André Ooijer

Early career

Born in Amsterdam, Ooijer joined his first amateur football team when he was five years old. Later, when he was 12 years old, he played for other amateur clubs SDW and SDZ. He went through the youth system of Ajax Amsterdam, where he would play until the age of 20. Sensing that he had little future in a club with so much competition for a first-team place, he went on loan to Volendam for the 1994–95 season, before signing for Roda JC in the beginning of the 1995–96 season. Throughout his career at that point, he mostly played at right-back, although he could also operate at centre-back as well as defensive midfield. After two successful seasons with Roda JC, Ooijer joined PSV in the middle of the 1997–98 season.

PSV

Ooijer won the Eredivisie title with PSV five times and the KNVB Cup once. He was also a regular participant in the UEFA Champions League with the club. On 15 July 2005, Ooijer appeared to have ended his eight-year association with PSV after he signed for Genoa, who were keen to defend their Serie A top-flight status after securing promotion in the 2004–05 season, for a fee of €1.5 million. However, following the Italian Football Federation (FIGC)'s investigation into a match-fixing allegation leveled against Genoa, and the FIGC's subsequent guilty verdict which meant that Genoa were relegated to Serie C1 as punishment; Ooijer's proposed transfer was cancelled and he returned to PSV.

Blackburn Rovers

On 23 August 2006,…

Ooijer was selected as part of the Netherlands national team for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France by manager Guus Hiddink as cover for Michael Reiziger. Frank Rijkaard, who replaced Hiddink as the head coach of the Dutch team in 1999, took notice of Ooijer's progress at club level. During a tour of Brazil that same year, Rijkaard handed him his first appearance as a substitute for Reiziger, who was injured during the game, in a match against Brazil on 5 June 1999. The match ended in a 2–2 draw and Ooijer made a confident start to the national team. Despite his convincing performances, he was not included in the final squad for the UEFA Euro 2000 tournament on home soil after being dropped at the last minute. After being overlooked several times for an international team spot by Louis van Gaal who took over from Rijkaard in 2001, he was able to feature for Dick Advocaat in 2003 with a solid performance in the qualification matches, including a goal against Scotland in the qualification second-leg playoff for UEFA Euro 2004 at the Amsterdam Arena. Such was his luck, however, not to be able to feature in a major tournament up to then as he was also dropped by Advocaat in the final squad which travelled to Portugal for the Euro 2004 finals in favour of Reiziger and Johnny Heitinga, who played in the same position. Ooijer was however on the stand-by list for the tournament. Ooijer was finally able to make a start in a major tournament when he was chosen as part of Marco van…

Ooijer began working as the coach of the under-19 squad and an assistant coach to the first team for PSV at the start of the 2014–15 season.

Ooijer is married to Joyce van de Kerkhof, the daughter of former Dutch football player Willy van de Kerkhof. He has two daughters with Joyce, Demi and Danique. He also has two sons from a previous relationship, Denzell and Cerezo.