Frank Rijkaard's last match as a player brought the European Cup to Holland when he was the wise old head in the young Ajax side which defeated his old club Milan in 1995. Now the Dutch FA is hoping that as a coach he can pull off the same trick for the national side.

Rijkaard has signed a two-year contract to lead the national team to the European Championship in 2000, which Holland is co-hosting with Belgium, with an option for a further two years. He becomes the first black man to manage a side which has in recent years been plagued by stories of racial tension.

Rijkaard was a member of the Dutch team which won the 1988 European Championship, winning 73 caps in total and scoring 10 goals from midfield. The Surinam-born defender, was then sent off in the 1990 World Cup quarter-final for spitting at Germany's Rudy Voller.

His deputy will be Johan Neeskens, a star of the great Dutch side of the 1970s and a fellow graduate of the Dutch FA's accelerated coaching programme for leading ex-players.

The fact that Rijkaard and Neeskens were assistants to the France '98 coach Guus Hiddink will provide valuable continuity, although the Dutch FA is believed to have approached Johan Cruyff and the former Celtic coach Wim Jansen before skipping a generation and opting for Rijkaard, aged 35.

"I cannot deny that this was a surprise for me," Rijkaard said. "I am unbelievably happy."

It is notable that despite Ruud Gullit's conspicuous unemployment over the summer, Dutch football found no need to call upon his services. His reputation in England as a football brain has never travelled to the Netherlands.

After their good World Cup, the Dutch will be one of the favourites at Euro 2000 but while the championships are coming to Holland, the country's leading players are heading in the opposite direction.

Of the 18 players who took the field in France, only the goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar is committed to his home league. The De Boer brothers, Frank and Ronald, are still contracted to Ajax after losing their court case but remain determined to join the former Ajax coach Louis van Gaal at Barcelona, who already have six Dutch players on their books.

The Spanish League has its next transfer window in mid-December and Frank de Boer insisted: "Either we play with Ajax until December and then go to Barcelona, or we stay at Ajax the whole season and then start next year with Barcelona. It's just a matter of time."