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On one hand, Cruyff adored Laudrup’s natural talent. When Laudrup scored a stupendous last-minute equaliser at Real Burgos in 1991/92, flicking the ball up with his left foot and smashing it into the top-right corner with his right, Laudrup rushed over to celebrate with a delighted Cruyff, among the warmest embraces between player and manager you’ll witness. But Cruyff also labelled him ‘one of the most difficult players I’ve worked with’, believing that Laudrup didn’t push his talents hard enough, and he constantly complained about his lack of leadership skills. Cruyff used Michels’s ‘conflict’ approach, but it only served to annoy the Dane, who was a nervous, reserved footballer requiring more delicate treatment.
The beneficiary of Laudrup’s measured through-balls was another supremely talented superstar, Bulgarian legend Stoichkov. ‘From more than 100 goals I scored, I’m sure that over 50 were assisted by Michael,’ Stoichkov said of his period at Barca. ‘To play with him was extremely easy – we found each other by intuition.’ That was a telling description; in a Van Gaal side attacking was about pre-determined moves, in a Cruyff side it was about organic relationships.
Like Laudrup, Stoichkov idolised Cruyff and still owned videos of the Dutchman when he agreed to join him at Barcelona, but he was completely different from Laudrup in terms of personality: aggressive, fiery and unpredictable. He’d been handed a lifelong ban from football in his homeland, later reduced to a year, for fighting at the 1985 Bulgarian Cup Final. After impressing Cruyff by scoring a wonderful chip over the head of Barcelona goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta for CSKA Sofia in the Cup Winners’ Cup, he arrived at the Camp Nou in 1989. ‘He had speed, finishing and character,’ Cruyff remembered. ‘We had too many nice guys, we needed someone like him.’ But in Stoichkov’s first Clásico he was shown a red card, stamped on the referee’s foot on his way off and was handed a ten-week ban. At another club Stoichkov might have been sacked, but Cruyff kept faith and he scored the winner on his return, then the following week scored four in a 6–0 victory at Athletic Bilbao. Stoichkov was worth indulging, even if he received ten red cards while at Barca, an incredible tally for a forward.
Unlike Laudrup, Stoichkov was well suited to Cruyff’s ‘conflict model’, perfectly understanding the purpose of his manager’s attacks. ‘In front of the group he told me that I was a disaster, that I wasn’t going to play the next game and that he was going to sell me,’ Stoichkov explained. ‘But at the end of training we would go and eat together.’ He repeatedly professed his hatred for Real Madrid, and supporters loved his attitude – Stoichkov would refuse to sign autographs, yet fans would just laugh at his anarchic nature. ‘He shook things up,’ said Zubizarreta. ‘Although he sometimes went too far, I am grateful for people like him who are capable of breaking the monotony of everyday life.’
Yet by 1993/94, when Cruyff won his final league title, Stoichkov wasn’t even the most arrogant forward at Barcelona, because Cruyff had raided Ajax’s rivals PSV to sign Brazilian striker Romario, an extraordinary talent who also had a reputation for skipping training sessions. ‘People say he’s a very difficult individual,’ suggested a journalist upon Romario’s arrival. ‘You could say the same thing about me,’ Cruyff fired back, delighted to sign a footballer who possessed his individualistic nature. Romario declared himself the world’s best-ever striker, announced he would score 30 league goals (he did, winning the Pichichi Trophy as La Liga’s top goalscorer), then spent the season promising that the 1994 World Cup would be ‘Romario’s tournament’ (it was, and he was then voted World Player of the Year). Whereas at PSV Romario was regularly involved in build-up play, at Barcelona he would vanish for long periods before providing a ruthless, decisive finish. His acceleration was incredible, he had a knack of surprising goalkeepers with toe-poked finishes and he unashamedly celebrated goals solo, even when he’d simply converted into a gaping net after a teammate had done the hard work.
Stoichkov and Romario had a love–hate relationship throughout their 18 months together. Cruyff said they had ‘the same problem’, thinking the side was built around them, and they sometimes appeared to be competing to score the most goals rather than combining as a traditional strike partnership. Yet it spurred both on to new heights, and they struck up a surprising friendship. ‘It seems bizarre and even now I ask myself how it was possible,’ Stoichkov said later. ‘But we became good friends right from the start; we were inseparable.’ Their wives became best friends, their children went to school together, Stoichkov became godfather to one of Romario’s sons and acted as a minder when Romario visited the hospital to visit his newborn, getting a photographer out of the way by punching him.
On the European stage their most memorable display was a 4–0 thrashing of Manchester United at Camp Nou in November 1994. Stoichkov scored the first, Romario grabbed the second, then Stoichkov dribbled forward, slipped in Romario, who backheeled a return pass for Stoichkov to smash in the third. Full-back Albert Ferrer rounded off the scoring. ‘We just couldn’t handle the speed of Stoichkov and Romario,’ admitted United manager Alex Ferguson. ‘The suddenness with which they attacked was a new experience.’ But for Barcelona fans the 5–0 thrashing of Real Madrid earlier that year meant more. Romario hit a hat-trick, including an opener featuring him outwitting Real centre-back Rafael Alkorta with an incredible move that became known as ‘the cow’s tail’: receiving the ball with his back to goal, then turning on the spot by touching the ball twice in one movement, dragging it around into his path and finishing. ‘It will go down in history,’ said Stoichkov, referring to Romario’s move when he could have been speaking about the scoreline. But Barca were hugely inconsistent at this point, and only an excellent late run meant they pinched the title from Deportivo on goal difference, the second straight season they’d triumphed courtesy of a rival slipping up on the final day. That wasn’t, in itself, disastrous – but a 4–0 loss to Milan in the 1994 European Cup Final was.
Things started to fall apart. Cruyff and Laudrup’s relationship had broken down, the Dane was omitted from the squad for that Milan final and his contract wasn’t renewed. He promptly imitated Cruyff’s controversial switch to Feyenoord in 1983, joining Real Madrid and inspiring them to the league title while Cruyff, intriguingly, claimed Laudrup had become too individualistic. ‘He lacked discipline,’ Cruyff protested. ‘If you have a lot of stars in a team, there has to be a limit as to what each does as an individual.’ This was something of a curious explanation, though, considering that Laudrup was evidently a selfless player who loved assisting others. The reality was that Barcelona simply now had brighter stars, and with the three-foreigner rule still in place, Laudrup had become fourth in the pecking order behind Romario, Stoichkov and centre-back Ronald Koeman.
Romario, meanwhile, was proving equally problematic, and his friendship with Stoichkov had broken down because of his complaints about the Brazilian’s increasingly hedonistic lifestyle. Other Barca players became equally exasperated. Having won the 1994 World Cup, Romario inevitably spent a month partying in Rio and returned to Barcelona late. Cruyff wasn’t too bothered by his tardiness, but Barcelona’s committee of senior players, including Koeman, Zubizarreta, José Bakero and Txiki Begiristain, demanded a meeting to address the situation. Cruyff reluctantly agreed, and sat down with the players, asking them to spell out their grievances. Romario listened attentively, before launching into an angry tirade. ‘You, you and you got knocked out early,’ he fired at the Spanish trio, before turning to Koeman and reminding him, ‘You got eliminated by me. You guys lost! I am the winner here! I thought this meeting would be to welcome me, to congratulate me, that you would give me a trophy. What am I doing answering to you guys? Go shove it up your arse!’ Cruyff’s response was typical: ‘Right, back to training.’
Meanwhile, in response to Laudrup’s departure, Cruyff recruited another absurdly talented attacker, Hagi, a magnificent player sometimes regarded almost interchangeably with Stoichkov, as two glorious number 10s who inspired their country to their peak in the mid-1990s. Only Cruyff would be crazy enough to pair them, and he welcomed the Romanian’s arrival by directly comparing him with Laudrup: ‘If you exchange Laudrup for Hagi, you have to assume you’re not trading down … I bet that Hagi scores at least double the number of goals Laudrup managed, and provides at least as many assists.’ Cruyff was wrong, and it was unusual to witness a manager so directly comparing the output of two footballers, especially considering he was denigrating a player so fundamental to his Dream Team.
