Holland '74 When the Dutch National Team qualified for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, it marked their first appearance at the tournament since 1938. Throughout the Post World War Two era, Dutch soccer was l a r g e l y an unambitious, amateur affair. That s t a r t e d t o change dramatically when two Dutch clubs; Feyernoord Rotterdam and Ajax Amsterdam made big waves in European club competitions in the early 70’s. After narrowly qualifying for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany thanks to a goalless draw against arch rival Belgium, Hollands would go on to produce one of the most legendary tournament performances of all time. This campaign is still talked about, discussed, and analyzed today, despite the fact that they failed at the last hurdle and lost in a final they prob a b l y could and should have won. A j a x A m s t e r d a m and their playing style was already famous throughout Europe, but the 1974 W o r l d C u p introduced the concept o f T o t a l Football to a world w i d e a u d i e n c e . The DNA of that Total F o o t b a ll came into full b l o o m w i t h b o t h Ajax and the Dutch National Team in the first half of the 1970’s , w i t h their star player Johan Cruyff and FIFA coach of the Century R i n u s M Ichels leading the charge. This Total Football DNA still lives on through many different coaches, p l a y ers, and clubs today. Let’s take a look at how Holland and Total Football rocked the world in the summer of 1974 What the heck is "Total Football”? 'Total Football was, among other things, a conceptual revolution based on the idea that the size of any football field was flexible and could be altered by a team playing on it. In possession, Ajax.... and later the Dutch national team, aimed to make the pitch as large as possible, spreading play to the wings and seeing every run and movement as a way to increase and exploit the available space. When they lost the ball, the same thinking and techniques were used to destroy the space of their opponents.' --David Winner. Soccer writer “Total Football means that a player in attack can play in defense. Everything starts simply. The defender must first think defensively, but he must also think offensively. For an attacker it is the other way around.” “The team is stronger when they play from their normal positions, so when the positions change it is only temporary and you switch back as quickly as possible. It never lasts long. But total Football is not fantasy. It is real because the whole team thinks offensively: We must attack, we must attack! But the quality of the attack is not so good when the attackers are defenders. It is good, but not so good. And the attackers aren’t (the best) defenders.’ “Constant adjustment was vital to keep only one player in each position at any time. It was "coming out, going in, coming out, going in..." You make space. You come in to space. And if the ball doesn't come, you leave this place and another player will come into it.” “People couldn't see that sometimes we just did things automatically. It comes from playing a long time together. Soccer is best when it's instinctive, when it comes from the heart. You talk about things afterwards, but in the game you just play. Our way of playing… we just grew into it. We didn't realize the ball was going that fast, or that we were changing positions so much. We knew exactly what to do because we'd known and played with each other for five years. We could always adapt and fill in for each other.” --Barry Hulshoff. Ajax & Holland defender. Missed the '74 WC due to injury. “When I saw Suurbier (the left back) going forward, I knew I had to go back. I didn't have to be told. And after two years, everybody knew what to do. When Cruyff went to the left, I knew I had to move to the far post.” --Sjaak Swaart, Ajax left winger But Totaal Voetball was not just about attacking. Coach Rinus Michels demanded an intense pressing scheme that smothered opposing players and allowed them no time on the ball. This pressing scheme was just as important for the Dutch as their fluidity and creativity with the ball “Michels saw the need for a team capable of switching between attack and defense on-the-fly, while attempting to reclaim possession as fast as possible through space reduction and direct pressure on the opponent with the ball and secondary pressure on any nearby passing options while cutting off passing lanes. The result was more than just a display of defensive dictation; it saw the emergence of fluid triangular passing patterns moving forward after possession was regained – often in the opponent’s defensive third. Such a pressing display demands players who are technically proficient and versatile while being tactically brilliant. In short, to play for Rinus Michels one had to be a total footballer: fit, smart, tough and versatile.” --Jon Townsend, These Football Times “Boom! Boom! Rinus Michels always said from the start of the game ‘this is how we play’. Boom! ….. That's not a system, it's an attitude. Every player knows what he must do... very aggressive. We went for the goal. First we make three goals and then, yes, we make some nice combinations, something you wouldn't normally do. We were all winners. We weren't trying to be artists. People remember the team wrong.” --Sjaak Swaart Here is an amazing video showing how extreme the Dutch Pressing could be during the 1974 World Cup. Some of these sequences look almost comical now, but at the time no opponents had ever had to face such an overwhelming combination of hard tackling, pressure around the ball, and aggressive offside traps, and they did not know how to handle it “Soccer is like war, and whoever behaves too properly is lost.” – Rinus Michels This toughness and aggressive in defending is something that sometimes gets forgotten amid the celebration for the whirl of attacking play that would become dubbed “Clockwork Orange”, But it was a real factor in their success. Johan Neeskens, the skillful but combative midfielder who played for Michels with Ajax, Barcelona, Los Angeles Aztecs, and the Dutch National Team embodied this spirit. A former Irish International who competed against Neeskens and his New York Cosmos for years in the North American Soccer League once said to me; “Neeskens? I hated that guy! A world class player, but he could have been a world class lumberjack too, for all the times he chopped me down over the years….” This mindset could even take on a cynical turn, as in the game against Bulgaria in the first group stage of the 1974 World Cup, according to Arie Haan, a midfielder for Ajax but employed as a centerback for the National Team: "Before the game we drew up a list of our players who would hit (their playmaker, Bonev) with hard tackles early on. Neeskens first, Van Hanagem second, then Suurbier, I think, Wim Janssen maybe,,, I forget what order it was, I think I was number five. But we never Holland’s Pleasantries towards Bulgarian needed number five. After four captain and playmaker Hristo Bonev did tackles, Bonev didn't want the not survive the opening whistle ball any more. He didn't give us any problems." The Squad The 1974 World Cup Squad featured 7 players from Ajax (if you count Johan Cruyff, who had grown up at the club before transferring to FC Barcelona), But players from other clubs also played key roles in the World Cup campaign, including several of the seven players selected from Ajax’s rival Feyernoord Rotterdam, Rob Rensenbrink from Belgium’s Anderlecht, and goalkeeper Jan Jongbloed from FC Amsterdam. Unlike what we commonly see today in modern soccer, Coach Rinus Michels made no attempt to rotate or rest the players in his squad. Only 12 different players (designated in orange) started a match over the course of their seven games in the tournament, and in two of those matches Michels didn’t bother to make any substitutions at all. Epic Players Epic Hairstyles & Sideburns The complete list of all the players who appeared in the 1974 World Cup 2 Arie Haan 12 Ruud Krol 3 Wim Van Hanegem 13 Johan Neeskens 5 Rinus Israel 14 Johan Cruyff 6 Win Jansen 15 Rob Rensenbrink 7 Theo De Jong 16 Johnny Rep 8 Jan Jongbloed 17 Wim Rijsbergen 9 Piet Keizer 20 Wim Suurbier 10 Renee Van De Kerkhof Squad Snapshots The Coach – Rinus Michels The manager of the team was Rinus Michels, who had been the architect of the Total Football scheme that set the foundation for Ajax’s early success before moving on to coach FC Barcelona. He only took over the team just before the start of the tournament. A harsh taskmaster who also apparently like to party, Michels would eventually win Euro 88 for Holland and was voted FIFA Coach of the Century in 1999 The Icon – Johan Cruyff Considered to be one of the greatest players of all time, Johan Cryuff possessed incredible technique, agility, acceleration, and a nose for goal, but what set him apart from the other great players of his era was his creativity and tactical genius.