European Preview: Holland

Vonk starts his record 14th season in Holland

BBC Sport Online's Filippo Maria Ricci moves his attention to Holland which is no longer the Mecca for African players that it once was.

There are 43 Africans playing in the Dutch league this season but with its growing international standing, fewer African's seem to be making the move to the Netherlands.

Only two players have joined the Dutch championship from abroad, and both have signed for Ajax.

Tunisian Hatem Trabelsi left CS Sfaxien signing a three year contract, while promising Egyptian Ahmed Hossam has crossed the border from Belgium, leaving Ghent for whom he scored 11 goals last season.

Trabelsi and Hossam will play alongside young Ghanaian Yakubu Abubakari and Nigerian Pius Ikedia.

Another Nigerian, winger Tijani Babangida, came back to Ajax from his loan spell at Turkish Genclerbirligi, a team he helped to a surprise Cup win, and was loaned again to Vitesse for his eleventh season in Europe, the tenth in Holland.

If not so many players came from abroad, the market has been lively inside Holland for African players.

The top African goalscorer in Europe during the last season, Moroccan Ali El Khattabi, has left struggling Sparta Rotterdam after his 21 goals helped the side to remain in the top flight, but surprisingly signed for another small club, AZ Alkmaar.

He will join compatriots Abdelkarim El Hadrioui and Jamal Dibi and Cape Verdian Billy Maximiano who has just arrived from Groningen.

Khattabi: the top African goalscorer in Holland last season

Moroccan Ali Boussabon has moved from the second to the first division leaving ADO Den Haag to join Groningen, while compatriot Ebelkay Bouchiba has left AZ Alkmaar to sign for Sparta, a move linked to the deal of El Khattabi.

De Graafschaap have sent their on loan Togolese defender Tchangai Massamesso to Udinese in Itlay, while AZ Alkmaar have released veteran Moroccan striker Youssef Fertoute.

DRC forward Zico Tumba left De Graafschaap signing for NEC Nijmegen, while Nigerian's Godfrey Nwankpa and Azubike Oliseh have been loaned out by Herenveen and Utrecht respectively to MVV in the Dutch second division and to Jokerit in Finland.

South African international keeper Hans Vonk will start his record fourteenth season in the Dutch first division after having passed the prestigious milestone of 300 games played in first division in Europe.

With 304 games he's actually the second African behind George Weah, who's at 350 games, to have played the highest number of games.

Apart from Ajax, the other two big clubs of the country, champions PSV and Feyenoord have kept their African players: Moroccan Adil Ramzi and Ghanaian Eric Addo in Eindhoven, Ivorian Bonaventure Kalou and Ghanaian Christian Gyan at Rotterdam.