Why do we love the Dutch so much? Man United new boy Matthijs De Ligt joins an illustrious list of Netherlands imports, but success isn’t always a given in the Premier League

From Johan Cruijff to Ruud Gullit, from Marco van Basten to Dennis Bergkamp: the Netherlands has exported more successful footballers than most other countries.

Their best players have contributed to trophy-laden spells at big clubs and Manchester United will be hoping their latest signing can continue that trend.

Matthijs De Ligt has played for three giants of the European game – Ajax, Bayern Munich and Juventus – and joins his fourth at the age of 25. The £43m deal takes his total career transfer fee to almost £170m. For a player who has not been a regular for the Netherlands and has obvious weaknesses, that is a significant amount.

Yet De Ligt’s hefty transfer fee strikes at the heart of a love affair between European football and the Dutch ever since Cruyff spun past Swedish defender Jan Olsson in June 1974, performing the turn that still bears his name.

The impact that Cruyff’s compatriots Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen had on English football cannot be overstated. Had they failed at Ipswich, who knows if Bergkamp, ​​Ruud van Nistelrooy or Virgil van Dijk would have had the chance to succeed? Instead, the pair helped Ipswich win the 1981 UEFA Cup and finish as Division One runners-up for two seasons in a row.

Muhren and Thijssen cost less than £400,000 between them. Such bargains have rarely been available for Dutch players since. Muhren and Thijssen contributed to that, but so did what you might call ‘the Ajax tax’.

Ajax has been a symbol of excellent youth training since the time of Cruijff and the Amsterdammers are grateful to make use of this.

The Ajax team that won the Champions League in 1995, featuring Marc Overmars, Frank and Ronald de Boer, Clarence Seedorf and Edgar Davids, had nine Dutch players in the starting line-up, plus match winner Patrick Kluivert as a substitute.

The combined transfer fees of that group over their careers totalled £120m. If that sounds relatively small, consider that the figures being thrown around were far lower 30 years ago, and many of those Ajax squad were out of contract and earning huge signing fees and wages on free transfers.

De Ligt, Frenkie De Jong and Donny van De Beek were part of the 2018-2019 Ajax team that probably should have won the Champions League, but was spectacularly defeated in the semi-final against Tottenham.

That didn’t deter suitors: Barcelona paid £74 million for De Jong, Juventus £73.4 million for De Ligt and United £33.4 million for Van De Beek.

The trio neatly sums up the Dutch conundrum. Despite several attempts to sell him to improve the balance sheet, De Jong has been a fine player for Barca. De Ligt has been solid enough for his clubs without regaining his Ajax form, while Van De Beek has struggled desperately and is now trying to revive his career with surprise Champions League qualification Girona.

If it works

The majority of Dutch players, especially those who progress through the Ajax system, receive a specific training, with an emphasis on technique, tactical flexibility and ball possession.

Give them a club and a manager who understand that and the rewards are clear.

Bergkamp’s ten-year spell with Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, after a miserable spell under cautious coaches at Internazionale, is one of the best examples in English football. But Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard at Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan is probably the best-known success story, along with Ronald Koeman and Cruyff himself at Barcelona.

Find that magic formula and the transfer fee hardly matters. Does anyone really moan about the high fees for Van Nistelrooy or Van Dijk? We only remember the match-winning performances and the trophies — four for Van Nistelrooy as a prolific striker at Old Trafford, eight and counting for Van Dijk, the all-powerful centre-back, at Liverpool.

If that doesn’t work

Bergkamp at Inter and De Ligt at Juventus are examples of how not to do it. Counter-attacking football didn’t suit Bergkamp, ​​so asking him to adapt at Inter in the early 90s — a tough call, even for Serie A fans — was an accident waiting to happen.

The same applied to De Ligt, who should have followed De Jong to Barcelona and might have done so if his agent, the late Mino Raiola, had not had a good relationship with Juve.

At Ajax he had become accustomed to bringing the ball out of defence, but under the conservative Max Allegri in Turin, De Ligt found himself alongside two of the game’s best central defenders – Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini – and the comparison was hardly flattering to him.

There are question marks over his mobility and positional sense, and those doubts should worry United fans. Since De Ligt’s arrival in 2022, Bayern have brought in three more senior centre-backs — hardly a vote of confidence.

Then there is the ‘Eredivisie curse’: players who move from the Dutch top division to England and flop, such as Vincent Janssen, Mateja Kezman and Alfonso Alves. Luis Suarez has been a spectacular exception and Cody Gakpo is doing well at Liverpool, but the physical gap between the Dutch and English top divisions is so great that a direct transfer from one division to the other is a risk.

Perhaps it would be better to first see how the Dutch perform in a stronger competition before diving in.

Buy or avoid?

There are always exceptions, but the formula feels pretty simple. If you’re going to go Dutch, at least give them a chance. Make sure your style, manager and team are aligned with the player, because chances are you’ll be rewarded handsomely. The Dutch are also generally excellent linguists, which helps them adapt.

But put them in a gloomy team, where the emphasis is on direct football and counter-attacking, and you’re more likely to end up with a player who’s completely fed up and a big hole in your balance sheet.