Italy a special test for mature Kluivert

Patrick Kluivert will be 24 on Saturday. Of the many salient facts about Kluivert, this is as significant as any. It is an age when most young, gifted professional footballers are considering the next stage of development in their career. A time when the promise of youth has to become fulfilled maturity. For Kluivert the agenda is somewhat different.

Playing at the apex of a Barcelona triangle that includes Luis Figo and Rivaldo would be regarded as a lifetime achievement for the majority of centre forwards, but for Kluivert the Nou Camp offers merely his daily bread.

After all, this is a young man who won the European Cup as a teenager with Ajax (with Frank Rijkaard at centre-half), who then moved to AC Milan and later joined Barcelona. In Euro 2000, he has passed Marco van Basten in the list of Holland's all-time goalscorers. And he's not 24 yet.

Kluivert has been part of European football's vocabulary since 1994, when he won his first Dutch cap. Familiarity can cloud appreciation. It is only when, as on Sunday afternoon in Rotterdam, a player scores a hat-trick and delivers a performance of such athleticism, that we are reminded of his true worth. That is what Kluivert did on Sunday. Already only two players - Alan Shearer with seven and Michel Platini with nine - have scored more goals than Kluivert's six in European Championship finals.

It is another imposing Kluivert statistic. There are more. The hat-trick against Yugoslavia means that Kluivert now sits five goals behind Johan Cruyff in goals scored for The Netherlands. Kluivert has played four games less.

All of which should make Saturday a very happy birthday indeed. Except, of course, Italy stand in the way. For Kluivert the Italians have particular resonance. Six goals in 24 games for AC Milan left Kluivert branded as a flop in Italy. He received a lot of questions with Italian accents at the Dutch training camp north-east of Amsterdam yesterday.

Asked whether he is a better player now than he was then, Kluivert said he now realises that the system at Milan did not suit him, as he plays best as part of a unit of three forwards. "It all depends on the system. But Italy was a challenge."

Kluivert said he "cannot remember" the one connection to tomorrow's game, his clashes with Alessandro Nesta, with whom he had jousted at Lazio. But it is not the only thing he would happily forget from this period. Aged 18 and speeding in a friend's car, Kluivert killed a man in an accident. To public disapproval, he was given 240 hours community service for his misdeed.

Not long after that Kluivert was named as one of five men by a young Amsterdam woman who claimed she had been gang raped. The case never reached court, but Kluivert did not deny that he was there. He claimed it was adultery rather than rape. His wife was pregnant with their first child at the time.

The two incidents meant that even when playing for The Netherlands Kluivert was subjected to abuse from home fans. It was only on Sunday that that changed.

"Yes, I have made some major mistakes in my life but I have paid for them now," he said afterwards. "I've had my wild years and now it is time to get on with my life. What I have come through, I wouldn't wish on anyone. . . I am a father of two now. I have grown up as a man."

Italy's worry is that Kluivert has also grown up as a footballer, and that the best is still to come. Beginning tomorrow.