History:

The first thing you think of when Dutch football is mentioned is Total Football. The term is well understood when speaking about the great national teams of the 70’s and late 80’s the philosophy of total football is that any player can replace any other on the team in any position, the way this can be done is through training from an early age developing the players awareness of positional space and it creates good technique. Total football was created by a man called Jack Reynolds back in the 1910’s but was built upon and refined by Rinus Michels while at Ajax back during the 1970’s. Total football made its mark upon the world in 1972 when Ajax beat Internazionale 2-0 in the European Cup Final. It is best summed up by the actual players who played this style in its most effective way, Barry Hulshoff, Ajax defender, said ‘It was about making space , coming into space, and organising space-like architecture on the football pitch’ this is how all the team understood total football. Johan Cruyff explains the total football philosophy ‘Simple football is the most beautiful. But playing simple football is the hardest thing’. With this form of football it took the national side to the World Cup finals in 1974 and 1978 where unfortunately they both lost, firstly to West Germany 2-1 in ‘74’ and then Argentina 2-1 in ‘78’ respectively. The manager of the national team during the first tournament was Rinus Michels, the man who refined total football. The manager who took them to their 2nd final was an Austrian called Ernst Happel. But there is one dominant proponent player to this type of football, that being the great Johan Cruyff, who was recently voted the greatest European player of all time, he represented everything about the new wave of Dutch football. With the two final losses in the 70’s it seemed like only a matter of time until the national team won a major tournament, this eventually happened on the 25th of June 1988 in West Germany, with a 2-0 victory over the U.S.S.R., the goals came from their two stars of the time, Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten, top goal scorer in the tournament with 5 goals. The win was even more memorable for the team due to the person who coached them, a certain Mr Rinus Michels, this was a fitting tribute to the man who brought total football to the national team. That is the first and only major tournament until now the Netherlands have won. But they are always one of the favourites when going into any tournament.

Dutch football clubs have a very good reputation for their youth academies and system of training, this is amazing when you consider that Holland has a population of 16.5 million and are one of the strongest footballing nations in the world. The most successful club in Dutch football is Ajax they have won the national league 29 times and the European Cup 4 times, 3 times in a row 71-73. With their youth academies strongly established and specific training methods that are tried and tested, they are known to have the most organised and forward thinking structure in European football. Many Premier league teams have looked at the Dutch method when developing or setting up their youth academies. The Dutch football league is deemed to belong within the 2nd echelon of European football, with their rich history and very good foundation this can be seen as a slight upon their reputation. However unfortunate this is becoming more the case, this is due to a gap in investment in the leagues other than the English, Italian and Spanish. The Eredevisie (Dutch League) signed a deal with Versatel in August 2005 for a reported 91.5 million Euros (£65.7 million) on a three year deal. When compared to the English Premier league deal of 1.7 billion pounds signed in 2007 on a three year deal that is a huge gap. Due to this most of the Dutch talent has moved abroad and nearly all the national team play in foreign leagues. At the same time this not much of a difference when looking back in time, even Johan Cruyff left to play overseas with Barcelona. This obviously has an effect on the Eredevisie standard but with the clubs academies there is no other country in Europe able to cope with the out flux of talent other than Holland.

There is a darker side to Dutch football too, that dark side is hooliganism. There have been many incidents in Dutch football history when hooliganism has reared its ugly head. It is common belief that the first hooligan activity in Holland was in 1974 when a mass riot began between Feyenoord fans and Tottenham Hotspur fans during the UEFA Cup Final. Since then numerous Dutch clubs have been associated with hooliganism such as Ajax, NAC Breda, PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord, FC Utrecht, FC Den Bosch, FC Groningen and ADO Den Haag. There is a huge rivalry between Ajax and Feyenoord, this is predominantly due to the fact that they are from the two biggest city rivals, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The most violent encounter between the fans was the Battle of Beverwijk on 23rd March, 1997, in which numerous people were injured and a man called Carlo Picornie was killed, he was a leader of Ajax‘s hooligan gang. Then on 26th April, 1999, eighty fans were arrested when Feyenoord supporters started a riot after loosing a cup match against NAC Breda. Then in the season of 2002-2003 fighting broke out between fans of Ajax and FC Utrecht and later in the season between Ajax and Feyenoord fans again. The latest incident occurred in 2006 when Dutch fans rioted against French fans. The authorities have tried many times to control this, with indoor games and home fan only games but the rivalries are ingrained now and will take a very long time to diminish.

