Rob Rensenbrink
Fast and elusive Dutch footballer nicknamed ‘the Snake Man’ who shone in two World Cup finals
ROB RENSENBRINK, who has died aged 72, was one of the stars of the great Dutch national football side of the 1970s which reached consecutive World Cup finals; he came close to winning the second of these, against Argentina, when in the final seconds of the match his shot beat the onrushing goalkeeper only to come back off the post.
A rangy left-sided forward, Rensenbrink was known for his ability to elude tackles and create chances with his sinuous style of running and deceptive changes of direction; his nickname was “the Snake Man”.
He also possessed a powerful shot, notably from the penalty spot, and with 25 goals from 36 appearances in the (now defunct) European Cupwinners’ Cup was the competition’s record scorer, ahead of Gianluca Vialli and Gerd Müller.
Almost uniquely among his contemporaries in the Dutch side, Rensenbrink did not make his reputation at Ajax or Feyenoord, even as they became perhaps the finest sides in Europe. Instead, having started out at the lesser-known Amsterdam club DWS, he moved in 1969 across the border to Club Brugge (Bruges) in Belgium.
The team had not won the championship for half a century, but Rensenbrink helped them twice to the runners-up spot and in 1970 to claim the Belgian Cup.
The following season, unexpectedly staying in Belgium after being courted by Dutch teams, he joined the club with which he would be most associated: Anderlecht. Over the next nine seasons, Rensenbrink won two championships and the domestic cup five times, scoring 202 goals in 369 matches.
He forged formidable partnerships with Paul Van Himst, François Van der Elst and later his fellow countryman Arie Haan as Anderlecht came to dominate the Cup-winners’ Cup in the late 1970s. They appeared in three consecutive finals between 1976 and 1978, winning two.
In the first of these, “Les Mauves” beat West Ham 4-2, with Rensenbrink running the game as he scored twice and set up Van der Elst for another.
Rensenbrink based himself in Belgium largely because the club for whom he would have played in Holland – Ajax – already had a superb talent on the left wing, Piet Keizer. This in part explained why Rensenbrink struggled to establish himself in the national side after making his debut in 1968.
Yet by 1973, tension at Ajax between Keizer and Holland’s greatest player, Johan Cruyff, had also begun to infect the Dutch team. At the 1974 World Cup, manager Rinus Michels accordingly sought to defuse the situation by playing Rensenbrink instead of Keizer, albeit in midfield behind Cruyff as the maestro roamed across the forward line.
Keizer returned for a single match, but failed to take his chance. So Rensenbrink played in the semi-final against Brazil, only to pull a muscle with half an hour left.
Nevertheless, Michels had become so convinced of his value to the side that he picked him for the final against West Germany. The gamble failed as Rensenbrink had to come off at half-time and the Germans came back to win 2-1.
Four years later, with Cruyff absent from the competition, Rensenbrink became even more central to the Dutch success. He scored a hat-trick against Iran, the 1,000th goal in the tournament’s history, against Scotland, and then another strike against Austria.
With the score at 1-1 in the last minute of the final, Rensenbrink ran on to a long ball from Ruud Krol as it bounced in the penalty box. From the left side of the six-yard box, he was able to poke it goalwards as he was challenged, but the ball was moving quickly, the angle was acute and the attempt rebounded from the post. Argentina went on to score twice in extra time and so lifted the trophy.
Pieter Robert Rensenbrink was born on July 3 1947 in Amsterdam. His father, who worked at the NDSM shipyard, had been married before, it being said that his first wife had grown too close during the war to one of the German occupiers.
Rob accordingly had two older halfbrothers, while his mother had two daughters by her previous marriage. He learnt his football on the streets of West Amsterdam although the family later moved north to Oostzaan. On leaving school, he was apprenticed to a carpenter.
Rensenbrink played for a season in North America for the Portland Timbers before rounding off his career at Toulouse, helping them achieve promotion to the top flight before he hung up his boots in 1982. He had won 46 caps for Holland, with whom he also reached the semi-finals of the European Championships in 1976.
He spent much of his later life fishing, but had been suffering in recent years from motor neurone disease.
Rob Rensenbrink is survived by his wife Corrie (née Van der Ley) and by their two children.
Rob Rensenbrink, born July 3 1947, died January 24 2020