Hagi was signed on the strength of his World Cup performances, which meant Cruyff had assembled three of that tournament’s All-Star Team XI: Romario, Stoichkov and Hagi. The Romanian was a tempestuous character: individualistic, aggressive, inconsistent, arrogant and lazy, but capable of producing genuine moments of magic. His injury-hit Barcelona spell was disappointing, but Hagi considered it successful because of the freedom he was granted. ‘There were several rumours and discussions about me, but Johan Cruyff had faith in me and gave me the opportunity to show what I could do. I repaid his confidence,’ he declared. Hagi produced a moment of genius in a 4–2 victory at Celta Vigo, taking the ball straight from kick-off in thick fog and shooting directly from the halfway line into the net, surely the ultimate example of individualism.
But Cruyff’s obsession with individualistic players was spiralling out of control. Romario’s attitude upon returning from the World Cup was a sign of things to come, and he spent most of his time in Barcelona partying, permanently renting two hotel suites to entertain guests. ‘Have sex every day, but three times at the most,’ was his self-declared motto. Throughout that second season, various Barcelona players suggested that Romario turned up for training barely able to move, having been up all night. Cruyff was forced to send him home, and Romario was frequently late for team meetings having overslept. ‘Romario never came back after the World Cup. His body was there but his mind was still in Rio’, sighed Stoichkov, while Cruyff simply complained that ‘he lacked discipline’, the exact words he’d used to describe Laudrup. The beginning of the end came exactly a year after Barcelona had defeated Real Madrid 5–0. Now, they lost to Real Madrid 5–0, with Laudrup sensational. Stoichkov was dismissed in the first half, while a desperately useless Romario was hauled off at the interval, never to play for Barca again. Cruyff had kept faith in the wrong individuals.
The following week Romario was voted World Player of the Year, while Stoichkov came second, the Bulgarian also winning the Ballon d’Or, which was then only open to Europeans. This was the starkest demonstration of Cruyff’s problem: Barcelona officially had the world’s two greatest players, but they were barely speaking to one another, or their manager, and their most recent performance saw neither making it into the second half of a 5–0 defeat. Cruyff was angry that Stoichkov even wanted to attend the presentation and made him train on the day of the ceremony, meaning he arrived late. ‘Something has gone wrong between me and the coach,’ bemoaned Stoichkov when he finally arrived, before referencing the individual versus collective dilemma again. ‘When we lose I am always the one singled out for blame. When we win, the whole team get the praise.’ Later he said something similar, but hardened his attack on his manager. ‘When we win it’s down to Cruyff, when we lose it’s the players’ fault.’ Cruyff’s conflict model had finally worn him down.
By the summer Stoichkov was gone, Romario had already returned to Brazil, Laudrup was celebrating a title victory in Madrid and only the underwhelming Hagi remained. Cruyff’s management had been undermined by his feuds with superstars and he responded, perhaps having enviously noted Van Gaal’s model at Ajax, by promoting from within, extending his trust to a host of youth products – Iván de la Peña, brothers Roger and Óscar García and his son Jordi – none of whom fulfilled their promise. New signing Luís Figo wasn’t yet ready to lead the side, while up front was the unspectacular and very un-Barca Bosnian Meho Kodro, who managed just nine goals. Cruyff was dismissed at the end of 1995/96 amidst a fall-out with club president José Luis Núñez, but arguments with star players had been equally decisive.
The Cruyff versus Van Gaal debate continued when Van Gaal took charge of Barcelona only a year after Cruyff’s departure. He proudly declared ‘Louis van Gaal is the star now’ at his presentation, and attempted to import his Ajax model, including several of his old players. This initially proved successful, as Van Gaal won the Double in his first season and retained the league title in his second. But, predictably, he couldn’t cope with Barcelona’s big names, and in particular Rivaldo, the bandy-legged Brazilian genius who was briefly the world’s greatest player. Compared with Stoichkov and Romario, Rivaldo was a true professional, and whereas Cruyff’s rows with star players were largely about off-field discipline, Van Gaal’s problems with Rivaldo were about tactical discipline.
In their third season together at Barca, Van Gaal became infuriated by Rivaldo’s determination to dribble past opponents, a quality that would have been worshipped in the Dream Team, not least by Cruyff. In an incident that recalled Stoichkov’s row with Cruyff, Rivaldo openly criticised his manager on the day he was confirmed as European Footballer of the Year, explaining he would no longer play wide-left. ‘It’s different in Brazil – there, people don’t talk about tactics, and that means freedom,’ he said. ‘Here’s it’s a bit complicated, it’s more tactical … for years I have been doing things for the team, and I’ve done nothing for myself. I want to enjoy it more. I have played on the wing for a while, and now I want to play in the centre, not just with the shirt number 10, but as a number 10.’
Van Gaal couldn’t tolerate this level of self-importance, and so for the trip to Rayo Vallecano two days later he omitted Europe’s best footballer from his 18-man squad. Barca could only draw. Rivaldo was also omitted for a 3–1 win over Real Sociedad, before Van Gaal relented, with the Brazilian coming off the bench to score the second in a 2–0 win over Celta Vigo. He didn’t miss a minute for the next seven games. Rivaldo had won the power struggle, which was the beginning of the end for Van Gaal. ‘I’ve given him too many chances,’ he later rued. ‘The equilibrium in the dressing room is gone – that was my biggest mistake this season. This culture needs stars. Now, I have two players who rank among the ten best in the world [Figo was the other]. At Ajax in 1995, when I did not lose a single game, I had nobody on that list.’ A dressing room lacking stars suited him much better. Van Gaal also rowed with Sonny Anderson and Geovanni, two of Rivaldo’s teammates and, significantly, compatriots. Brazilian footballing culture places emphasis on individual attacking inspiration, which simply didn’t register with Van Gaal, and he was dismissed at the end of the campaign.
For two legendary coaches both obsessed with promoting the classic Ajax style, Cruyff and Van Gaal were remarkably different in almost every respect. Consider, for example, their approach towards match preparation. Cruyff backed his players to outplay anyone, and didn’t even think about the tactical approach of the opposition. In stark contrast, Van Gaal would study videotapes of upcoming opponents and explain, in extensive detail, their build-up play and how to disrupt it, while his assistant Bruins Slot constantly surprised the players with his level of knowledge about specific opponents.
It was Cruyff’s art versus Van Gaal’s science. The latter sat in the dugout with a tactics notepad on his lap, depended on data to measure his players’ performance and employed a man named Max Reckers, who was generally described as a ‘computer boffin’ in an era before statistical analysts were common. When Van Gaal moved between clubs, his ‘archives’, including endless piles of dossiers and videotapes, needed to be physically moved across the continent at great expense. This was anathema to Cruyff, who once said that his great footballing qualities ‘were not detectable by a computer’, said his football understanding was a ‘sixth sense’, and repeatedly admitted he had a dreadful memory and wasn’t big on detail. He was all about instinct, and embodied a philosophy in the truest sense of the word. Van Gaal believed in a studious approach, and developed robotic footballers discouraged from demonstrating flair.
The Van Gaal versus Cruyff saga continued over the next 15 years. Van Gaal was appointed Holland coach in 2000 and immediately ripped up Cruyff’s plans for developing Dutch youth talent. The Netherlands’ failure to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, however, meant that his tenure proved disastrous and he returned to Ajax as technical director in 2004, where he infuriated a young striker who boasted the requisite arrogance for Amsterdam. ‘Van Gaal wanted to be a dictator,’ Zlatan Ibrahimović wrote in his autobiography. ‘He liked to talk about playing systems. He was one of those in the club who referred to the players as numbers. There was a lot of “5 goes here” and “6 goes there” … the same old stuff about how number 9 defends to the right, while number 10 goes to the left. We knew all that, and we knew he was the one who came up with it.’ By this point, Cruyff had been retired from coaching for eight years but continued to repeat a familiar message in interviews. ‘What I notice particularly is that policy-makers in football are never really concerned about individuals, all they’re concerned about is the team as a whole,’ he said. ‘Yet a team consists of 11 individuals, who each need attention.’
In 2009 Van Gaal took the Bayern Munich job, leading them to the Double and the Champions League Final. ‘My team has a bond and a trust in me that I have never experienced before,’ he raved, and he attracted rare praise from Cruyff. But his old rival pointedly suggested that ‘Bayern Munich and Van Gaal is a particularly good match – the management and players at the club were prepared to accept his way of thinking and operating.’ Which, coming from Cruyff, was barely disguised criticism, an accusation that Van Gaal was more Bayern than Ajax, more German than Dutch.
