Dennis Bergkamp

Dennis Bergkamp (born May 10, 1969 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch professional football player, a former player for the Netherlands national football team, who currently plays for Arsenal. Bergkamp plays most of his best games as a support striker, where his tactical awareness and deft passes make him a great exponent of the game from the "hole".

Style of play

Bergkamp is a striker who stands out more because of the quality of his goals than the quantity. He has stated that he usually visualize exactly how he will enact his goal even before the chance comes, so that by then he can do so without looking. A case in point is the goal he scored against Newcastle United on the March 2, 2002, which later earned him the Goal of the Season award.

Related Topics:
Striker - Newcastle United - March 2 - 2002

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• Bergkamp stands just outside the box, with his back towards the defender, Nikos Dabizas, and towards goal.
• A long pass from midfield comes over the ground.
• Without looking towards the defender, he touches the ball once, leg out-stretched.
• The ball flicks past the defender from the right, but at the same time, Bergkamp passes the defender on left.
• The goal, a second later, is a formality for Bergkamp as he pokes past the goalkeeper.

Throughout the event, Bergkamp never looked at the defender, though he knew where he was.

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This example illustrates many traits of the best of Bergkamp: his fine ball control, his sublime first touch, his ability to go past defences through quick thinking and his preference to score (or to set up a goal) from outside the box.

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Further discussion of the goal is covered on BBC Sport's website here.

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