Before coming to Barcelona, ​​Rijkaard had played in the Dutch and Italian leagues, as well as appearing on the Netherlands national team. His appointment as Barcelona manager caused some surprise as he was considered to be inexperienced.

football career
Rijkaard’s professional football career began at Ajax when he made his first-team debut in 1980 at the age of 17. Scoring in his first match, he went on to play a total of 24 league games in his first season with a total of 4 goals. . Two years later the team won the league trophy, a feat the team repeated the following year.

The second half of Rijkaard’s time at Ajax was spent under manager Johan Cruyff, but in 1987 Rijkaard walked out of a training session and vowed never to play for Cruyff again. After joining Sporting Clube de Portugal too late in the season to play, he was immediately loaned out to Zaragoza in Spain, where he played only one season.

At the end of the season, Rijkaard was signed by AC Milan, where he stayed for five years. Switching from central defense to midfield, his aggressive play helped the team win the Italian Serie A and the European Cup twice.

He returned to Ajax under Luis Van Gaal in 1993 and helped the team win the Dutch league twice. His last match saw Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0 in the Champions League final in 1995.

At international level, Rijkaard made 73 appearances for the Netherlands and scored 10 goals, although his success was sometimes marred by his temper, such as when he spat on Germany’s Rudi Völler several times during the 1990 World Cup.

Training
After acting as an assistant coach in the Netherlands national team, he was appointed team manager in 1998, and although he was not considered to have enough experience for the job, his team was able to reach the semi-finals of Euro 2000.

After losing to Italy on penalties, Rijkaard resigned immediately, but took over as manager of Sparta Rotterdam for the 2001–2002 season. The season was disastrous for him and saw the team relegated to the second division for the first time in their history. He and the directors did not get along and with this last straw he was forced to leave.

His appointment as manager of FC Barcelona in 2003 caused many surprises, but with two league wins and a Champions League title to his name, he has firmly proven the doubters wrong.