Van Gaal later even linked himself with the German national team job. ‘I dream of winning the World Cup with a team that can do it, and Germany is one of them,’ he admitted. This fitted with constant complaints in the Dutch media that Van Gaal was simply not very Dutch, and was more typical of the joylessly efficient Germans, traditionally Holland’s biggest rivals. Van Gaal was repeatedly considered ‘a dictator’, and in an intriguing biography of the coach, Dutch journalist Hugo Borst entitled one of the chapters ‘Hitler’ and examined the similarity between the two men. It’s a slightly unsettling part of the book, featuring Geovanni, the former Barcelona playmaker, referring to Van Gaal as ‘sick’, ‘crazy’ and ‘a Hitler’, and containing the story that a Romanian newspaper once ran a headline simply reading ‘Van Hitler’, stating that this was a common nickname for Van Gaal in the Netherlands. It was completely false, yet the fact it seemed plausible speaks volumes about his reputation.
The last squabbling between the two old foes came in 2011, after Van Gaal was announced as Ajax’s general director. Cruyff, by this stage, was on Ajax’s board of directors but Van Gaal’s appointment was made when he was on holiday in Barcelona. He objected so strongly that the issue ended up in court, which ruled against him. Yet in a sense Cruyff won, because Van Gaal never started his job, instead taking charge of the Dutch national side for a second time, an appointment that led to another round of mudslinging between the two old foes.
‘Van Gaal has a good vision on football,’ accepted Cruyff. ‘But it’s not mine. He wants to gel winning teams and has a militaristic way of working with his tactics. I don’t. I want individuals to think for themselves, and take the best decision on the pitch that is best for the situation. He wants to control all these situations as a coach. We need to make the club successful, including the youth academy, and that means individual coaching and not straitjacket tactics. If Louis comes to Ajax, I won’t be around for long. We think differently about everything in life.’
Van Gaal was more pragmatic, although he couldn’t resist one final wind-up. ‘There is no more a “Cruyff line” than there is a “Van Gaal line,”’ he insisted. ‘There is only an Ajax line, and it has been in place for at least 25 years. I have contributed to that, just as Cruyff has – with the difference that I was there longer.’
2
Space (#litres_trial_promo)
The Netherlands, by its very nature, is based around the concept of space. A country whose name literally means ‘lower countries’ is a remarkable construct, gradually reclaimed from the sea through the revolutionary use of dikes. Seventeen per cent of the Netherlands’ landmass should be underwater, and only around 50 per cent of the country is more than one metre above sea level.
The Netherlands is also Europe’s most densely populated major country (excluding small countries such as Malta, San Marino and Monaco) and worldwide of countries with similar-sized or larger populations only South Korea, Bangladesh and Taiwan boast higher population densities. The history of the Netherlands has therefore been about increasing the perimeters of the nation, and then desperately trying to find space within those perimeters.
This is, of course, reflected in Dutch football. It’s through the prism of the country’s geography that David Winner explains Total Football in his seminal book Brilliant Orange. ‘Total Football was built on a new theory of flexible space,’ he begins. ‘Just as Cornelis Lely in the nineteenth century conceived and exercised the idea of creating new polders, so Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff exploited the capacities of a new breed of players to change the dimensions of the football pitch.’
It was Michels who introduced the ideas, and Cruyff who both epitomised them and explained them most poetically. He outlined the importance of space in two separate situations: with possession and without possession. ‘Michels left an indelible mark on how I understood the game,’ Cruyff said. ‘When you’ve got possession of the ball, you have to ensure that you have as much space as possible, and when you lose the ball you must minimise the space your opponent has. In fact, everything in football is a function of distance.’ This became the default Dutch footballing mentality, ensuring everything was considered in terms of positioning and shape. Some nations considered the characteristics of footballers most important (‘strong and fast’), some focused on specific type of events (‘win fifty–fifty balls’), others only considered what to do with the ball (‘get it forward quickly’). But, from the Total Football era onwards, Dutch football was about space, and gradually other European nations copied the Dutch approach.
Michels considered Total Football to be about two separate things: position-switching and pressing. At Ajax, the latter was inspired by Johan Neeskens’ aggressive man-marking of the opposition playmaker, combined with Velibor Vasović, the defensive leader, ordering the backline higher to catch the opposition offside. It became the defining feature of the Dutch side at the 1974 World Cup.
‘The main aim of pressure football, “the hunt”, was regaining possession as soon as possible after the ball was lost in the opponents’ half,’ Michels explained. ‘The “trapping” of the opponents is only possible when all the lines are pushed up and play close together.’ Holland’s offside trap under Michels was astounding, with the entire side charging at the opposition in one movement, catching five or six opponents offside simultaneously, before interpretations around who exactly was ‘interfering with play’ made such an extreme approach more dangerous in later years.
This tinkering with the offside law notwithstanding, pressing remained particularly important for Cruyff and Louis van Gaal during the era of Dutch dominance, with both managers encouraging their players to maintain an extremely aggressive defensive line and to close down from the front. Cruyff’s Barcelona and Van Gaal’s Ajax dictated the active playing area, boxing the opposition into their own half and using converted midfielders in defence because they spent the game close to the halfway line.
‘I like to turn traditional thinking on its head, by telling the striker that he’s the first defender,’ Cruyff outlined. ‘And by explaining to the defenders that they determine the length of the playing area, based on the understanding that the distances between the banks of players can never be more than 10–15 metres. And everyone had to be aware that space had to be created when they got possession, and that without the ball they had to play tighter.’
Van Gaal’s approach was similar, with speedy defenders playing a high defensive line, and intense pressing in the opposition half. ‘The Ajax number 10 is Jari Litmanen, and he has to set the example by pressuring his opponent. Just compare that with the playmaker of ten years ago!’
The best representation of the Dutch emphasis on space, however, was in terms of the formations used by Cruyff’s Barcelona, Van Gaal’s Ajax and the Dutch national team. The classic Dutch shape was 4–3–3, although in practice this took two very separate forms.
The modern interpretation of 4–3–3, epitomised by Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, prescribes one holding midfielder behind two others, effectively a 4–1–2–3; the Dutch would often flip the triangle, creating a 4–2–1–3, but would still consider this a 4–3–3. Nowadays it seems curious that the two can be conflated, especially considering this is essentially the difference between 4–3–3 and 4–2–3–1 formations, the two dominant shapes of the 2010s. But during this earlier period, 4–3–3 was a philosophy as much as a system, and with other major European countries generally preferring boxy 4–4–2 systems or sometimes a defensive-minded 5–3–2, the concept of a three-man attack spread across the field was in itself audacious. The precise positioning of the midfielders was a minor detail.
But both Cruyff and Van Gaal became even bolder. Upon his appointment at Ajax, Cruyff reduced the four-man defence to a three-man defence, explaining that the majority of Eredivisie sides played two up front, and therefore a trio of defenders could cope. He effectively replaced a defender with a number 10, forming a diamond midfield between the three forwards and three defenders. This was the Dutch 3–4–3, which was very different from the Italian-style 3–4–3 with wing-backs that would later be popularised, for example, by Antonio Conte at Chelsea. Cruyff’s holding player would move between defence and midfield, and the number 10 would move between midfield and attack, with two box-to-box players either side. ‘Cruyff put up with the risks connected to this decision,’ Michels outlined. ‘The success of the 3–4–3 is dependent upon the individual excellence that serves this spectacular but risky style of play … it places high demands on the tactical cohesion of the central players, and it demands that they have a high level of football intelligence.’
Van Gaal disagreed with Cruyff on many topics, but he largely followed Cruyff’s basic formation, using 3–4–3 throughout his tenure at Ajax. Michels, Cruyff’s old mentor, was himself a convert and utilised the system when taking charge of the Dutch national side at Euro 92, although he considered 3–4–3 a mere variation on his old 4–3–3. At this tournament, the uniqueness and fluidity of the Dutch shape confused foreign observers, and the same system was described as, variously, 4–3–3, 3–4–3 and even 3–3–4, a notation that looks absolutely ludicrous on paper compared with the dominant 4–4–2 and 5–3–2 systems of the time, but shows how the Dutch were thinking about the game in an entirely different manner to German, Italian and Scandinavian sides.
