World-class in every position: How Ruud Gullit became the best player in Europe

Barry Hughes was a fascinating man. Born in Wales, he played for West Bromwich Albion as a youth player before moving to the Netherlands in his early 20s. His playing career didn't last long, but he spent the entirety of his coaching career – and remainder of his life – in the lowlands.

Hughes’ biggest impact came at HFC Haarlem, where he spent nine years as manager over two spells. Towards the end of his time there, he orchestrated one of the most significant transfers in the club’s history. In 1977, the Welshman turned up at the home of George and Ria Gullit determined to sign their 15-year-old son after seeing him impress at youth side DWS.

Instead, Gullit senior was hoping legendary Ajax manager Rinus Michels would knock on the door with an offer. Noticing that the child's mother cared more about a proper education, Hughes appealed to her and let the dominoes fall.

“I was immediately met with a flat refusal," he wrote in his 1998 book 'Grass, Sweat and Shampoo'. "The father told me with firm resolve: 'I think he is still too young, just come back in a year.' I pointed to my watch and said: 'It is now September 22nd, eleven o'clock in the morning. Exactly one year from now, on September 22nd at eleven o'clock in the morning, I will be back on your doorstep.'"

Hughes waited for the fateful day, managing Haarlem in the meantime and simultaneously releasing his debut single, 'Voetbal is Koning' (Football is King). He continues: "Exactly one year later, on September 22nd, exactly at eleven o'clock in the morning, and not a second earlier or later, I rang the doorbell at the Gullit family's house again.

"Father Gullit announced that they were waiting for Ajax. As so often, I had to do battle with the big Amsterdam club. 'If Michels comes by, we'll talk further.' I asked: 'Has he been here yet?' That was not the case.

"Since Rudi's mother apparently attached great importance to a good education for her son, I immediately arranged a school for Rudi in Haarlem… She let herself be convinced by me, talked Mr. Gullit over, and so Rudi Gullit came to Haarlem."

Almost a year after he joined, Gullit made his debut at 16 years and 245 days old, becoming the youngest player in Eredivisie history at the time. He quickly became a regular in the starting XI, playing at sweeper in his first season and experiencing the first big disappointment of his career: relegation.

In his second year, the club made the career-shifting decision of moving him into a more attacking role. The teenager's experience at the back gave him the upper hand when coming face-to-face with defenders.

"I'm not a natural striker, I'm a defender," he recalled on a podcast years later. "So as a defender, the only thing I know is what a defender wants me to do. First when I played for Haarlem, I all of a sudden [in my] second year had to play as a striker.

"I trained every day after the normal training session. I went training as a striker: Get the ball, one touch, shot. So, in all kinds of situations with a defender, get the ball and try to get one touch only and hit it. And then I noticed one thing. I said to myself: 'You don't need to hit it hard; you just have to place it. Place it, left, right'.

"All of a sudden, I had the [knack] of it… I scored a lot of goals. Easy goals. I just thought: 'That's easy'."

He scored 14 and was named the Eerste Divisie's best player as Haarlem went straight back up to the top tier. Back in the Eredivisie, the youngster then matched that tally from attacking midfield and the wing while creating chances for others.

Haarlem finished fourth, but Gullit had outgrown his surroundings and wouldn't stick around for the club's maiden European adventure in the UEFA Cup.

Instead of making his dad's dream a reality by joining Dutch champions Ajax, Gullit went to a Feyenoord team that had just finished sixth – two places below Haarlem.

He was asked onto a TV talk show to explain his decision. Gullit reflected: "[Host Sonja Barend] said that everyone was very surprised that I wasn’t going to Ajax, but to Feyenoord. Sonja literally asked what I was doing at such a bad club, I looked at her and said: ‘You can think what you want. But if we become champions, you have to invite me on again, right?’

"I saw the potential of the club and the team."

The 19-year-old had already stung Feyenoord towards the end of the season, scoring a header as Haarlem beat them 3-1 in De Kuip. Feyenoord turned that aerial prowess into a weapon of their own.

