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With all eyes on Holland, the Blind family look to make their mark

By on October 12, 2015

When Daley Blind takes the pitch for the Netherlands in their must-win Euro 2016 meeting with the Czech Republic tomorrow, he might just be able to save his father’s job with a win. Blind, a centerback known for his flowing locks and equally silky presence on the ball, made his senior professional debut on Wednesday, January 19, 2011. That day, the twenty-year-old graduated from Ajax’s renowned youth academy at the age of twenty, more than a decade after joining as a youngster, and started in Ajax’s 2-0 win over Feyenoord.

That match wasn’t the first time that Blind had stepped out of the tunnel and onto the pristine pitch at the Amsterdam Arena. As a youngster, he once held the hand of his father, Danny Blind, as a match-day mascot during the elder Blind’s thirteen-year spell with Ajax, in which he made over three-hundred-and-fifty appearances.

Danny Blind made his name as a centerback for Sparta Rotterdam before moving to Ajax during the Total Football era, hence his record of forty-five goals throughout a career that consisted of over five-hundred appearances. Blind Sr. also made forty-two appearances for the Dutch national team from 1986 to 1996 and bagged a solitary international goal in the process. When he won the Champions League in 1995, his son was only five years old.

“My dad had a truly great career; naturally, he was a role model for me,” Blind Jr. told FIFA.com. “I learned a lot from him. When I was young, he was always there to give me advice, and that’s still the case today. I owe him an awful lot.”

Dutch football is filled with family affiliations: Jordi Cruyff, son of Johan, the most famous Dutchman ever to have graced a football pitch, went on to carve a career with spells at Barcelona and Manchester United; during the nineties, Ronald and Frank de Boer, twins, were starting together for Ajax; Clarence Seedorf, meanwhile, saw both his cousin Stefano and brother Chedric have successful careers in football.

The Blind family is the latest to have steeped their name into Dutch footballing history when Daley Blind made his debut for his father’s former club. At the time, Blind Jr. was an up-and-coming centerback following in the footsteps of his father. Yet later, under the guidance of Frank de Boer, Blind was moved out to the left-back position.

“I’m really living the dream,” he told FIFA.com in 2013. Speaking of Ajax (though the same applies to the national team), he added: “To get the chance to represent the same team in which my dad made his name is really quite incredible. This place has taught me everything. It’s a club that gives opportunities to up-and-coming players. Every year, two or three players from our youth academy join the first-team set-up. I was given that same chance. I wasn’t the first, and I won’t be the last.”

It was in this position that Blind established himself as a starter and earned his first call-up to the national team under Bert van Marwijk. However, it was only under Louis van Gaal, who took charge of the Netherlands in 2012, that Blind became a starter. Van Gaal brought Blind Sr. with him in his backroom staff as an assistant manager and after Van Gaal moved onto Manchester United following the 2014 World Cup – with the brief interim of Guus Hiddink’s short-lived tenure – the cycle came full circle as Blind Jr. was promoted to head coach to take charge of his son. In fact, it was reported that he turned down an offer to follow Van Gaal to United in the hopes of eventually landing the top job with the Netherlands.  Currently, the father and son are united in a battle to qualify for Euro 2016.

“People only think he’s intimidating because he is honest. He is honest to people,” Blind Jr. told the Daily Mail in March. “Yeah, sometimes the truth can be hard to some players or people. But I really like that in a person and especially in a manager.

“It is a good feeling for a player if you know where you stand. Sometimes it can be a bit frightening when somebody is really honest but I think it is positive. I don’t get any special treatment, definitely not. I make mistakes, too, and I try to learn when he says something.”

Coincidentally, Blind Jr. was one of Van Gaal’s first signings at Manchester United for £13.8 million. Blind flirted briefly with a defensive midfield role in United’s stacked attacking lineup before being shifted back to a fullback role.

Van Gaal can only hope that Blind will develop into as gifted a player and especially a leader as his father, whom the charismatic sixty-four-year-old coached some quarter century ago at Ajax. Van Gaal was Blind Jr.’s coach when Daley was born, in fact, and was still in charge when they won the UEFA Champions League title a few years later.

“I guess I must have seen Louis van Gaal as a boy when I’d go to watch my father train but I can’t remember anything specific,” Blind Jr. told the Daily Mail. “I first got to know him with the Dutch team.

“When Louis van Gaal tells me things, I think it might be the same advice he used to give my father!”

Homepage photo credit: Kathi Rudminat, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.