Robert Eenhoorn: Former Dutch baseball Olympian and manager leads AZ Alkmaar to UEFA Youth League football title
The 55-year-old executive competed in two Olympics, appeared in 37 MLB games and was knighted on the order of Queen Beatrix. He moved to soccer in 2014. "When they first approached me, I said no."
Dutch club AZ Alkmaar won the 2022-23 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Youth League. It is the first win for a Dutch club in nine editions of the top U-19 European football competition, and there is a baseball man at the centre of its success story.
"(The Youth League win) was an incredible moment for our organisation," said AZ Alkmaar Chief Executive Officer Robert Eenhoorn, one of the most iconic characters in European baseball history.
Born in Rotterdam in 1968, Eenhoorn debuted in the Dutch top baseball league Hoofdklasse as a 15-year-old in 1984. He made his national team debut in 1986 and played in the Seoul 1988 Olympics. He then moved to Davidson College in North Carolina in the United States.
The New York Yankees selected him in the second round of the 1990 Draft. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on 27 April 1994, appearing in 37 MLB games and 758 Minor League Baseball (MiLB) games for the Yankees and the Anaheim Angels.
Eenhoorn's opted to continue playing in 1999 as player-manager of Neptunus Rotterdam and represented the Netherlands' again as starting shortstop at the Sydney Olympics before calling it a career.
He managed the Dutch national team from 2001 to 2008, winning four European Championships and qualifying for the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Olympics. He then accepted the role of Technical Director in the Dutch Federation (KNBSB) and in 2011 he was knighted on the order of Queen Beatrix.
"AZ Alkmaar approached me in February 2014," Eenhoorn told the WBSC. "At first, I said no. I couldn't leave KNBSB on the year of the European Championship. They asked again in April and told me the proposal still stood if I would consider joining at the end of the baseball season."
One of Eenhoorn's first moves was hiring a baseball legend, Billy Beane, the famed Oakland A's general manager depicted by Brad Pitt in the film Moneyball.
"I had a breakfast meeting with Billy at the MLB Spring Training and told him that a football club had shown interest in me. He asked me to consider him if I got the job. I flew to America with the club president to meet Beane and he agreed to consult for AZ. He later became a minority stakeholder."
Beane became world famous for the art of winning an unfair game, which is a strategic approach of making economised spending contribute to on-field success. This approach could work as an advantage for AZ, said Eenhoorn, as bigger clubs in European football like the British Premier League, Spain's La Liga, Italy's Serie A, Germany's Bundesliga and the French Ligue 1 have access to a lot more resources than the Dutch Eredivisie.
"It's important to know who you are," commented Eenhoorn, "But you can always compete. This is what we are trying to do."
AZ made it to the semifinals of the UEFA Conference League and is currently in fourth place in the Eredvisie.
"We have a lot of good people and invest money to make the environment where they work the best possible. We cannot play the money game. If we did that, we would never win. We rate players' development very high and adopt innovative scouting based on data," he said.
AZ, which has a staff of 150 and 100 players under contract, owns the 19,500-seat AFAS Stadium and a training center. Eenhoorn said the club is aware of the fact the best talent will eventually have a desire to move on to bigger leagues.
"For young talent it's easier to break through in a club like AZ, but if they do well, one of the top leagues is going to attract them. Sometimes it's frustrating. I have experienced it with baseball. You see players develop, then they sign a professional contract and then you have to start all over with the next talent."
Eenhoorn founded the Unicorn Baseball Academy in Rotterdam at the end of his playing career. It still bears his name - Unicorn is English for Eenhoorn - in the academy where other instructors are developing young players.
"I still visit every once in a while. The project is in excellent hands."
He tries to follow baseball whenever he can, but he is currently preoccupied with his club duties.
"Sometimes I do. I do not watch a lot of baseball in the Netherlands at the moment. My job with AZ absorbs all my time. I'm not as informed as I used to be, but I always look at how everybody is doing."