Scoring a header in his Eredivisie debut as they beat Excelsior 3-2, he was off to a flyer. A week later in a 3-1 win at PSV, Gullit collected the ball and casually strolled through the hosts' half with his head up, looking for a pass near the box. After the ball found its way out left, Gullit continued his run and rose to divert Ben Wijnstekers' cross into the net.

Gullit scored eight in the league that season as Feyenoord finished second. Then, the unthinkable happened.

Johan Cruyff, outraged by the contract Ajax had just offered him, accepted an audacious proposal from their fierce rivals down south. Now 36, many believed the legendary forward was too old to keep up. Furthermore, with many key players leaving, including icon Willem van Hanegem, Feyenoord looked too weak to challenge the powerful Amsterdam club.

They underestimated Cruyff and Gullit.

"I was more curious than anything," Gullit later told The Guardian. "He was 36 when he came to Feyenoord. There were moments when I thought: ‘OK, now I’m going to get the ball off him’, but I couldn’t. I was thinking: ‘Thirty-six? Imagine how good he must have been at 24?’"

The man dubbed Pythagoras in Boots took over the team, dictating to team-mates during games, setting training drills and picking the lineup. Crucially, he was still untouchable on the ball. Feyenoord started bullying opponents, with the old master and protégé tearing it up. Often creating goals for each other, sometimes finding the net in the same game, they were impossible for defences to contain – until Ajax inflicted the first Eredivisie defeat.

Cruyff's return to Amsterdam couldn't have gone worse: they were 3-0 down 25 minutes in, but a Gullit assist and another Feyenoord goal gave them a chance at half-time. They couldn’t resist the second-half onslaught, though, as five goals flew in over the last 30 minutes.

"It might sound strange, but we were better for a long time," Gullit remembered. "We had chances to take the lead. After the 3-2, we went all out. And then they made it 4-2, with a lot of luck. Keje Molenaar happened to get the ball in off the back of his head. Well, after that, the floodgates opened for us. And they were lucky that almost every attack went in."

A win was only worth two points back then and Feyenoord had shown they had the quality in previous games to bounce back, so Cruyff wasn't nervous. "The funny thing is that loss didn't hurt at all," the attacking midfielder said. "It was more of a turning point. Cruyff said afterwards: ‘Guys, it’s just two points.’

"We knew we could play good football. We improved because of that 8-2 defeat. After that, we also won almost every game. Including against Ajax, in both the home game and the cup."

Gullit scored a free kick and Cruyff doubled the lead as Feyenoord beat the Amsterdam side 4-1 in De Kuip in the league months later. They lost just once more in the Eredivisie – to Groningen – and claimed their first title in 10 years. Gullit also scored and got an assist against Ajax over two legs in the KNVB Beker and finished the competition's top scorer as Feyenoord completed the double.

"What a year that was," Gullit said.

The young attacking midfielder was voted Dutch Footballer of the Year by his fellow players, while the media handed Cruyff the Golden Boot.

Hanging up his boots at the end of that season, El Salvador had more wisdom to pass on. "At the end of the year he told me: 'Ruud, the next club you go to be prepared for the fact that people won’t like you anymore. Also, you need to make others around you play better.'

"I was thinking: 'Okaaaayyy … I still have to give attention to my own career. How can I help others?' But when I went to PSV and then Milan the puzzle suddenly fitted together. I remembered everything Johan had said."

Hughes, the enigmatic Welshman, later said: "When Gullit joined [Haarlem] he was playing with men who were drinking themselves stupid, having fights or telling him their sex stories in the dressing-room. Then he heads off to Feyenoord and Johan Cruyff takes him under his wing – and the rest is history."

After another promising but injury-plagued season in Rotterdam, Gullit made the controversial move to PSV and hit the ground running.

In one of his first appearances, he came up against Ajax – now coached by Cruyff. Gullit opened the scoring, perfectly reading a sloppy Ajax pass in the middle of the field and going on a blistering run before blasting past Stanley Menzo. After setting up Van der Gijp for his team's third, Gullit then ran onto a pass, carried it down the wing and lashed high into the net to round off a 4-2 win.