The crucial, non-negotiable element of these systems was width. Regardless of the number of defenders, the tilt of the midfield or whether or not the centre-forward was supported by a number 10, Dutch coaches insisted on two touchline-hugging, chalk-on-the-boots wingers. Again, this was unfashionable at the time, with the 4–4–2 system requiring midfielders who tucked inside, and the 5–3–2 relying on overlapping runs from wing-backs to provide width. The Dutch, though, intrinsically believed in the importance of stretching play and prising the opposition defence apart to create gaps for others. Michels spoke about the importance of using ‘true flank players who have great speed and good skills … they must be selected and trained at a very young age,’ he said. ‘The Netherlands is one of few countries that actually develop this kind of player in the 4–3–3 system.’
Van Gaal’s 1992 UEFA Cup-winning side depended on right-winger John van ’t Schip, a classic old-school winger who boasted the three classic qualities: a turn of speed, a drop of the shoulder and a good cross. Van ’t Schip would never receive the ball between the lines, nor would he cut inside; he was a winger and stayed on the touchline. Left-sided Bryan Roy was similar, albeit quicker and less of a crosser. He was supposed to perform an identical task to Van ’t Schip, although he infuriated Van Gaal by drifting inside too frequently. The contrast in systems in their 1992 UEFA Cup Final victory against Torino was particularly stark: the Italian side played 5–3–2, the Dutch played 3–4–3.
Roy also played wide-left for Michels’ Netherlands side at Euro 92, although the right-winger was Ruud Gullit, an atypical player for this system, essentially a central player that had to be accommodated somewhere because he was too important to omit. By the 1994 World Cup the Dutch were coached by Dick Advocaat, who continued with Roy but also discovered the exciting Gaston Taument – and, more significantly, Ajax’s Marc Overmars.
Overmars was the most typical, and most accomplished, Dutch winger of this period. He offered searing acceleration, was happy on either flank because of his two-footedness, loved riding a tackle, and could cross and shoot excellently. He was exciting yet efficient, a winger based around end product rather than trickery, which made him perfect for Van Gaal.
‘I was a coach who wanted to attack with wingers – there aren’t a lot of good wingers around, and Overmars was one of the best,’ remembered Van Gaal. ‘He was a good dribbler who could beat people one-on-one and that was important for a winger in our system, but he also had a very good assist record and he could score goals. Every season he got 10–15 goals and they were nearly always important goals. We need his kind of player to maintain the game as an attractive spectacle.’ If Van Gaal could have fielded two Overmarses, one on either flank, he would have. Instead, he fielded him wide-left, and the speedy Nigerian Finidi George on the opposite flank.
The curious thing about Van Gaal’s use of wingers, however, was that they were almost decoys, part of the overall framework rather than star performers. Something similar can be observed of the centre-forwards: the likes of Stefan Pettersson and Ronald de Boer (who was also used as a midfielder) were tasked with leading the line rather than dominating the goalscoring, instructed to stretch play and occupy opposition centre-backs. Van Gaal’s reasoning was simple: if the wingers dragged the opposition full-backs wider, and the centre-forward forced the opposition centre-backs backwards, it would create more space for the star – the number 10.
For both Ajax and Holland during this period, that meant one man: Dennis Bergkamp. While not necessarily the best Dutch footballer of this period – Marco van Basten won the Ballon d’Or in 1992, while Bergkamp came third and then second in 1993 – he was certainly the most typically Dutch footballer of the 1990s, because his entire mentality was based around that familiar concept. ‘On the field, my greatest quality was seeing where the space was, and knowing where you can create space,’ he explained. Throughout his autobiography, Bergkamp explains everything about his game, and everything about his career path, with the same word: space. Why was he so obsessed with scoring chips? ‘It’s the best way – there’s a lot of space above the goalkeeper.’ Why did he struggle to connect with his Inter Milan teammates during his spell in Serie A? ‘There was a huge space between us, and it was dead space.’ Why did he transfer to the Premier League? ‘I knew you could get space in England.’ What was the key to his legendary 1998 World Cup winner against Argentina? ‘It was a question of creating that little space.’ And, even, what did he dislike so much about aeroplanes? ‘There was hardly any space – it was so cramped it made me claustrophobic.’
Bergkamp was an Amsterdammer who had risen through Ajax’s academy, although his journey to becoming the club’s number 10 was curious. As a teenager he was considered a pure centre-forward, and initially appeared under Cruyff in 1986/87 as a right-winger. ‘Wingers played a simpler game back then,’ Bergkamp recalled, confirming the accepted manner of wing play at the time. ‘You weren’t expected to get into the box and shoot – you had to stay wide, feel the chalk of the touchline under your boots. Your job was to stretch their defence, get past your man at speed and cross the ball.’
After Cruyff’s departure, Bergkamp was demoted to the B-team by Kurt Linder, a German coach who didn’t understand the Dutch mentality and preferred a rigid 4–4–2. In Ajax’s reserves, however, Bergkamp played under Van Gaal, who recognised his talent and fielded him as the number 10. When Linder was dismissed, Antoine Kohn became caretaker manager, but it was Van Gaal, now his assistant, who was in charge of tactics. Van Gaal insisted on fielding Bergkamp in the number 10 role, which prompted Bergkamp to set a new Eredivisie record by scoring in ten consecutive matches. When Leo Beenhakker was appointed first-team manager, however, he misused Bergkamp, deploying him up front or out wide again. It took the appointment of Van Gaal as manager, in 1991, for Bergkamp to regain his rightful position. The Dutch press were so captivated by Bergkamp’s performances in the number 10 role that they felt compelled to invent a new term for it: schaduwspits, the ‘shadow striker’.
In that role Bergkamp was sensational. At Ajax he developed an excellent partnership with Swedish centre-forward Pettersson, a more conventional forward who also made intelligent runs to create space for him. During this period Bergkamp won three consecutive Eredivisie top goalscorer awards, jointly with Romario in 1990/91, then outright in the following two seasons, despite not being a number 9 – or, in Dutch terms, precisely because he wasn’t a number 9. Cruyff is the obvious example of a prolific forward who dropped deep rather than remaining in the box, but the Eredivisie’s all-time top goalscorer – Willy van der Kuijlen – was also a second striker, not a number 9. Van der Kuijlen, who spent nearly his entire career with PSV, had the misfortunate to be playing in the same era as Cruyff, and squabbles between Ajax and PSV players meant he was underused at international level. But in the Eredivisie he was prolific, and formed a partnership with Swedish number 9 Ralf Edström that was identical in terms of nationalities and style to Bergkamp and Pettersson’s relationship two decades later: the Swede as the target man, the Dutchman as the deeper-lying but prolific second striker.
That was the Dutch way: the number 9 sacrificing himself for the number 10, and this arrangement continued at international level, despite the fact that Holland’s striker was the wonderful Van Basten. At Euro 92, when Holland sparkled before losing to Denmark in the semi-final, their best performance was a famous 3–1 thrashing of fierce rivals Germany. Their third goal was significant: midfielder Aron Winter attacked down the right and assessed his crossing options. Van Basten was charging into the penalty box, seemingly ready to convert a near-post cross. But when Winter looked up, Van Basten had just glanced over his shoulder, checking Bergkamp was in support. He was. So, while occupying both German centre-backs and sprinting frantically to get across the near post, Van Basten threw out his right arm and pointed behind him, towards his strike partner. Winter saw Van Basten’s signal and chipped a pull-back behind him, towards Bergkamp, who neatly headed into the far corner. It was the most fantastic example of the Dutch number 9 creating space for the Dutch number 10.
Bergkamp was the tournament’s joint-top goalscorer, while Van Basten finished goalless but was widely praised for his selflessness, and both were selected in UEFA’s XI of the tournament. Their partnership worked brilliantly. ‘Marco was a killer, a real goalscorer, always at the front of the attack – whereas I was more of an “incoming” striker,’ Bergkamp said. ‘If records had been kept they’d show how often Marco scored from ten yards or less. For me, it was from about 15 yards.’
Bergkamp had a curious relationship with Van Gaal, who had initially shown tremendous faith in him, ‘inventing’ his shadow striker role. When Bergkamp missed the second leg of Ajax’s victorious UEFA Cup Final against Torino because of flu, Ajax’s celebratory bus parade detoured to take the trophy past his apartment, and at the reception Van Gaal took the microphone and bellowed Bergkamp’s name from the balcony of the Stadsschouwburg Theatre to the assembled masses below, who responded with their biggest cheer of the day. But the two constantly quarrelled in Bergkamp’s final season at Ajax in 1992/93, before his move to Italy. Having already announced his intention to leave, Bergkamp’s performances were criticised by Van Gaal, who substituted him at crucial moments when Ajax needed goals to keep their title bid alive. In Van Gaal’s opinion, Bergkamp had become too big for his boots. By treating him harshly, he sent a message to Ajax’s emerging generation that superstars would not be tolerated – the team, and the overall system, were far more important.
