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Patrick Stephan Kluivert (; born 1 July 1976) is a Dutch football coach and Football player who is currently the head coach of the Indonesia national team. As a player, he played as a striker for AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona and the Netherlands national team. He is considered one of the best Dutch strikers of all time.
He was part of of the 1990s, scoring the winner in the 1995 UEFA Champions League Final at the age of 18. He spent six years with Spanish club Barcelona, where he scored 124 goals from 249 appearances. He formed a successful partnership with Rivaldo, and won the Spanish La Liga championship of 1999.
Kluivert played for the Netherlands national team from 1994 to 2004. With 40 goals in 79 appearances, he is the fourth highest goalscorer for the Oranje. He played in three European Championships and the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and was joint top scorer at Euro 2000, where he scored five goals. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers chosen by Pelé as part of FIFA's centenary observances.
Kluivert began his coaching career as an assistant at AZ and NEC, as well as in Australia with the Brisbane Roar, before managing Jong Twente to a national title in the Dutch reserves league. He was an assistant to Louis van Gaal with the Dutch team that finished third at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. In 2015, he took over as head coach of the Curaçao national team for the country's 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying and the 2017 Caribbean Cup qualifying campaigns. He then served as a sporting director for Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona's academy, as well as coaching the Ajax A1 (under-19) team and assisting Clarence Seedorf for the Cameroon national team.
He played several different positions as a youth, including defender. He was strong in technique, football intelligence, and speed, but was considered too impulsive. Kluivert played for the Dutch national teams under-15, under-16 and under-17.
The 1994–95 season also saw Kluivert make his mark – along with a host of youngsters from the Ajax youth academy, including Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf and Edwin van der Sar – on the European stage with a triumph in the UEFA Champions League. Kluivert came off the bench to score an 85th-minute winner in the 1995 Champions League Final against AC Milan in Vienna, Austria. He was the youngest player to score in a Champions League final, being only 18 years, 10 months and 23 days.
He was again the top scorer for Ajax in 1995–96, with 15 goals in 28 appearances, as the club won five trophies, including the Eredivisie. He scored the winning goal in extra time of the season opening Dutch Supercup against Feyenoord, and also scored the team's away goal in the 5–1 aggregate win over Real Zaragoza in the 1995 UEFA Super Cup.
On 28 November 1995, Kluivert was the only Ajax player to miss his kick in the 4–3 penalty shootout win over Grêmio in Tokyo that saw de Godenzonen win the Intercontinental Cup. Kluivert was also in excellent form during Ajax's defence of their Champions League trophy, scoring in away wins at Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, but a knee injury prevented him from participating for the full 90 minutes in the team's loss to Juventus FC in the 1996 UEFA Champions League Final.
At the end of an injury hit 1996–97 season, in which he made only 17 league appearances, Kluivert joined AC Milan on a Bosman ruling, after rejecting Ajax's offer of a new contract. He ended his spell in Amsterdam with 39 goals in 70 Eredivisie matches.
In the summer of 2004, Kluivert was one of four Dutch players released by Barcelona. He ended his career at Barça with 124 goals from 249 appearances.
In December 1995, Kluivert scored both goals in the Netherlands' 2–0 UEFA Euro 1996 qualifying play-off win over the Republic of Ireland at Anfield, to qualify the Oranje for UEFA Euro 1996. Kluivert missed most of the tournament with a knee injury, but he scored against the host nation England, enabling the Netherlands to qualify for the knock-out round over Scotland on goals scored. There, they lost in a penalty shootout to France after a 0–0 draw.
At the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Kluivert was sent off against Belgium by referee Pierluigi Collina, after elbowing Lorenzo Staelens. He made amends when selected to play against Argentina in the quarter-finals of the same tournament, where he scored the opening goal. In the next round, he scored a late equalising goal from a header to draw his team level with Brazil in the semi-final, although the Netherlands went on to lose the penalty shootout.
At UEFA Euro 2000 held in the Netherlands and Belgium, Kluivert scored a hat-trick in the 6–1 quarter-final demolition of Yugoslavia; he was originally credited with four goals, but the third was later re-attributed as an own goal by Yugoslavia's Dejan Govedarica, after Kluivert admitted not getting a touch on Paul Bosvelt's cross. Had all four goals stood, Kluivert would have been the first player to score four times in a European Championship match. The Dutch were eliminated in the semi-finals by Italy on penalties; he missed one of their two spot-kicks in normal time, but did score in the penalty shoot-out. With five goals in as many games, he claimed the Golden Boot jointly with Savo Milošević.
