- Sean Fisher
- 21 September 2021
Seven soccer siblings that shared the pitch including the Hazards, Nevilles and Toures
There wasn’t much team bonding required for these seven brotherly duos who all shared a passion for soccer - and a pitch.
Frank de Boer is a Dutch soccer manager and former player. De Boer played for Ajax, Barcelona, Galatasaray, Rangers, Al-Rayyan and Al-Shamal. He went on to enjoy a successful stint as manager of Ajax before spells in charge of Inter Milan, Crystal Palace and Atlanta United.
Most recently, De Boer was the manager of the Netherlands national team, for whom he made 112 appearances and scored 13 goals between 1990 and 2004.
Frank de Boer and Ajax
De Boer came through the famed youth academy of Ajax, becoming a regular for the first team in the 1988/89 season. Starting as a left-back and converting to the heart of defence during his time at Ajax, he was part of the team which won the 1991/92 UEFA Cup and the 1994/95 UEFA Champions League.
During his playing career, de Boer was a defender. He started out as a left-back, but then converted into a centre-back, holding down the position within the Netherlands national team.
De Boer also won five Eredivisie titles and two KNVB Cups with Ajax as a player, but his departure from the club was not amicable.
De Boer initially signed a six-year contract with Ajax ahead of the 1998/99 season, but he and his twin brother, Ronald, took legal action against the club after they apparently went back on a promise that one of them would be allowed to leave if a lucrative offer came in and the other stayed.
After leaving for Barcelona, Frank de Boer returned to the club in 2010 to become caretaker manager following the departure of Martin Jol. He was later appointed on a permanent basis and presided over Ajax for the next six years.
De Boer led Ajax to four successive Eredivisie titles, picking up the prize in 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14. Under his guidance, Ajax also won the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2013.
De Boer left his job at the end of the 2015/16 season after successive defeats in Eredivisie title races to PSV Eindhoven, moving to Inter Milan, where he was sacked after only 85 days.
Frank and Ronald de Boer at Ajax
Frank de Boer and Barcelona
De Boer moved to Barcelona in January 1999 along with his brother, Ronald. Both were reunited with Louis van Gaal, who had managed the 1994/95 UEFA Champions League winning Ajax team.
Barcelona won the 1998/99 La Liga title but van Gaal was sacked after they failed to recapture that form the following season. Shortly after, De Boer tested positive for banned substance nandrolone and initially received a 12-month ban. However, a successful appeal saw him cleared.
De Boer played a total of 215 matches for Barcelona, scoring 14 goals. The later years of his career included short stints at Galatasaray, Rangers, Al-Rayyan and Al-Shamal.
Managing in MLS with Atlanta United
Two days before Christmas 2018, De Boer replaced Gerardo 'Tata' Martino as the head coach of Atlanta United, becoming only the second coach in the history of the Major League Soccer (MLS) club.
De Boer led Atlanta to the US Open Cup and Campeones Cup titles in his first season, also finishing second in the Eastern Conference and making the Eastern Conference finals.
However, Atlanta's form eventually nosedived and they were eliminated from the 2020 MLS Is Back tournament after losing all three matches, prompting the coach and the club to mutually agree to part ways.
In September 2020, De Boer replaced Ronald Koeman as the manager of the Netherlands national team.
Ill-fated stints at Inter Milan and Crystal Palace
After a disastrous 85-day stint in charge of Inter Milan, de Boer endured another nightmare run as manager of Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
Having signed a three-year deal ahead of the 2017/18 season, replacing Sam Allardyce, De Boer was sacked after only 10 weeks in charge of the Eagles. His only win during that time came in the League Cup against Ipswich Town and Palace lost their first four Premier League games of the season without scoring a goal.
De Boer attempted to implement a possession-based style at Palace, but maintained he did not have the right players to do so. This view was echoed publicly by Palace winger Wilfried Zaha.
After De Boer left, Roy Hodgson took over and employed a notably more defensive style of play. Hodgson managed to arrest Palace's slide and they have remained a stable Premier League club in the years thereafter.
After De Boer criticised Jose Mourinho, who had worked with him at Barcelona, Mourinho told reporters: "I read some quotes from the worst manager in the history of the Premier League, Frank de Boer - seven matches, seven defeats, zero goals.
"He was saying that it is not good for Marcus Rashford to have a coach like me, because the most important thing for me is to win.
"If he was coached by Frank, he would learn how to lose because he lost every game."
Frank de Boer and the Netherlands
Having taken charge of the Dutch national team in September 2020, it took less than two months for de Boer to set an unwanted record. After a 1-1 draw with Spain, he became the first Netherlands national team manager to fail to win any of his first four games.
De Boer had previously been an assistant to Bert van Marwijk as the Netherlands finished second at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. However, this did not spare him from heavy media criticism for the Netherlands' poor form.
Nevertheless, the Dutch started Euro 2020 well, winning their group without dropping a point and scoring eight goals in the process.
It quickly unravelled, however, in the round of 16, with Matthijs de Ligt sent off as they lost 2-0 to Czech Republic. Two days later it was announced that Netherlands and De Boer had parted ways.
Personal life
De Boer's brother, Ronald de Boer, played as an attacking midfielder or a forward and has made a few modest steps into coaching himself.
Frank de Boer controversially called the idea of equal pay in international soccer "ridiculous" while speaking to the
Guardian.
He later backtracked on that to some degree, saying of his usage of the word 'ridiculous': "It's a hard word if I read that word only. If you see the whole context, I was very clear that I always promote women's soccer."
Frank de Boer's net worth
It is unclear how much De Boer is worth, but Barcelona laid out £22million for his and Ronald de Boer's services as players when acquiring them from Ajax.
