FOOTY FAIR

Football's Greatest Sides - Part 2 of 5: Ajax (1971 to 1973)

2016-03-27T09:25:00.000-04:00

As tributes were paid this week to Johan Cruyff, following his passing at age 68, reference was made to him being a 'total footballer' and the heart of a fantastic Ajax side, but perhaps few fans of the modern game know what he and that team have meant to the way football is now played.

Ajax of the early 1970's might not be the greatest team ever, but it's hard to argue that they aren't the most influential.

Prior to 1954, the Netherlands had been a minnow of European football with a national side that rarely won and a disorganized amateur league structure. But in 1954, professionalism came to Dutch football and with that came the impetus to improve the way the game was played by both clubs and country.

At the forefront of the Dutch football revolution was Ajax, who had a tradition for attractive passing football going all the way back to the First World War when they were under the helm of forward thinking English manager Jack Reynolds.

Reynolds set the club up so that all levels, from the first team all the way down to the youth sides. It's a tradition that Ajax has continued over a hundred years later. The revolutionary coach from Manchester would be associated with the Amsterdam club for 27 years and lead them to 8 League Championships.

Rinus Michels, a former pupil of Reynolds, had carved out a twelve year playing career for Ajax between 1946 and 1958 scoring 122 goals, but it was his appointment as manager in 1965 that would change the course of the club's history.

Bringing along youngsters such as Johan Neeskens and Johan Cruyff, Michels transformed a relegation threatened club into league champions within a year.

Building upon Ajax's existing ethos for playing a passing game and adapting the ideas of Gusztáv Sebes, who had managed a flexible and exhilarating Hungarian national side in the 1950's, Michels implemented a system that would come to be coined "Total Football".

Although his side played in a basic 4-3-3 formation, the Ajax players were well drilled in picking up positions left vacated by a teammate making a run. The team shape and the spacing between players was never lost, as players rotated across the pitch.

This required players that were tactical adept and very flexible. Of course the physical demands on the players was also high as they moved around the pitch plugging gaps and making intelligent runs.

The role of Ajax's star forward Cruyff was also key to this system, as he would roam across the front line or back into midfield causing damage all over the pitch. Spaces he left open in his side's structure though were quickly filled by a teammate.

Spatial awareness, in terms of where players should move and where they should not in relation to their teammates and their opponents was critical to this system.

The impact of Michel's new system saw an Ajax reach the European Cup Final in 1969 where they would get turned over 4-1 by AC Milan, but the experience of playing in such a match would stand them in good stead.

In 1971, Ajax defeated Panathinaikos 2-0 at Wembley to capture their first European title and cap a run that even survived the departure of Michels to Barcelona following this victory.

Under the less demanding, but more even more attack minded, Stefan Kovacs, Ajax accumulated a staggering 46-0-0 record at home in domestic football during 1971-1972 and 1972-1973, while also scooping up two more European Cups in those seasons with a 2-0 victory over Inter in 1972 and a 1-0 win over Juventus the following year.

This era of Ajax dominance would come to an end in 1973 with the departure of Cruyff to Barcelona.

Cruyff and Michels, reunited at club and country level, were able to bring their Total Football style over to the Dutch national side, as they strode to the World Cup Final in 1974.

Although there have been modifications down through the years, this style of play was at the heart of Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, who some consider the best club side ever. What former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called their "carousel of passing" was only possible by controlling space and always giving each other passing options.

Whenever this side lost the ball, which was rare to begin with, they were setup to quickly win it back. Modern day Barcelona, still owe much to Michels and Cruyff and the ideas they put into practice over four decades ago.

De Klassieker - Football Rivalries - Ajax vs Feyenoord

2014-08-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

De Klassieker ("The Classic") between Ajax of Amsterdam and Feyenoord of Rotterdam is arguably the biggest and definitely the nasiest rivalry in the Netherlands.

The rivalry between these two great Dutch sides is often seen as the battle between the artists and intellectuals of Amsterdam against the working class fans from Rotterdam. In fact, a common saying amongst the people of Rotterdam is that “While Amsterdam dreams, Rotterdam works”.