Kluivert would once again enter UEFA Euro 2004 wearing the famous #9 jersey for his country, with the Dutch reaching the semi-finals of the tournament.
As well as from being left out of the 2006 FIFA World Cup squad by coach Marco van Basten, Kluivert was not called up to play in any of the qualifying games leading up to the World Cup either. This was due to the fact that he suffered persistent injuries, which prevented him from playing for his club during the 2005-06 season. Kluivert was the all-time leading goalscorer for the Dutch national team with 40 goals, until he was surpassed by Robin van Persie in 2013.
On 18 July 2008, it was reported on the football website Goal that Kluivert would be spending the 2008–09 season as a member of the backroom coaching staff of Eredivisie club AZ. Later on, in an interview on Soccer AM, Kluivert revealed his role involved coaching the strikers at AZ.
In January 2010, Kluivert took a position as an assistant coach for Australian A-League side Brisbane Roar under head coach Ange Postecoglou.
On 19 May 2010, Kluivert told journalists he ruled out a comeback as a football player. From August 2010 onwards, he was an assistant coach for NEC, coaching the strikers. In the 2011–12 season, he moved on and took charge of the FC Twente youth and reserve team, coaching Jong Twente to a national title in the Beloften Eredivisie.
In August 2012, Kluivert joined the Netherlands national team coaching staff to work under head coach Louis van Gaal. Kluivert's time with the Netherlands culminated with a third-place finish in the 2014 FIFA World Cup campaign.
His efforts for the national team of Curaçao did not go without merit, as the team secured qualification for both the 2017 Caribbean Cup and the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup, where they would compete for the first time in forty years under the guidance of Remko Bicentini and Kluivert.
Kluivert became the academy director of FC Barcelona only days after leaving Cameroon. However, the club announced in March 2021 that his contract would be allowed to expire in June.
In May 2021, Kluivert returned to the Curaçao national team on an interim basis, while compatriot Guus Hiddink recovered from COVID-19. In July, the team withdrew from the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup, due to an outbreak of the same virus.
On 9 September 1995, Kluivert, then 19 years old and still playing for Ajax, was the driver in a car accident in Amsterdam, in which a 56-year-old man was killed and a passenger was seriously injured in a collision. Kluivert collided with a Ford Orion saloon while driving an uninsured BMW M3 sports car he had borrowed from a friend at a speed of approximately 104 km/h (64 mph) while in a 50 km/h (31 mph) residential zone. Though he denied a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, he was found guilty in court and sentenced to 240 hours of community service. The conviction meant that Kluivert needed special documentation to enter the United States when FC Barcelona played pre-season matches there in 2003.
He has four children—Quincy, Justin Kluivert, Ruben Kluivert and Shane Kluivert. Justin, like his father, came through the Ajax youth setup, formerly played for Valencia and was capped for the Netherlands; as of August 2023 he plays for AFC Bournemouth. Ruben made his debut for FC Utrecht in 2022; as of July 2025, he plays for Lyon.
| + Appearances and goals by club, season and competition | |||
| AFC Ajax | 1994–95 | Eredivisie | 22 |
| 1995–96 | Eredivisie | 23 | |
| 1996–97 | Eredivisie | 8 | |
| Milan | 1997–98 | Serie A | 9 |
| FC Barcelona | 1998–99 | La Liga | 16 |
| 1999–2000 | La Liga | 25 | |
| 2000–01 | La Liga | 25 | |
| 2001–02 | La Liga | 25 | |
| 2002–03 | La Liga | 21 | |
| 2003–04 | La Liga | 10 | |
| Newcastle United | 2004–05 | Premier League | 13 |
| Valencia CF | 2005–06 | La Liga | 2 |
| PSV Eindhoven | 2006–07 | Eredivisie | 3 |
| Lille OSC | 2007–08 | Ligue 1 | 4 |
| + Appearances and goals by national team and year | |
| Netherlands | 0 |
| 3 | |
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 7 | |
| 4 | |
| 12 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 0 | |
| + Managerial record by team and tenure | ||||
| FC Twente (U21) | 1 July 2011 | 30 June 2013 | ||
| Curaçao | 4 March 2015 | 7 June 2016 | ||
| Curaçao (interim) | 14 May 2021 | 31 October 2021 | ||
| Adana Demirspor | 1 July 2023 | 4 December 2023 | ||
| Indonesia | 8 January 2025 | Present | ||
Individual
Netherlands (as assistant manager)
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