Bergkamp endured two unhappy seasons at Inter, before becoming the catalyst for Arsenal’s evolution into the Premier League’s great entertainers. The reason for his failure in Italy, and his unquestionable success in England, was inevitably about the amount of space he was afforded. ‘English defences always played a back four, with one line, which meant they had to defend the space behind,’ he said. ‘In Italy they had the libero, but the English had two central defenders against two strikers, so they couldn’t really cover each other. As an attacker I liked that because it meant you could play between the lines.’ From that zone, Bergkamp became the Premier League’s most revered deep-lying forward, although he became more prolific in terms of assists than goals.
Ajax, however, didn’t desperately miss him. In Bergkamp’s three seasons as Eredivise top goalscorer, Ajax didn’t win the title – PSV triumphed twice and Feyenoord once – but in the three seasons after his departure, Ajax won three in a row, while winning the Champions League in 1995 and reaching the final the following year. This wasn’t solely down to Bergkamp’s departure, of course, and more about Ajax’s emerging generation of players. It helped, however, that Bergkamp was replaced by an equally wonderful talent, the Finnish number 10 Jari Litmanen. ‘Dennis Bergkamp was brilliant for Ajax, but the best number 10 we have ever had was Jari,’ said Frank Rijkaard. Litmanen was Finnish rather than Dutch, and therefore his qualities are less salient here, but he perfectly encapsulated the Ajax idea of a number 10. He was excellent at finding space, had a wonderful first touch and could play the ball expertly with either foot. Van Gaal said that whereas Bergkamp was a second striker, Litmanen was the fourth midfielder.
After his retirement, when asked to name his ‘perfect XI’ of past teammates by FourFourTwo magazine, Litmanen spent two days mulling over his options – Ballon d’Or winners like Luís Figo, Michael Owen and Rivaldo, and other world-class options like Michael Laudrup, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Pep Guardiola – before simply naming the entire 1995 Ajax side. That underlined the harmony of Van Gaal’s Champions League winners; Litmanen didn’t want to upgrade in terms of individuals, because the collective might suffer.
1994/95 was an extraordinary campaign for Ajax; not only did they lift Europe’s most prestigious club trophy, they also won the Eredivisie undefeated. Van Gaal counted on a sensational generation of talent, but also created the most structured, organised side of this era.
Tactical organisation, at this point, was often only considered an important concept without the ball; teams defended as a unit, while attackers were allowed freedom to roam. But Van Gaal was obsessed with structure within possession, almost robbing his attacking weapons of any spontaneity. The crucial difference between Van Gaal’s system and the approach of his predecessors Michels and Cruyff was that Van Gaal effectively prohibited the classic position-switching up and down the flanks, the hallmark of Total Football. Previously, Ajax’s right-back, right-midfielder and right-winger, for example, would often appear in each other’s roles, but Van Gaal ordered his midfielders to stay behind the wingers; not because he didn’t subscribe to the concept of universality, but because it harmed the side’s structure. Ajax were supposed to occupy space evenly, efficiently and according to Van Gaal’s pre-determined directions. ‘Lots of coaches devote their time to wondering how their players can do a lot of running during a match,’ he guffawed. ‘Ajax trains its players to run as little as possible on the field, and that is why positional games are always central to Ajax’s training sessions.’
The classic starting XI featured Edwin van der Sar in goal, behind a three-man defence of Michael Reiziger, Danny Blind and Frank de Boer, three technical, ball-playing defenders. Ahead of them was Frank Rijkaard, an exceptional all-rounder who played partly in defence and partly in midfield, allowing Ajax to shift between a back three and a back four. The midfielders on either side of the diamond were the dreadlocked, Suriname-born duo of Clarence Seedorf and Edgar Davids. They were both technically excellent but also energetic enough to battle in midfield before pushing forward to support the central attackers rather than the wingers, Finidi George and Marc Overmars, who were left alone to isolate opposition full-backs. Then Litmanen would play between the lines, dropping deep to overload midfield before motoring into the box to support Ajax’s forward, generally Ronald de Boer, although he could play in midfield with Patrick Kluivert or Nwankwo Kanu up front.
Ajax’s 1995 side is certainly comparable to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona side a decade and a half later – possession-based, tactically flexible, adept at pressing – but whereas Barca attempted to score following intricate passing combinations through the centre, many of Ajax’s goals were much simpler. The midfielders would service the wingers, who would dribble past the opposition full-backs and cross for the forwards. When Ajax were faced with a deep defence, the most fundamental part of their possession play involved building an attack on one flank, realising they were unable to get the nearest winger in a one-against-one situation, so quickly switching play to the opposite flank, where there would be more space, to try the other winger. This was generally achieved with two or three quick passes flowing through Davids, Rijkaard and Seedorf, rather than with a long crossfield ball. This way, opponents were momentarily drawn towards those central midfielders, which allowed the opposite winger a little extra space.
Ajax’s crowning moment was the 1995 Champions League Final victory over Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. While Capello almost always selected a 4–4–2 formation, for the final he narrowed his midfield quartet to help compete with Ajax’s diamond. Capello tasked his creative number 10, Zvonimir Boban, with nullifying Rijkaard before dropping back towards the left, while defensive midfielder Marcel Desailly performed a man-marking job on Litmanen. With hard-working forwards Marco Simone and Daniele Massaro cleverly positioning themselves to prevent Blind and De Boer enjoying time on the ball, and therefore directing passes to the less talented Reiziger, Ajax struggled before half-time.
After the break Van Gaal made three crucial changes that stretched the usually ultra-compact Milan, allowing Ajax extra space. First, Rijkaard was instructed to drop back into defence, in the knowledge that Milan’s midfielders wouldn’t advance high enough to close him down. Rijkaard started dictating play. Second, Van Gaal withdrew Seedorf, shifted centre-forward Ronald de Boer into a midfield role, and introduced Kanu, whose speed frightened Milan’s defence and forced them to drop deeper. Third, he added yet more speed up front by sacrificing Litmanen, widely considered Ajax’s best player, and introducing the extremely quick 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert.
In typical Dutch fashion, Ajax had increased the active playing area by tempting Milan’s attack higher and forcing their defence deeper, thereby giving themselves more space in midfield. The winner came five minutes from full-time, with substitute Kluivert exploiting Milan’s uncoordinated defensive line and poking home after Rijkaard had assisted him from the edge of the box. That might sound peculiar: Ajax’s holding midfielder, who had been told to drop into defence, playing the decisive pass from inside the final third. Defenders showcasing their technical skill, however, was another key feature of Dutch football during this period.
3
Playing Out from the Back (#litres_trial_promo)
European football’s epochal moment in 1992 wasn’t about the formation of the Premier League nor the European Cup being rebranded as the Champions League, but about the back-pass law. Forced into action by the disastrously negative 1990 World Cup, and the increasing popularity of time wasting by knocking the ball around in defence before returning it to the goalkeeper, FIFA ruled that a goalkeeper could no longer handle the ball if deliberately kicked to him by a teammate. The final major tournament under the old rules was Euro 92, with Denmark triumphing courtesy of a defensive strategy that relied heavily on Peter Schmeichel picking up back passes.
The impact of the law change was overwhelmingly positive – goalkeepers and defenders, now forced to play their way out of danger, became more comfortable in possession and the speed of matches increased dramatically. The first major tournament under the new rules, incidentally, was the football tournament at the 1992 Olympics, a largely entertaining competition with the gold medal won at the Camp Nou by a Spain side featuring Pep Guardiola.
Initially, reaction to the law change was universally negative. World Soccer magazine launched a ‘Save Our Backpass’ campaign, while more surprising criticism came from Johan Cruyff, a man usually determined to promote technical, fast-paced football. ‘The law changes don’t make sense to me,’ he blasted. ‘All they’re doing is complicating life for officials, coaches and players. What’s been done is a typical product of people who play their football sitting behind desks in an office and have never been out on the pitch in their lives.’ But the biggest beneficiary would be the Dutch, and those who represented Cruyffian football. In most other European nations, goalkeepers suddenly needed to adjust and develop their kicking, while rudimentary old-school defenders quickly became extinct. The Dutch, however, were already producing technically gifted goalkeepers and defenders.
