Rafael van der Vaart is an attacking midfielder/second striker who plays for English side Tottenham.
He made his senior international debut for Netherlands as an 18 year old in 2001. Van der Vaart joined the famous Ajax youth academy when he was ten and made his first team debut at seventeen. As a youngster he was predicted to have a huge career as a playmaker and was voted European Talent of the Year in 2001. Soon after that he started to struggle with several serious injuries. Still he scored goals and was named Ajax captain in 2004. Unfortunately he struggled in the 2004/05 season and was stripped for the captaincy and eventually left Ajax for German side Hamburg SV. It was a surprise move but in his first season for Hamburg he was their top scorer and in the next he was given the team captaincy.

At the end of the 2007/08 season several Italian and Spanish clubs were interested in his signature. In August 2008 Real Madrid paid Hamburg €13 million for his transfer to Bernabéu. He had mixed success at Real Madrid and struggled to establish himself within the team. Van der Vaart was struggling to fulfill his potential. On the last day of the August 2010 transfer window Van der Vaart signed for Tottenham Hotspur for what is regarded as a bargain price of £8 million. Van der Vaart has immediately settled in with his new club and seems to have found some of the brilliance from his days at Hamburg. He also still plays a crucial part in the Dutch national team, runners-up at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.