Greatest Player:

He is known to be their greatest ever player and voted the greatest European footballer of the century by IFFHS. Born April the 25th, 1947 in Amsterdam, he is named Hendrik Johannes Cruiff, spelled Cruyff outside of the Netherlands. He was named European Footballer of the Year (1971, 1973, 1974), which is a joint record shared with Michel Platini (1983, 1984, 1985) and Marco Van Basten (1988, 1989, 1992). He played for the famous Dutch team of the 70’s and was the focus point of total football, he could play striker, second striker, winger or midfielder, he is referred to as ‘the total footballer’. At the height of 5tf 11in he was not well known for his physical prowess but certainly had great intelligence, he was the first to drop deep from a centre forward position and move out to the wings with devastating effect. He was known for his technical ability combined with his speed and acceleration, this ability in conjunction with his vision made him a player that other teams feared. Sports writer David Miller dubbed him ‘Pythagoras in boots’ for his acute passing ability, he wrote ‘Few have been able to exact, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric control on a match from one penalty area to the other’. Cruyff also perfected a move that was named after himself, where he would look up for the cross but instead of kicking the ball he would drag the ball behind his planted foot with the inside of his other foot and turn 180 degrees then accelerate away the opposite way from the defender.

Johann played for six different clubs in his illustrious career, those clubs were, Ajax, Barcelona, Los Angeles Aztecs, Washington Diplomats, Levante and Feyenoord. But the two clubs he will be best remembered at are Ajax and Barcelona, he won Ajax 3 European Cups, League title 8 times, KNVB Cup 5 times and the Duper Cup twice. He started his career with Ajax where he scored 190 goals in 240 appearances, during his time there he made Ajax the greatest team in the world, after Ajax win against Internazionale in 1972 European Cup Final where he scored both goals where he single-handed pulled them apart, he was seen as the greatest player on the planet and made a move to Barcelona for 6 million guilders, around 2 million dollars in 1973. There were many suitors for his signature one of them being Real Madrid, but he chose Barcelona because he could not play for a club associated with Franco. This was not the only time that politics had a decider on Cruyff’s decision to play football, in 1978 World Cup he refused to play for the National team due the tournament being held in Argentina, who at the time had suffered a military coup only two years previously. During his playing career for Barcelona he played 143 games scoring 48 goals, he also won a league title with them, during that season winning one of his European Footballer of the year awards. Then at the age of 32 he made the move over the Atlantic and signed a lucrative deal with Los Angeles Aztecs, he played one season with them and another season with Washington Diplomats. With a brief spell at Spanish outfit Levante, Cruyff decided to return back to Ajax and played two seasons and was not offered another contract, angered he signed for bitter rivals Feyenoord and won the league and cup double with them before he retired from his illustrious playing career. Playing 522 games and scoring 291 goals is a very special record, he finished his International career with 33 goals in only 48 games, which is a very good ratio.

He was also a very successful manager during his time at Ajax and Barcelona. Two years after retiring Cruyff returned to Ajax as manager and had a very successful time, winning the European Cup Winners Cup . The following year he returned to Barcelona to manage a very talented squad which won him 4 Spanish leagues (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994), a European Cup Winners Cup (1989), a European Cup (1992), Spanish Cup (1990). He is Barcelona’s longest serving manager as well as their most successful manager, he is now an advisor to the current Barcelona chairman, Juan Laporta. His nickname with the fans is ‘El Salvador’ (The Saviour), that is the reputation he holds within one of the greatest clubs in the world. He is also renowned for the famous number he wore, he was the first player to have a specific number outside the starting eleven. He wore the number 14 shirt for every club he played for, he is best known for wearing the number 14 shirt while playing for the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup. He is Dutch football’s greatest ever player, for his flamboyance and controversial ways he will always be remembered as one of football’s true greats.

Dutch Football has seen many good players come and go, the likes of Cruyff has been mentioned but other great players to, like Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Dennis Bergkamp, Ronald Koeman and Johann Neeskens to name but a few. Dutch football certainly has its own identity with the philosophy of total football and the way they nurture their young talented footballers. With such a stable structure in hand they don’t have much to worry about their identity within the game ever being lost. One would think that it is only a matter of time until another great National team will be gracing the World Cup or European Championships.