The 9 players to play for Manchester United & Ajax

Manchester United and Ajax are two of the biggest clubs in the history of football, but only a handful of players have ever played for both. Antony will be the tenth.

Erik ten Hag has targeted a reunion with the Brazilian rising all summer. After a long-running transfer saga, the new Manchester United boss finally has his man. Antony follows in the footsteps of some famous names.

While some had more success with one than the other, a small number lifted the biggest trophies with both. There are also those that failed to appear for both, despite being on the books at both the English and Dutch clubs.

Those include Johan Cruyff’s son Jordi as well as Timothy Fosu-Mensah, both of whom made senior appearances for United but left Ajax at a young age. They are joined by other youth players like Dillion Hoogewerf, Millen Baars and Gyliano van Velzen who all joined United’s youth set-up from Ajax but who all failed to appear for either side.

Here are the eight players to date to have represented the two famous clubs.

Frank Stapleton

A legendary Irish figure, Stapleton made over 200 league appearances at Arsenal in the 70s before doing the same at Manchester United in the 80s.

But in 1987, with Sir Alex Ferguson conducting a clear-out at Old Trafford, Johan Cruyff picked up the forward for nothing.

“When I met him [Cruyff] he was was down-to-earth and normal as a person, even though we know how great he was as a player, and he knew it too!” Stapleton later said of the legendary Dutch figure.

“I found him very approachable as a manager… he joined in training at times. If we played a possession game, he’d never give it away. It made you think how good it must’ve been to play with him at his peak.”

Whilst it wasn’t a particularly successful move for either party, poetically Stapleton’s one Ajax goal was scored in Ireland against Dundalk in the Cup Winner’s Cup.

Persdag van Ajax. Van links naar rechts: Jan Sørensen, Hennie Meijer , Johan Cruijff en Frank Stapleton. #ajax pic.twitter.com/clmpV3zUt9

— Lennart (@Lennart56) March 6, 2017

Arnold Muhren

Muhren was the man who had encouraged Cruyff to sign Stapleton, the Dutchman having played with the forward at Old Trafford under Ron Atkinson between 1982 and 1985 where he won the FA Cup.

Prior to that, he won the UEFA Cup with Ipswich, rejoining Ajax at the end of his England experience when he left Old Trafford.

But it was his first stint at Ajax that made his name, twice winning the…