Wim Jansen obituary

Wim Jansen was a quiet, diffident Dutch boy growing up in Rotterdam in the 1950s whose outstanding prowess at football ensured that, alas for him, he would have to get used to public attention. He played for Holland in two World Cup finals — in 1974 and 1978, though ended both with runner-up medals — before embarking on a somewhat erratic coaching career.

Feyenoord, that great sentinel of Dutch football, was Jansen’s home club for 15 seasons between 1965 and 1980, during which he won four league titles, a European Cup — beating Celtic in the 1970 final — and a Uefa Cup in 1974. At a time when Johan Cruyff was the out-and-out Dutch master, the wiry-haired Jansen was his onfield aide-de-camp, a rangy,