Cruyff, possibly more than anyone in the history of football, had very particular and influential ideas about goalkeepers, which is somewhat curious considering Cruyff was not a goalkeeper himself. Except for one thing – he was. Such was Cruyff’s all-round footballing ability, he kept goal for Ajax’s third team even after his first-team debut in 1964. Saving, catching and throwing were no problem for Cruyff, who had previously excelled at baseball as a youngster, showing potential as both pitcher and catcher. But for Cruyff, goalkeeping wasn’t about using your hands; it was ‘a question of vision’, and few could rival him in that respect. He believed the goalkeeper should act as an 11th outfielder, starting attacking moves and sweeping behind an advanced defensive line, and as a thoughtful and outspoken Dutch superstar Cruyff exerted a considerable influence on his managers’ tactical approach, acting as a catalyst for the development of the goalkeeper.
When Total Football changed the game at the 1974 World Cup, there was a perfect example of the Dutch goalkeeping approach. The incumbent number 1, PSV’s Jan van Beveren, was a fine shot-stopper revered across Europe, but he wasn’t a footballing goalkeeper. ‘I could not play football! I was a born goalkeeper: reflexes, jumping, strength,’ he admitted. But Cruyff was more concerned with speed, intelligence and passing, so he convinced manager Rinus Michels to drop Van Beveren and also overlook the highly rated Pieter Schrijvers of FC Twente. Holland instead fielded Jan Jongbloed, who played for the relatively obscure FC Amsterdam and had made a single appearance for the national team 12 years previously. Jongbloed was quick, comfortable sweeping behind his defence, good with his feet and therefore perfect for Total Football. The model for Dutch goalkeepers was thereby established, and upon the start of football’s modern era in 1992, the Dutch adjusted better than anyone. Dutch goalkeepers had always been, quite literally, several steps ahead of their European rivals.
In 1992 Ajax’s goalkeeper was Stanley Menzo, who was typical of many Ajax players during this period; he hailed from the former Dutch colony of Suriname, was a product of the club’s youth academy and was an all-round footballer rather than a specialist blessed with the traditional skillset for his position. Menzo was a footballing goalkeeper in Europe’s best footballing side, and was successful at Ajax because he was excellent with his feet. His spell as first-choice Ajax goalkeeper started under Johan Cruyff in 1985 and ended under Louis van Gaal in 1994 – he won the Eredivisie and European trophies under both, and unsurprisingly names them as the two greatest coaches he worked under. Both loved his footballing ability. Significantly, but not entirely unsurprisingly, Menzo offered plenty of experience in a different position. ‘I started as a sweeper, a central defender, but after less than a year I started to become a goalkeeper,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I could play goalkeeper but I could also play football. I was both, I could do both. And in the end … not I chose, but I became, a goalkeeper.’
This was in keeping with Ajax’s long-standing, forward-thinking goalkeeping approach introduced by Cruyff during his playing days, and when Cruyff was appointed Ajax manager in 1985, the athletic, speedy Menzo was promoted from back-up to succeed Hans Galjé as Ajax’s number 1. Menzo became renowned for his aggressive starting position and his excellent long throws, and was consistently showered with praise by Cruyff, who said he was Ajax’s most important player in the 1987 Cup Winners’ Cup because of his distribution. Menzo could play as an outfielder, Cruyff believed.
While Cruyff was stereotypically opinionated regarding the role of the goalkeeper, he also appreciated the requirement for a genuine specialist, and appointed the Netherlands’ first-ever goalkeeping coach, Frans Hoek, the most influential of the modern era. While also running a shop in the outskirts of Amsterdam that solely stocked goalkeeping paraphernalia, Hoek’s first pupil was Menzo, and the pair continued working together throughout the late 1980s and into Van Gaal’s reign as Ajax manager. The problem, however, was that Menzo was somewhat erratic in a traditional goalkeeping sense. The stubborn ideologist Cruyff was entirely forgiving of mistakes, declaring that Menzo’s footballing ability compensated for sporadic errors, but Van Gaal was more pragmatic. The final straw came when Ajax’s UEFA Cup defence was surprisingly ended by Auxerre in March 1993, with Menzo making a dreadful mistake, palming Pascal Vahirua’s inswinging corner into his own net. Van Gaal dropped Menzo and turned to Ajax’s back-up, the previously little-known Edwin van der Sar.
Van der Sar shared Menzo’s initial footballing experience – he originally played in defence, but when his youth team’s regular goalkeeper failed to turn up for a game, Van der Sar was handed the gloves purely because he was the tallest player in the side; he eventually grew to be 1.97 metres tall, enormous even by the standards of the Netherlands, the loftiest nation in the world. His early outfield experience ensured he became a significant goalkeeping revolutionary, as he adapted instinctively to the 1992 law changes. ‘The back-pass law changed my life, because I was already good with my feet,’ he recalled after his retirement.
‘We looked at what qualities an Ajax keeper should have, and Edwin already had most of them,’ said goalkeeping coach Hoek. ‘He had a good understanding of space around his goal and could play out to the defenders. That was difficult for many keepers, because most of them were “line-keepers” who stayed on their line and were primarily ball-stoppers. Also, he was tall and therefore had enormous range. He was calm, stable and a great foundation to build plays from. And importantly, he was ambitious and very coachable.’ As Jonathan Wilson outlines in his history of the goalkeeper, The Outsider, Van der Sar was ‘the first goalkeeper to operate as a genuine sweeper’.
That might surprise those who only witnessed the end of Van der Sar’s career, which continued into his 40s – by which point he’d split eight league titles and two Champions League successes between Ajax and Manchester United, and won a then-record 130 caps. Towards the end of his career, Van der Sar was less mobile and more of a classic goalkeeper; his brief, unhappy spell with Juventus saw him being encouraged to remain on his goal line, and at Manchester United he was also more conservative. But the early Ajax-era Van der Sar was renowned for his bravery and confidence in terms of positioning and distribution, and he became the obvious and outstanding role model for the following generation of goalkeepers. Indeed, Van der Sar was so influential that what was considered remarkable in his Ajax days became entirely commonplace by the time of his retirement.
‘One of the first to bring a new perspective was Edwin van der Sar, who played a lot with his feet and allowed the position to enter a new phase,’ Germany’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper Manuel Neuer later declared. ‘I was inspired by his style of play and enjoyed the philosophy of Ajax.’ Thibaut Courtois, David de Gea and Vincent Enyeama also cite him as a major inspiration. Of course, others attempted to play as a sweeper; at the 1990 World Cup, Colombia’s extravagant René Higuita was famously dispossessed well outside his area by Roger Milla, who converted into an empty net. But such goalkeepers were considered crazy, with Higuita, most notorious for his scorpion kick, famously nicknamed ‘El Loco’.
But Van der Sar wasn’t in any way loco. Van der Sar was boring, efficient and business-like. When he retired from playing, he didn’t choose coaching or punditry, but instead became Ajax’s CEO. When approached about writing an autobiography, he was worried he wouldn’t have enough material to fill the pages. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just not very rock and roll,’ he insisted. But his understated calmness was perfect for promoting the role of the ‘footballing goalkeeper’, demonstrating it was a logical, valuable undertaking rather than a self-indulgent experiment. When constructing passing moves, Ajax used their goalkeeper considerably more than other top-level European sides, because few teams were so committed to building from the back. A back pass to the goalkeeper was widely considered a last resort, especially as the goalkeeper would simply thump the ball downfield. But Ajax’s outfielders treated Van der Sar as one of their own, safe in the knowledge he would recycle possession.
Van der Sar was certainly better than his predecessor Menzo in a traditional goalkeeping sense, but he didn’t make many spectacular saves when compared with, for example, Peter Schmeichel or David de Gea, Manchester United’s other two most celebrated goalkeepers of the Premier League era. Van der Sar once explained his duty very simply as ‘stopping the balls that people expect you to save’. His only indulgence was taking a couple of penalties when Ajax were thrashing Eredivisie minnows – he had one saved against Sparta Rotterdam, then converted another against De Graafschap, although he was annoyed to subsequently lose his clean sheet in the final minute, making the score 8–1.