He was firing them in for fun, even after moving back to the sweeper role during that first season he was marauding forward and scoring plenty of important goals. Towards the end, he went on a rampage with nine in four games, finishing off with two in a 3-2 win against Feyenoord.

PSV finished eight points clear of Ajax, winning the league for the first time in eight years. At 23, Gullit was named Dutch Footballer of the Year for a second time.

He was simply unstoppable the in the 1986-87 campaign, too, scoring 22 goals in 34 matches as PSV won the league again. The Jack-of-all-trades was morphing into a complete player in every sense of the word and had once again outgrown his surroundings. Towards the end of the season, his falling out with coach Hans Kraay paved the way for a world-record transfer.

Gullit had grown tired of his position constantly changing and when Kraay made him play as a sweeper against Veendam, he called up two journalists who had recently interviewed him for Niewue Revu and vented his fury. Kraay, outraged by the public criticism, told PSV to sell the player. They refused, so the coach quit and was replaced by Guus Hiddink.

PSV transfer chief Kees Ploegsma later suggested Gullit orchestrated the outrage to force the subsequent move to AC Milan, resulting in the Eindhoven side's complaint to UEFA.

"Ruud Gullit wanted to leave. With that whole Nieuwe Revue story and the journalists [First] Barend and [Henk] van Dorp, certain things were staged," he told Supver-PSV.

"However, PSV dug their heels in until we got wind of the fact that AC Milan were already working on a contract for Ruud Gullit. That is when we involved UEFA and informed AC Milan of this through [president] Silvio Berlusconi. I will never forget it: if Silvio Berlusconi hadn't taken steps at that time, it would have meant AC Milan would have been kicked out of European football. You weren't allowed to talk to a player about a contract during a certain period."

The Eindhoven side received a surprising fax from Berlusconi: he would be in Eindhoven the following day to conclude a deal. "At some point, an agreement was reached for 17 million guilders," Ploegsma said. "Gullit walked into the hotel room, and I will never forget his face when I introduced him to Berlusconi. Ruud Gullit was completely happy, and that is how it went.

"Later, everything worked out, but he simply forced his way out of PSV."

Gullit later told Bein Sports: "I didn't know that Milan at that time were making some moves. I knew they were interested in me, but I didn't hear or see it and then all of a sudden Berlusconi was in Eindhoven and made the deal with PSV."

In December 1987, Gullit was awarded the Ballon d'Or for his exploits at PSV and the first half of his debut Milan season – Van Basten was second in the running.

According to the award organisers, France Football, his was a triumph for the artists: "Gullit is a phenomenon born in the Kingdom of Orange to revolutionise football and propel the 'total footballers' of the 70s into the 21st century. A rare combination of virtuosity, teamwork, and spectacular artistry, he is athlete and dancer, joker and magician… He probably hasn't finished reigning yet, given the robust health, appetite, and creativity he brings to a sport that was once geared towards calculation and energy management."

AC Milan had been going through a dismal period. Since their 1979 Serie A win, they had been relegated twice - once for match-fixing - and had just finished fifth in Serie A when Gullit, Marco van Basten and Carlo Ancelotti arrived in the summer of 1987. With the likes of Donadoni, Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi already there, new coach Arrigo Sacchi had the foundations of a revolutionary team. They claimed back the Serie A crown that first season together, with Gullit playing on the right wing.

He then went to join his national team for Euro 1988 in West Germany. He had been wearing the captain's armband for years, but they failed to qualify for the 1982 and 1986 World Cups as well as Euro 1984. With legendary ex-Ajax manager Michels in charge of a team consisting of Van Basten, Ronald Koeman and Frank Rijkaard, hope had returned.

The Dutch suffered an opening defeat to the Soviet Union, with the skipper coming under fire from Michels: "He missed the boat. He had a free role in this game and he couldn’t support the team when they needed him."

He responded by playing a key role as Van Basten's hat-trick downed Sir Bobby Robson's England in the next game. "I had this tremendous click with Marco on the pitch," he said. "Watch the England game and you’ll see that I am constantly looking for him. I was weak, he was strong and I played in service of him."

