Willem van Hanegem wrote in his column in the Algemeen Dagblad reflected on the death of his former teammate Ruud Geels. He immediately debunks a persistent story circulating in the media about the man who breathed his last on Saturday at the age of 75.
Geels can rightly be called an absolute top striker. In 393 matches in the Eredivisie he scored no fewer than 265 times. This means that the former player of Telstar, Feyenoord, Go Ahead Eagles, Ajax, Sparta, PSV and NAC Breda is still second on the list. all time top scorer list behind PSV icon Willy van der Kuijlen, who hit the net no less than 311 times.
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Van Hanegem writes that Geels spent his last phase of life, in which he struggled with Alzheimer’s disease, less than a ten-minute drive from his home, and that he recently visited his former teammate. “Now that he has passed away, it is again a lot about 1974 and the fact that he was not taken seriously at the World Cup,” said the Feyenoord icon. Geels was in the selection at the World Cup final round in West Germany, but ultimately did not play a minute. But the fact that he was not taken seriously is not true at all, according to Van Hanegem: “That is complete nonsense.”
Geels would have been highly regarded by the rest of the selection of national coach Rinus Michels: “All teammates saw how good Geels was, I’m sure,” writes The Curve. He attributes Geels’ reserve role to the qualities of the competition: “It’s possible that he didn’t play at all in Germany at the time. We already had a nice striker,” he refers to the presence of the legendary Johan Cruijff, who played in West Germany. -Germany was in the vanguard with John Rep and Rob Rensenbrink.