Van der Sar’s most impressive piece of ‘footballing’ skill came at the start of a famous goal Ajax scored away at MVV Maastricht in May 1995, shortly before their Champions League triumph. Defender Michael Reiziger found himself under pressure in the right-back zone, and his underhit back pass meant Van der Sar had to sprint laterally out of his goal, almost on the byline, to reach the ball. The accepted practice for goalkeepers in this situation is simple: smash the ball into the stands, shout obscenities at the appropriate defender and sprint back furiously towards goal. But not Van der Sar. Instead, he nipped in ahead of the opposition striker, sidestepping the challenge and playing a calm return pass to Reiziger, now beside the corner flag. What happened next demonstrated the importance of the goalkeeper’s coolness.
Reiziger dribbled past an opponent and passed forward to Litmanen, who fed Ronald de Boer. He evaded a tackle and passed left to Edgar Davids, who also slalomed past an opponent before knocking a through-ball into the path of the onrushing defender Danny Blind, who charged through on goal in the inside-right position, then knocked a square pass for left-winger Marc Overmars to convert at the far post. It was a remarkable team goal, the single greatest summary of Ajax’s footballing style under Van Gaal, and it all started with the composure of Van der Sar. Ajax’s attackers rushed to celebrate – but not with the goalscorer Overmars, who looked confused by the lack of teammates around him and awkwardly turned to hail the supporters on his own, but instead with the defensive section of the side, because they’d built the move from deep. A delighted Van Gaal emerged from his dugout with enthusiastic applause for a wonderful team goal. This was Ajax all over: forwards dropping deep, defenders running through on goal, rapid passing and, more than anything else, a footballing goalkeeper.
When Ajax won the Champions League, a watching Cruyff suggested that their key player was Van der Sar. Cruyff had been determined to introduce the Dutch goalkeeping model at Barcelona, but was frustrated with the performances of Andoni Zubizarreta. In terms of character, ‘Zubi’ could be likened to Van der Sar; he was hugely professional and statesmanlike, won a then-record 126 caps for Spain and later became Barca’s director of football. But in a goalkeeping sense Zubizarreta was distinctly old-school, happily remaining on his line, and Cruyff frequently criticised his lack of technical skills, which became a more obvious issue after the back-pass change. ‘Cruyff hasn’t changed me as a goalkeeper, but he’s changed my position,’ said Zubizarreta, which rather summed it up. Cruyff told him to act as a sweeper, yet at heart he was a pure shot-stopper, a ‘serious, reliable type of keeper’, in the Basque’s own words. Cruyff deployed him in midfield during training matches, desperate to improve his confidence in possession.
Zubizarreta lasted until 1994, before Cruyff turned to long-serving back-up Carles Busquets, father of future Barcelona midfielder Sergio. He was considerably more receptive to Cruyff’s tactics, playing miles off his line with typically mixed results. His first major appearance for Barcelona came when Zubizarreta was suspended for the 1991 European Cup Winners’ Cup Final, a 2–1 defeat to Manchester United, and was characterised by three major errors. First, Busquets raced outside his box towards a high ball, got nowhere near it and United’s Lee Sharpe volleyed narrowly wide of an empty net. Next, he was caught in no-man’s land for United’s opener, half-coming to claim a long free-kick before belatedly changing his mind. Steve Bruce headed over him, and former Barca striker Mark Hughes smashed in. Hughes doubled United’s lead seven minutes later, when he received a through-ball and immediately encountered Busquets 25 yards out of his goal, making a desperate sliding tackle. Hughes rounded him and again fired into an empty net.
Cruyff invested huge faith in Busquets. He was relatively short for a goalkeeper, at 1.81 metres, but was incredibly confident in possession and loved playing chipped passes over opposition attackers to his teammates. For most observers’ tastes, however, he was still incredibly haphazard. Shortly after replacing Zubizarreta as number 1, he made a characteristic error for the decisive goal in a shock 2–1 defeat at Gothenburg, charging off his line to intercept a long ball. Approaching the edge of his box, and unsure whether to head or punch, he did neither and Jesper Blomqvist, a winger hardly renowned for his aerial prowess, headed into the empty goal. This was typical of Busquets’ style, and the type of mistake the great Zubizarreta would never have made. More significantly, Busquets’ footballing skills were far from flawless and he was caught in possession rather too often. Even his attire prompted nerves, as he insisted on wearing long tracksuit bottoms, and when combined with the muddy goalmouths of this era, meant he looked too scruffy to inspire much confidence.
Journalists constantly linked Cruyff with a move for Van der Sar, to which Cruyff would diplomatically respond by pointing out that he didn’t have any slots left for foreign players. Besides, he forgave errors from footballing goalkeepers, believing that subtler positive contributions from sweeping and distributing compensated for the odd cheap concession. This became the mantra at Barcelona, and Busquets’ approach was considered so important that he later became the club’s goalkeeping coach, mentoring the likes of Pepe Reina and Víctor Valdés, and ensuring that Cruyff’s vision of a footballing goalkeeper remained integral to the Barcelona way.
There’s one final, forgotten Barcelona goalkeeper from this period who deserves belated recognition: Jesús Angoy. Another sweeper-keeper from Barcelona’s academy, he played just nine La Liga games between 1991 and 1996, largely without distinction, serving as back-up to Zubizarreta and then Busquets. But for two non-footballing reasons he is significant: first, he was married to Cruyff’s daughter Chantal, suggesting that the Cruyffian affection for footballing goalkeepers was somehow genetic. When Chantal gave birth, the beaming new grandfather Johan told the media that the newborn ‘has got big feet and big hands – the feet are for playing football and the hands are for picking up his wages’, with not even a passing thought that the hands might be useful for following his father into goalkeeping. Second, Angoy departed Barca in 1996 at the same time as Cruyff, but stayed in the city to continue his playing days over at the Olympic Stadium. Busquets didn’t move to Barca’s city rivals Espanyol, however; he switched sports and signed for NFL Europe side Barcelona Dragons. You might think this would be a natural transition for a goalkeeper, as American football is all about catching and throwing, but Angoy was actually the Dragons’ placekicker – and a very good one. He ended his second career as the second-highest points scorer in the history of NFL Europe, and turned down a transfer to the Denver Broncos because he wanted to remain in Barcelona with Chantal. Even in a sport that overwhelmingly involves using your hands, the former Barca goalkeeper specialised in the role that involves using your feet. His father-in-law presumably approved.
Playing out from the back was not, of course, solely about goalkeepers being comfortable in possession, and Dutch football placed great emphasis on defenders who offered, in Van Gaal’s words, ‘more than just defensive skills’. English football supporters were stunned when former Ballon d’Or winner Ruud Gullit, a world-class attacking midfielder, signed for Glenn Hoddle’s Chelsea in 1995 and promptly declared his intention to play as a sweeper, the position he’d played in his teenage years. ‘As a central defender I could move into midfield and would dash from there into an attacking position,’ he said. But the experiment lasted only a couple of months at Chelsea, because Gullit’s teammates simply weren’t on the same wavelength. ‘I would take a difficult ball, control it, make space and play a good ball in front of the right-back,’ Gullit recalled. ‘Except, he didn’t want that pass. Eventually, Glenn said to me, “Ruud, it would be better if you do these things in midfield.”’ The Dutch were well ahead of the game.
This had been a crucial feature of Total Football in the 1970s: defenders bursting forward when opportunities arose, with midfielders and attackers providing cover by dropping back. To make this worthwhile, however, the Ajax and Holland sides of the 1970s required defenders to be genuinely good footballers, capable of using their freedom to provide decisive contributions in the final third. Because of the importance of pressing, meanwhile, they also needed to offer speed, to play in a high defensive line and cover the space in behind.
When the Dutch adopted this policy during the 1970s it was genuinely revolutionary. Their defensive leader was Ajax’s Ruud Krol, a gloriously complete footballer who possessed the three qualities Dutch defenders would come to be renowned for – intelligence, speed and ball-playing ability. He read the game beautifully, swept up behind his fellow defenders and knocked long, diagonal balls to the wingers, sometimes doing all three in the same move. He was the only defender aside from the legendary Bobby Moore and Franz Beckenbauer to be voted into the top three of the Ballon d’Or in the 1970s, such was his impact on club and country, and he also provided the most concise summary of the Dutch approach to defending. ‘We looked to keep our opponent on the halfway line,’ he said. ‘Our standpoint was that we were not protecting our own goal – we were attacking the halfway line.’
