Gerry Penny/European Pressphoto Agency

It was a good afternoon in London in what has so far been a pretty good season for Rafael van der Vaart.

Out for lunch with his family last week after Tottenham wrapped up training, with glasses and dishes clinking in the background, the Dutch midfielder talked by phone about his transfer from Real Madrid last summer and his impressive start in the Premier League.

“It was really a last-minute call at the deadline,” van der Vaart said, referring to his $13 million move to England from Spain. “I have an opportunity to play in the Premier League, the biggest league in the world for a team, for me, that has a great history. I’m quite happy they wanted me.”

In addition to his strong play for Spurs in the Premier League, where he has scored five goals in nine matches, the left-footed playmaker has played an important role in the UEFA Champions League, where Spurs lead Group A after four matches. Against the Dutch side F.C. Twente on Sept. 29, van der Vaart had a penalty kick saved, scored a highlight-reel goal and was later sent off after receiving a second yellow card. Early this month, he faced his Ajax academy pal, Wesley Sneijder, and scored a goal in a 3-1 win against visiting Inter Milan.



“I was great for me, as long as you win the game,” said van der Vaart about his midfield clash with Sneijder. “It was nice and you can imagine when we were little kids, 9 or 10 years old playing on the youth teams of Ajax, then in the first team together. I left Ajax for Hamburg and he for Madrid. Then we played together again, but this was the first time we played against each other. It was a really special moment.”

Ian Kington/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.

Van der Vaart, the son of a Dutch father and Spanish mother (which is how he ended up with the given name of Rafael), joined the vaunted Ajax academy at age 10, plucked from an open tryout. He made his national team debut for the Netherlands at 18 and has played more than 80 times for his country. It was also at Ajax where he met Sneijder and later played with a young American, John O’Brien.

“A special one,” van der Vaart said of O’Brien, now retired. “A special guy. We loved him.”

While Ajax continues to churn out players from its academy, its days at a major power in Europe appear to be over, a situation van der Vaart laments.

“I’m still a big Ajax fan, but it is difficult at the moment they don’t have the players to even win the league in Holland,” he said. “It’s sad and disappointing. I think it is difficult because it has a lot to do with money and the league in Holland is not so strong anymore. For a team like Ajax to win the Champions League now is not possible. In the other countries, the quality is much better.”

Ajax won the Champions League in 1995 but, since then, only one team (Porto, 2004) from outside of England, Spain, Italy and Germany has won the title.

As a youngster, van der Vaart lived with his family in Beverwijk in a caravan park, which to British ears sounds like the itinerant travelers, but is really more akin to an American trailer park.

“In Holland, it is a quite normal lifestyle, and of course for me it was nice,” he said. “It wasn’t that we didn’t have any money and we didn’t travel around. I played football on the street. When I made some money the first thing I did was I bought a house for my parents.”

In England, van der Vaart, 27, has quickly become a crowd favorite at White Hart Lane — last Saturday he dished out two assists in a 4-2 win over Blackburn and will now prepare for Saturday’s north London derby at Arsenal.

European Pressphoto Agency

“The speed of the game is really high and I have a great feeling here,” he said. “The people are really warm and they love the way I play football, working hard. The manager is great, he has a lot of confidence in me and Harry is like a father. But what I like most is that he wants his team to play football, not only long balls,” Van der Vaart said, referring to the manager of Spurs, Harry Redknapp.

Along with one of the newest stars in the Premier League, Gareth Bale, van der Vaart and Tottenham are off to a strong start, in a three-way tie for fifth place with 19 points.

“I knew all about Tottenham as a child in Holland,” he told the club’s Web site. “I have always been aware of the wonderful players like Jürgen Klinsman and Glenn Hoddle while Johnny Metgod, a great friend of mine who scouts for the national team at home, told me that this would be a great club to join.”