Frank de Boer

Frank de Boer (born May 15, 1970 in Hoorn, Netherlands) is a Dutch football defender. He is the younger twin brother of Ronald de Boer.

Having represented his national team 112 times, he became the most capped player in the history of the Netherlands national team, until Edwin van der Sar surpassed him. De Boer made his debut for Holland in September 1990 against Italy.

He began his career as a left back at Ajax before switching to centre back, a position he made his own for many years in the national team. After winning both the Champions League and UEFA Cup while at Ajax, he then joined Barcelona where he was unable to repeat his earlier triumphs and suffered the ignominy of testing positive for the banned substance nandrolone. He briefly moved to Galatasaray in the summer of 2003 before joining Rangers in January 2004. He left Rangers in 2004 after Euro 2004 along with twin brother Ronald (his teammate at Ajax, Barcelona, and Rangers) to play the rest of his football career in Qatar with Al-Rayyan.

De Boer was a natural leader and held the captaincy of the Dutch national team until his retirement after Euro 2004. He is considered a talented defender and compensates lack of speed and pace with tenacity and extra work rate.

He ended his international career in disappointing fashion after an injury forced him to be replaced in a quarterfinal game with Sweden at Euro 2004. The injury ruled him out of the semifinal match with Portugal which the Netherlands lost 2-1 to go out of the tournament.

De Boer also played for the Netherlands in the 1994 and 1998 World Cups, Euro 92, Euro 2000 and Euro 2004. He had a memorable assist on Dennis Bergkamp's last-minute goal that beat Argentina in the quarterfinals of the 1998 World Cup.

Frank de Boer announced his retirement from football in April 2006. He is to take up a coaching role at his former club Ajax where he will take charge of the club's youth sector.