Krol played left-back during Holland’s run to the 1974 World Cup Final, and his three defensive colleagues were also particularly attack-minded. Right-back Wim Suurbier, also of Ajax, was renowned more for his speed and stamina than his defensive ability, and constantly charged up the wing. In the middle, Holland converted Feyenoord’s Wim Rijsbergen from a right-back into a centre-back, and most significantly redeployed Ajax’s Arie Haan, a reliable midfielder, as the side’s fourth defender, although he had never previously played in defence. It’s also telling that the only two significant foreigners who turned out for Ajax during this period, Yugoslavian Velibor Vasović and German Horst Blankenburg, both played the physical, old-school hardman role, because Ajax simply didn’t produce that kind of defender themselves. ‘The foreign players brought something different,’ Cruyff acknowledged of the 1970s Ajax side. That kind of statement in England or Italy would be about foreigners bringing flair, but in the Netherlands it was about foreigners bringing fight.
By the time Cruyff’s and Van Gaal’s sides were dominating Europe in the 1990s, both were determined to promote the concept of the ball-playing defender, helped by the back-pass reform. Cruyff continued to talk about the importance of attacking the halfway line rather than defending the goal even after his retirement, complaining about ‘defenders running back towards their own goal when they lose the ball, rather than moving forward to put pressure on the players in possession’. His Barcelona side, more than any other team of the 1990s, attempted to play in the opposition half.
Such was the emphasis on ball-playing defenders, Van Gaal referred to them using a word previously reserved for attacking midfielders. ‘In modern soccer the players in the middle of the back four – the numbers 3 and 4 – have really become the playmakers,’ he said. ‘That’s why Danny Blind and Frank Rijkaard were so important to Ajax. The number 10 certainly can’t be called a playmaker because the space in which he operates is too restricted … today’s playmakers are to be found in the centre of the back four. This means, of course, you can no longer deploy the old-fashioned, solid type of player in these positions. You have to use technically and tactically gifted players like Blind and Rijkaard.’ Blind, Ajax’s captain, had played alongside Van Gaal for seven years at Sparta Rotterdam and was a calm, technically gifted footballer. But his defensive partner Rijkaard was the real star, hailed by Cruyff in his autobiography as ‘one of the best all-round footballers I’ve ever seen – he could defend with the best of them, he organised the midfield and he still had scoring potential. All of that in one person, who also had the right mentality and a good set of brains.’
Rijkaard was a curious, reserved figure constantly suffering some form of identity crisis. He was considered a thug by many for his quite literal 1990 World Cup spat with Rudi Völler, but was actually among the most amiable footballers around. He appeared a natural leader, but when Ajax manager Cruyff wanted him to become more involved in off-field duties, Rijkaard stormed out and refused to play under him again. He became a celebrity by virtue of his footballing ability, yet he found fame suffocating. He later became a successful coach, winning the Champions League with Barcelona in 2006, but walked away from management at 50, saying, ‘I don’t see myself as an authentic coach. I’ve done something for about 16 years which isn’t a match for me.’ But, most crucially in this context, Rijkaard was an outstanding defender who didn’t just want to defend.
This was nothing new for Dutch defenders, of course, but Rijkaard’s case was particularly extreme. He emerged from Ajax’s academy and became an outstanding, forward-thinking defender, partnering Ronald Koeman at Euro 88 and finishing third in that year’s Ballon d’Or voting. While Dutchmen were accustomed to Rijkaard’s attacking quality, other managers appeared surprised. ‘This is the best central defender I’ve seen in the last few years,’ raved Argentina manager Carlos Bilardo. ‘He wins everything in the air, he marks perfectly, reads the game well, has a great long pass and a great shot. He is the perfect defender, born for today’s game.’ Ireland boss Jack Charlton repeated the praise. ‘He can do everything! In England he would be worth gold. We hardly have any like him, a player who can defend and attack brilliantly.’
Rijkaard moved to AC Milan in 1988, and because Arrigo Sacchi had created the most formidable defensive quartet of that era – Mauro Tassotti, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta and Paolo Maldini – Rijkaard was deployed in midfield alongside another future Champions League-winning manager, Carlo Ancelotti. This came to be Rijkaard’s established position; he won the 1989 European Cup from midfield and was again voted third in the Ballon d’Or, and then helped Milan retain the European Cup by scoring the only goal in the final, breaking forward from midfield, receiving a through-ball from Marco van Basten and finishing coolly. Rijkaard was now a box-to-box midfielder. But for Holland he was fielded as a central defender at the 1990 World Cup, with the midfield based around the underperforming Ruud Gullit, his Milan teammate and childhood friend. Being deployed at centre-back frustrated Rijkaard and contributed to his decision to quit the national side. He wanted to be the playmaker, not a man-marker, and only returned to international duty when promised a midfield role.
Upon his return to Ajax in 1993, Rijkaard was less mobile, more mature and happier playing defensively – so the position Van Gaal had earmarked for him was perfect. In Ajax’s 3–4–3, he played as the number 4, essentially anchoring the midfield ahead of captain Blind but dropping back to become a defender when necessary. But crucially, for a player who always wanted to be a playmaker, that’s precisely what Van Gaal demanded from him, and although asked to track opposition forwards, Rijkaard was also free to join the attack.
Rijkaard played a crucial role in Ajax’s 1995 European Cup Final win against Milan with his assist for Patrick Kluivert, but arguably more significant was the fact that he had taken control in the Ajax dressing room at half-time, laying into Clarence Seedorf and rallying his teammates, a moment Van Gaal would repeatedly cite as an example of a teammate stepping up and assuming responsibility. Rijkaard retired from football immediately after the triumphant final – which meant that his first departure from Ajax, in 1987, came after his manager Cruyff complained about his lack of leadership skills, and his second departure, in 1995, came after his manager Van Gaal was delighted with them.
Alongside Blind and Rijkaard was Frank de Boer, capable of playing left-back or left-sided centre-back, and therefore ideal for the flexible nature of Ajax’s defence. He was a wonderful distributor, particularly when spraying long, diagonal passes to a centre-forward who had drifted into the opposite channel. The classic example was the most famous Dutch pass of the 1990s, the pinpoint 60-yard diagonal to Dennis Bergkamp in the dying seconds of the 1998 World Cup quarter-final against Argentina. It was a good ball, made into a great one by Bergkamp’s extraordinary feat of bringing the ball down, beating Roberto Ayala and lifting the ball into the net with three quick touches. But Bergkamp’s favourite goal owed everything to his existing relationship with De Boer, as he explained when outlining how he received the pass. ‘You’ve had the eye contact … Frank knows exactly what he’s going to do. There’s contact, you’re watching him. He’s looking at you, you know his body language: he’s going to give the ball.’
Bergkamp knew, because De Boer had played that pass to him so often at club level, the best instance coming on Valentine’s Day 1993 at PSV. De Boer moved forward on the left of the Ajax defence and thumped a perfect curling ball into the right-hand channel for Bergkamp, who responded with a typical three-card trick: controlling the ball with his right thigh, then knocking the ball past the defender with his left foot, before chipping the ball over the goalkeeper with his right. Stripping away the context and looking purely at the technical skill involved, it was arguably more impressive than the Argentina strike. ‘It wasn’t a simple thing to do, but I’d done it so often with Dennis when we’d played together at Ajax,’ De Boer recalled when speaking of the Argentina goal. ‘When you watch the footage of Dennis at Ajax, I must have given him assists like that three or four times. We felt good together – when he went forward, I knew he wanted to go deep, and vice-versa … everything went right, and the pass was beautiful. But that was one of my strengths, and the chances of the pass getting there are higher for me than for other players.’ That’s because De Boer was simply an excellent passer, and that specific diagonal ball, from De Boer to the centre-forward, became a familiar part of Ajax’s attacking under Van Gaal.
Ajax’s final defender, right-sided Michael Reiziger, was a different type of footballer entirely: less creative but extremely quick, which meant he was the most effective defender at covering the space in behind, and lithe and tricky when bursting forward. Reiziger was another academy product, and when loaned out to Groningen was deployed as a right-winger, such were his attacking skills. ‘He’s quick, has good anticipation and sufficient ability to participate in build-up play,’ said Van Gaal, with ‘sufficient’ a telling choice of word. ‘Initially his defensive play was not so good, but this is an aspect which can be taught quickly – I give a player like him more time to play himself into the team. It’s not such a big gamble, we play near the halfway line, so Reiziger has time to use his basic speed to correct any mistakes.’
