatever it was, the young Dutch striker has watched Europe's leading clubs - Barcelona, ??Juventus, AC Milan, and Amsterdam's Ajax could never boast a solid financial base and willingly traded their pupils, hoping for new talent growing up in their own school. More than all of the proposed Bergkamp Inter Milan.

In this club, the Dutchman played from 1993 to 1995, but did not feel the interaction with other players and great success is not achieved. Apparently, his elegant style does not fit into the overall concept of "Inter". Certainly more than he came to Milan, where before the game determined the same well-known Dutch trio - Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard. Nevertheless, together with Inter in 1994, the famous Dutch won the UEFA Cup.

But in London's Arsenal, where he moved in 1995, Bergkamp was at his place, immediately making with Yanom Wright, the most formidable duo of strikers in the Premiership. In the English club he plays to this day (2004), well working with the current stars of Arsenal - Frenchman Thierry Henry, Pires and Robber Sylvain Wiltord. In today's part of the Arsenal there is another Dutchman - midfielder Giovanni van Bronckhorst. In the 1998-1999 season, the Arsenal became the national champion and won the FA Cup. "Golden Cut" and he did in the 2001-2002 season of the year.

All these years, Dennis Bergkamp went perfectly to play for Holland.

Photo — «Dennis Bergkamp»

At the World Championships 1994 Dutch largely thanks to him, reached the quarterfinals but lost to the Brazilian national team - the future world champion.

At the next World Cup in 1998, held in France, the Dutch again met with the Brazilian national team, now in the semifinals, and they did not concede. The regulation time ended in a draw - 1:1. Brazilians were able to reach the finals, only won on penalties.

But first Dutch team played a quarterfinal match against Argentina, and he long remembered by everyone in the first place precisely because of its distinguished and efficient play of Dennis Bergkamp. First he made a great head for the accuracy and the amazing beauty of the transfer to the output Patrick Kluivert, who opened the account. And then, at the very end of the game when the score was 1:1, catching the ball with his foot, sent him to Frank de Boer almost out of his penalty area, one-touch transport it into the goal for Argentina. Overall, in this championship Bergkamp scored three goals.

There is a Dennis Bergkamp is one feature well-known throughout the football world. He refuses to fly on airplanes, arriving at away matches by train or car. So often he did not participate in the games if they are away from home. He was absent, for example, in the Moscow match Arsenal with Lokomotiv in the Champions League 2003-2004.

Apparently, for the same reason, the 2002 World Cup, held, as we know, on the edge of the world - in Japan and South Korea - Dennis Bergkamp has announced he is leaving Dutch team. Still, admirers of his talent, secretly kept the hope that before the European Championship 2004 in Portugal, he did change his mind. Portugal is not so far from England, where the famous Dutchman continues to play at Arsenal.