After they beat Ireland and Germany, it was time for revenge against the Soviets in the final.

Gullit's powerful header opened the scoring when Van Basten found him unmarked in the middle of the box. The 25-year-old wheeled away with both arms outstretched and a smile just as wide. After Van Basten lashed home one of the most iconic goals in history in the second-half, Gullit became the first Dutch captain to lift a major international trophy.

Ahead of the next season, Rijkaard, whose father had emigrated from Suriname to the Netherlands with Gullit's, moved to AC Milan. The pair were born on opposite ends of September – Gullit on the first, Rijkaard on the 30th – and played at the same youth team before going separate ways professionally. When Gullit made his Netherlands debut in 1981, it was Rijkaard he replaced.

"The Van Basten deal was not at the same time as my deal," Gullit said. "We knew of it, of course, but I had nothing to do with it. We had something to do with the deal for Frank Rijkaard the next year. We wanted him because we thought that he was the missing piece of the puzzle and so we did everything in our power to get Rijkaard to Milan."

The Dutch trio reunited once again, they were ready to continue their continental dominance. After drawing 1-1 with Real Madrid in the first leg of the European Cup semi-final in Spain, Gullit helped them to a 5-0 demolition of Leo Beenhakker's team. After Ancelotti and Rijkaard put Milan 2-0 up, Gullit headed in from a Donadoni cross before heading down to Van Basten for a fine finish for their fourth.

He then went off injured and was diagnosed with a broken meniscus, requiring an operation and a speedy recovery to make the final against Steaua Bucharest at Camp Nou. He was pivotal in the 4-0 win, breaking the deadlock with a tap-in before smashing in the third after controlling a Donadoni cross. Rijkaard set up Van Basten's second to round off a phenomenal victory.

The following season was brutal for the Dutchman. The injury kept him out for almost its entirety – he featured just twice in Serie A and once in the European Cup: the final, starting up front as Rijkaard scored the only goal with a Van Basten assist.

Gullit stuck around for two more years but found his role diminishing under Fabio Capello. Another Serie A title followed, but he was absent as AC Milan lost to Marseille in the Champions League final in 1993. He was loaned to Sampdoria and scored an impressive 15 goals to help them to a fourth-place finish in the league, so AC Milan brought him back at the start of the following season, but it just wasn't the same.

“After my injury, I was not the Ruud Gullit anymore what I was before," he said. "I had to adjust myself to a different way of playing football, because of the injury and because I was that much out of the game.

"I had to adapt my game, but I could deal with it. But of course, the role at Milan was less important than before, because at that moment the rotation system was introduced. We were only allowed to have three foreigners, so sometimes you couldn't play. When you are used to playing most of the games and all of a sudden you have to rest, that's hard."

In 1995, he joined Glenn Hoddle's Chelsea and again started off in defence, but his attacking nature couldn't be contained: he regularly ventured forward and started carving out chances. Eventually, he had to return to a more advanced role.

As he told The Times: "I would take a difficult ball, control it, make space and play a good ball in front of the right-back. Except that he didn't want that pass. Eventually, Glenn said to me, 'Ruud, it would be better if you do these things in midfield.'"

Eric Cantona beat him to the Footballer of the Year award at the end of that season. Then, Hoddle took the England job and Gullit became the Blues' player-manager for 18 months. He picked himself 24 times and scored once, against Tottenham, but stayed on the touchline as Chelsea won the FA Cup final with a 2-0 win against Middlesbrough.

Even though the London side were second in the league come February 1998, he was sacked and ended up coaching Newcastle, reaching the FA Cup final again. Five years later, he returned to Feyenoord for an ill-fated spell in charge, then after short bursts at LA Galaxy and Terek Grozny he decided management wasn't for him.

"Sometimes I laugh about it. There are coaches who never won anything but they are still working," he told The Guardian. "I won in my first season with Chelsea and with Newcastle we made the final and only lost to Man U. I have been harshly judged and that comes with my personality because I am outspoken.

"But I know football. I don’t have to prove anything."

Perhaps, finally, football had caught up with the man who was always ahead of the game.

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