Marco Van Basten was destined for greatness from the get-go. Once he scored in his debut with Ajax at just 17, opponents in the Dutch League couldn’t keep the ball out of their nets.
On April 4, 1982, Ajax was on the rise back to the top, having lost the championship to Alkmaar in 1981. They were leading 2-0 against Nijmegen when 34-year-old Johan Cruyff, who had opened the scoring, made way for a towering youngster at halftime. Marco Van Basten’s name might not have rung any bells back then, but soon it would become synonymous with goals. His first was a header just 22 minutes into his debut, making him the youngest player in Eredivisie history to score in his debut at 17.
Ajax eventually won 5-0, clinching the title without Van Basten making another appearance in the remaining eight matches. In 1983, he contributed to maintaining their championship reign with nine goals in 20 appearances (he also scored four times in five matches on the road to winning the Dutch Cup), with four of those goals coming in three consecutive matches against Haarlem (6-1), Breda (2-0), and Excelsior (2-1), leading his team to four straight wins after a 5-5 draw with Groningen, in which he didn’t play.
His performances earned him a spot in the starting lineup at 19, and from there, he struck fear into opposing defenses, becoming the league’s top scorer for four consecutive years. With 28 goals in 26 appearances in 1984, he became the youngest player to be crowned top scorer alongside Willy Van Der Kuijlen (the all-time top scorer in Eredivisie history with 311 goals) and Wim Kieft (whom Van Basten replaced as Ajax’s main striker when he moved to Pisa), who also achieved the feat at 19 in 1966 and 1982, respectively.
In just the second match, Van Basten netted four times against Willem as Ajax triumphed 5-0, and in the seventh, he scored a hat-trick in the “thunderous” 8-2 win over Feyenoord. After 12 games, he had already bagged 14 goals, but an injury sidelined him for three months, temporarily halting his momentum. Upon his return, he immediately resumed, scoring two goals in the 5-1 victory against Fortuna Sittard, and ended the season impressively with nine goals in the last three matches. He started with two goals in the 4-0 win against Excelsior, followed by two more in the 5-2 defeat to Sparta Rotterdam, and finished with five goals in the 7-2 win over Dordrecht. In 1985, his 23 goals in 33 appearances propelled Ajax back to the top, after finishing third the previous season behind Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven.
He scored once in the first three matches, helping his team start the season with nine consecutive wins, and gave another masterclass at the end when he scored four goals in the penultimate match against Volendam in a 5-2 win. Cruyff took over as Ajax’s head coach “catapulted” him. In 1986, Van Basten scored at a rate of almost one goal per hour in his most prolific season, netting 37 goals in just 26 appearances. To put this into perspective, when Lionel Messi scored 50 goals in 37 appearances for Barcelona in the Spanish League in 2012, he scored once every 65 minutes, similar to Cristiano Ronaldo who stopped at 48 in 35 games in 2015 with Real Madrid. Of course, Messi took it to another level in 2013, scoring 46 goals in 32 matches, with a goal every 57 minutes.
After 21 matches, Van Basten had already found the net an impressive 34 times, bagging five goals in an 8-1 thrashing of Heracles and setting a record with six goals in a 9-0 rout against Sparta Rotterdam, becoming the player with the most goals in a single game in Dutch League history. Remarkably, his record stood for 22 years until Brazilian Afonso Alves scored seven times in Heerenveen’s 9-0 win over Heracles in the 2007/08 season. Despite missing eight games (due to a health issue), Van Basten didn’t miss out on the Golden Boot, as he managed to score three more goals in the four appearances he made until the end of the season. His total of 37 goals ranks as the fourth-best performance of all time in Eredivisie, behind Coen Dillen’s 43 for PSV in 1957, Henk Groot’s 41 for Ajax in 1961, and Groot’s 38 again in 1960.
Confirmation that he was destined for greatness came the following season. In 1987, his last year at Ajax, Van Basten appeared in 27 matches and scored 31 times. By the 18th round, he had already notched an equal number of goals, and before his injury, he was on fire, scoring in six consecutive games. Surgery on his ankle sidelined him for about three months, but upon his return, he picked up where he left off, saving his best for last with four goals in the 5-2 victory over Zwolle in the penultimate round.
While Ajax lost the league title for the second consecutive year to PSV, they secured their second consecutive Dutch Cup, with Van Basten scoring six times in the tournament and netting the two goals in extra time that sealed a 4-2 victory over Den Haag in the final. He also led them to their first European title since their third consecutive Champions League in 1973. With six of his own goals, Amsterdam’s team added the unique Cup Winners’ Cup to their trophy cabinet, with Van Basten scoring the only goal of the match against Lokomotiv Leipzig in the final held at the Olympic Stadium in Athens.
After all that, it was time for him to move to Milan and start collecting titles and individual accolades at the highest level. Since then, no Ajax player has scored 30+ goals in two consecutive seasons in the Dutch League, with only Klaas-Jan Huntelaar netting 33 in 2008 and Luis Suarez scoring 35 in 2010. Van Basten remains the last player to be the top scorer in the Eredivisie for four consecutive seasons, a feat matched only by Ruud Geels with Ajax in 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978, apart from Van Basten himself.
