John Yzendoorn (born 17 September 1955) is an Australian former international

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who played for Heidelberg United, South Melbourne and Brunswick Juventus in the

National Soccer League The National Soccer League (NSL) was the top-level soccer league in Australia, run by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL, the A-League's predecessor, spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977 until its d ...

Club career

He started his career in his native England with

Preston North End Preston North End Football Club, commonly referred to as Preston, North End or PNE, is a professional football club in Preston, Lancashire, England, who currently play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English football league syste ...

but was released in 1974 without making a first-team appearance. He then moved into non-league football and played for nearby

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...

. Yzendoorn later moved to Australia and was signed by Heidelberg United in 1979, playing four seasons with the Melbourne-based club in the

. He joined fierce rivals South Melbourne in 1983, and helped them to their first national championship in 1984. After three years with South Melbourne, he moved to Brunswick Juventus in 1986, where he spent the final three seasons of his national domestic career. In 2009, he became one of the initial inductees into the South Melbourne Hall of Fame.

International career

Yzendoorn made his international debut at the age of 23, when he was selected by Rudi Gutendorf to play in a two-match series against Partizan Belgrade in 1979, where he came on as a substitute in both matches. His first 'A' international cap came against Czechoslovakia in 1980, where he again appeared off the bench in the Socceroos 2–2 draw at Olympic Park in Melbourne. He scored his first and only international goal in another 2–2 draw against Mexico in Sydney later that year. He became an Australian citizen in 1981 in order to play in Australia's 1982 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches. In all, Yzendoorn would play 13 'A' international matches for his country, his career ending during Australia's ill-fated 1982 World Cup qualifying campaign, where he was a key member of the squad which lost at home to New Zealand. Rudi Gutendorf remarked about him: "''From the first day on he sabotaged my work. He was the most unpleasant player I met in my career as a soccer coach. ... Yzendoorn put a little Walkman inside our team sessions and put things that I said on tape. Later he played a few of my words in front of people from the press, but separate from their context.''"Andre Kruger:
"It was not my fault!"
' (Interview with Rudi Gutendorf), ozfootball.net, 25 May 2003.

Honours

With Heidelberg United: * NSL Championship:

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

(Runners-Up) * NSL Cup: 1980, 1982 (Runners-Up) With South Melbourne: * NSL Championship:

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

With Brunswick Juventus: * NSL Cup: 1988 (Runners-Up)

References

External links

OzFootball profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yzendoorn, John 1955 births Living people Australian men's soccer players Australia men's international soccer players National Soccer League (Australia) players Brunswick Zebras Football Club players Heidelberg United FC players South Melbourne FC players Men's association football defenders Footballers from Leeds