Jaap Stam

In 1994, Jaap Stam began his football career with Dutch club Cambuur Leeuwarden. His home town of Kampen resides in a very religious region of Holland that forbids sport on Sundays, so Stam had to move from the area to FC Zwolle to really kick-start his career.

   A move later to Dutch 1st Division side Willem II was the turning point of his career. Several brilliant performances for them attracted the attention of Holland's biggest clubs. In 1996, PSV Eindhoven bought him and he won his first international cap in the same year. Stam was a regular in the orange shirt ever since.

   Europe's top clubs began to take notice of Stam and in 1998, Manchester United paid a world record fee for a defender, ё10.6 million, to bring him to Old Trafford. This was a dream move for Jaap, to the club he supported as a boy and came just three months after he was named Holland's Footballer of the Year. The year got even better during the summer, as he played in the semi-finals of the World Cup, although sadly the Dutch eventually lost to Brazil 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

   After a shaky start, once he'd settled in at United, many of his performances were pure class. Strong, powerful, a brilliant ball-winner, at United Stam was one of, if not the best defender in the world. He was, as Johan Cryuff once described "a one man defence".

   Stam could make the most vital of goal saving tackles. When he went in to win the ball he did it 9 times out of 10, probably because there can be few players in the world to match his immense physical strength. A fantastic awareness and reading of the game meant he could often break down attacking threats before they became more dangerous.

He had many great performances in the treble winning year where he patrolled the defence with an awesome presence. In short, Stam was a defensive giant and key to United's treble success. The fans loved him too, he became very popular and they made up a song "Jip Jap Stam is a big Dutchman". In the following season 1999-2000 it is fair to say Stam's excellence was somewhat hindered by incompetence not of his own making. The United defence was unsteadied by the continual interchanging of goalkeepers while Stam did not have a consistent centre back partner all season and had to make up for the errors of young Mikael Silvestre.

These uncertainties did make it harder for Stam and a bad achilles injury meant he missed the middle of season 2000-2001. However, United's defence was much improved throughout the year as the team became the meanest in the Premiership conceding only 31 goals. In his time he had a variety of players beside him, Johnsen, Berg, Silvestre, May, Neville, Brown but as Sir Alex Ferguson once said "It will always be Jaap Stam and AN Other".

Jaap Stam stood head and shoulders above the rest as the best defender in the England.... that was until August 2001. Stam published extracts from a his autobiography "Head to Head" in which he criticised team-mates, accused Sir Alex Ferguson of "tapping him up" while at PSV and telling United players to dive in the penalty box. Sir Alex was said to be "incandescent with rage" but few predicted what would follow. Only a week into the new season Stam was sold to Lazio for roughly ё16 million.

Ferguson claimed Stam had not recovered from his achilles injury, he had lost pace, mobility and that the money was too good to turn down. Stam was totally stunned and bitterly angry at what amounted to being booted out of the club. He said the book was to blame for his exit. Fans divided into those who backed Ferguson's footballing reasons and those who claimed the Scotsman was reacting purely to the betrayal of Stam's book. We perhaps will never know the truth, but there might have been a bit of truth in both sides. Only time will tell if Ferguson made the right decision to sell Jaap Stam, but fans will prefer to forget the sour end to his United career. The big Dutchman will always be remembered as a superb player who played a decisive part in the club's greatest moment.