Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

Infobox Football biography
playername = Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink


fullname = Jan Johannes Vennegoor of Hesselink
height = height|ft=6|in=3
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1978|11|7
cityofbirth = Oldenzaal
countryofbirth = Netherlands
currentclub = Celtic
clubnumber = 10
position = Striker
years = 1996-2001
2001-2006
2006-
clubs = FC Twente
PSV Eindhoven
Celtic
caps(goals) = 160 (64)
187 (90)
081 (38)
nationalyears = 2000-
nationalteam = Netherlands
nationalcaps(goals) = 019 0(3)
pcupdate = 3 September, 2008
ntupdate = 22 August, 2008

Jan Johannes Vennegoor of Hesselink (IPA2|ˈjɑn vɛnnəɣoːʁ ɔvˈɦɛsəlɪŋk) (born 7th November, 1978 in Oldenzaal) is a Dutch football player who currently plays for Scottish Premier League club Celtic. He plays the position of striker.

Club career

He scored 59 league goals for FC Twente over the course of five seasons. In the summer of 2001 he was signed up by PSV Eindhoven, scoring 22 goals in his first season.

However his second and third seasons at PSV proved less fruitful, since he scored only 8 and 12 goals respectively. At the end of the 2003-04 season, he was told he could leave the club. However he stayed on, and in 2004-05, Vennegoor of Hesselink was in great shape, scoring 19 goals in 28 matches. He also earned a recall to the Dutch national team in March 2005 after an absence of four and a half years.On August 24, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink left PSV and signed a 3 year deal with Scottish champions Celtic, with the option of a further year, for a fee of around £3.4m [cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/5270280.stm|title=Dutch striker signs up for Celtic|publisher=The BBC|date=2006-08-24] . He scored the winning goal on his debut after coming on as a substitute against Hibernian. In his next game, against Aberdeen, he scored the winner from outside the box in a 1-0 win. He then scored his first European goal for Celtic in the Champions League against Manchester United. Injuries subsequently curtailed his appearances but he found his form late on, scoring his first hat-trick for the Bhoys against St. Mirren and a last minute winner against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, before being sent off with a second booking, after leaving the field of play to celebrate with the Celtic fans.

The new season started slowly for Vennegoor of Hesselink, but he started to find some form after shaking off early injuries and by January his performances improved immensely, delivering a Man of the Match performance and scoring against Kilmarnock in a 5-1 thrashing in the Scottish Cup, and followed that up with a goal against Hearts and then a stunning diving header to give Celtic a 1-0 lead against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 first leg at Celtic Park. On 16th April 2008 Vennegoor of Hesselink scored his first Old Firm goal for Celtic against Rangers at Celtic Park in injury-time to give Celtic a 2-1 win. Many see this goal as the major turning point in Celtic's incredible comeback to win the league. On the last day of the season, 22nd May 2008, Hesselink scored what proved to be the league-winning goal with a powerful header off a corner kick against Dundee United at Tannadice. It was Vennegoor of Hesselink's 20th goal of the season and rounded off another successful year for both player and club, as the big striker and teammate Scott McDonald struck up an extremely productive partnership, leading most strike pairings in the UK in goals for almost the entire season, a total of 40 scored by the pair combined in the league alone. He scored his first goals of the 2008-9 season against Aberdeen in a 3-2 win, with his second being a last minute winner.

International career

Vennegoor of Hesselink made his international debut on 11th October 2000 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands' 2-0 friendly win over Portugal. His first international goal came against Thailand on 6th June 2007 in a friendly match at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok. He was included in the Dutch squads to play at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, when he made a late appearance as a substitute in the second-round game against Portugal, and at UEFA Euro 2008, where he appeared against Romania.

International goals

:"Scores and results list Netherlands goal tally first. "

Name

His name - one of the longest in European football - derives from the 17th century, when two farming families in the Enschede area of the Netherlands intermarried. Both the Vennegoor and Hesselink names carried equal social weight, and so - rather than choose between them - they chose to use both. "Of" in Dutch translates to "or" in English, which would mean that a strict translation of his name would read 'Jan Vennegoor or Hesselink'. [cite news|url=http://football.guardian.co.uk/theknowledge/story/0,,1860441,00.html|title=Lost and found in the international wilderness|publisher=The Guardian|date=2006-08-30] This could be considered as having the same effect as the double-barrelling of English surnames.

References

External links

*soccerbase|id=21978|name=Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
* [http://www.janvennegoorofhesselink.nl/ Official homepage]
* [http://www.carling.com/football/glasgow-celtic-fc/jan-vennegoor-of-hesselink.html Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink profile from Carling]
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