Rijvers made his debut at
NAC Breda and also played for
AS Saint-Étienne,
Stade Français and
Feijenoord. He was a member of the Netherlands team at the
1948 Summer Olympic Games. In 1950 Rijvers became one of the first Dutch players to turn professional with his transfer to AS Saint-Étienne. The
KNVB suspended him from playing in the national team in response because at the time they didn't allow professional players to play in the national team and it wasn't until 1957 he would play in the national team again. With
Faas Wilkes and
Abe Lenstra, Rijvers formed the renowned ''
(The Golden Inner Three'') of the Dutch national team between the late 1940s and 1950s; though the three only played together in ten matches, they scored 23 goals. Together with other Dutch professional players from foreign leagues, Rijvers was one of the players to play the '''' on 12 March 1953, a match played in the
Parc des Princes stadium in Paris to raise money for the victims of the
North Sea flood of 1953. While the KNVB, which still did not want to be connected to the professional players in any way, forbade the match, it went ahead after a personal intervention from
Prince Bernhard. Following the death of
Marcelino Campanal in May 2020, Rijvers became the final surviving player (and the first ever Dutch player) who received at least one vote during the inaugural edition (
1956) of the
Ballon d'Or. ==Coaching career==