Edwin van der Sar

Lore & Background

Van der Sar began his senior playing career with Ajax in the early 1990s; he is considered to be a member of the club's golden generation and was part of the team that won the UEFA Champions League in 1995. In 1999, he left Ajax for Juventus where he spent two years before moving to England, first to Fulham and then to Manchester United in 2005. There he won a second Champions League title in 2008, making him one of just eight players at the time to have won the competition with more than one club. He retired as a professional in 2011, but briefly came out of retirement in 2016 to play a match for Dutch amateur team Noordwijk, for whom he had previously played as a youth. Van der Sar played 130 times for the Netherlands national team, and was the nation's most-capped player until 2017, when he was overtaken by Wesley Sneijder.

Reader's Guide

During the 2008–09 season, van der Sar set a Premier League record by not conceding a league goal for 1,311 minutes. He is also the oldest player to win the Premier League, having done so in 2011 at the age of 40 years and 205 days. In the 2007 FA Community Shield, he saved three consecutive penalties in a shoot-out after Manchester United and Chelsea played to a 1–1 draw at the end of regular time.

Did You Know?

• Van der Sar scored a penalty for Ajax to complete an 8–1 victory over De Graafschap in the 1997–98 season.
• He became the first non-Italian to keep goal for Juventus.
• He saved two penalties from Juan Pablo Ángel in a 1–1 draw for Fulham against Aston Villa.
• He won the Best European Goalkeeper award in 1995 and 2009, and the UEFA Club Goalkeeper of the Year in 2009.