Rotterdam is indisputably the industrial heartland of the Netherlands, whereas Amsterdam is more renown as a city for tourists. Feyenoord fans view their rivals from Ajax as arrogant and lazy, while the Amsterdam locals consider the Feyenoord faithful as knuckle dragging simpletons.

Violence between the two sets of fans from the 1970's up until recent years had been fierce, however a notorious incident in 1997 has resulted a major police crackdown whenever the sides meet up. That year the two sets of fans were involved in what has since become known as The Battle of Beverwijk. With Feyenoord's S.C.F. and Ajax's F-Side meeting up for a pre-arranged battle in a meadow off of the motorway near Beverwijk, the two groups tore into each other with baseball bats, knives, claw hammers, tasers, and iron bars in some of the worst football related violence the country had ever seen. During the fighting, Ajax hooligan Carlo Picornie was killed after taking a claw hammer to the head. S.C.F. member Leonardo P. Panton would later serve five years in prison for his murder.

On the football side, a rivalry of sorts had existed between the two sides since the 1920's, it didn't really reach a fever pitch until the 1960's. At the dawn of a great period for Dutch football, both sides emerged as not only the best sides in the Netherlands, but also two of the stronger sides in Europe.

In 1970, Feyenoord defeated heavily favoured Celtic 2-1 in the European Cup Final to signal a shift of the balance in power in European football. Not to be outdone, their great rivals from Ajax then won the next three European Cups in a row with the brilliant Johan Cruyff in their ranks.

The two clubs would go on to provide the bulk of the Netherlands side that finished as runners up at the 1974 World Cup.

Besides Ajax's three straight victories in the European Cup in the 1970's, they added another European title under Louis van Gaal in 1995, while Feyenoord have been unable to add to their solitary triumph. Domestically, Ajax has won an incredible 33 League Titles to Feyenoord's 14.

In the always tense meetings between the two sides, Ajax has won 78 matches over their rivals, with Feyenoord winning 55 and 42 of their matches ending in draws.

Although in recent decades PSV has emerged as another major force in Dutch football, there is still nothing quite like De Klassieker. With tickets to matches between the two clubs very hard to come by, and the fixtures often helping to determine the destiny of the title, it's a rivalry that every football fan should try to see live at least once in their lifetime.

World Cup Heroes - Johan Cruyff

2014-05-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

In the history of football, how many people have had a move named after them and, on top of that, have had their name become synonymous with an entire system of play?

As a result of Johan Cruyff, and the brilliant Dutch side he led to the 1974 World Cup Final, the Cruyff Turn and Total Football have entered into the football lexicon.

Prior to the late 1960's, the Netherlands were considered to be minnows of European football. With the advent of a professional league in 1954, and the emergence of Feyenoord and Ajax as top European sides, the Dutch National side began to emerge in the early 1970's as a major player on the world stage.

Total Football, as it was later coined, involved the flexible movement of players all across the pitch, moving and covering for each other to fill spaces and confuse opposition markers. This system, which was heavily influenced by the great Hungarian side of the 1950's, required players to be comfortable with taking on different roles and to have the intelligence to adapt as the teams shape could change at any time during a match.

In order for this system to truly work, it needed an orchestrator and there was no one more suited to this role than the great Johan Cruyff. Joining Ajax's famous youth academy at the age of ten, Cruyff was already a three time Ballon D'Or and European Cup winner by the time he led Holland into the 1974 World Cup.

A strong, vocal presence on the pitch, Cruyff served as coach Rinus Michels on pitch general, along with effortlessly floating between wings, into a withdrawn midfield role and then upfront to finish off attacks. He was the perfect model of the "Total Footballer", as he was comfortable in taking on different roles.

Cruyff has often been compared to a dancer in the way he gracefully moved on the pitch, and this was clearly evidenced in Holland's first round match against Sweden when he unveiled the move that still carries his name. Facing defender Jan Ollsson, Cruyff shaped as if he was going to cross the ball, but instead he dragged it behind his planted leg, pivoted 180 degrees and left the defender for dead.

Playing some thrilling football, Holland easily progressed through the first round of the World Cup with wins over Uruguay and Bulgaria, either side of a draw with Sweden.

In the second group stage, Cruyff found the net twice in a thrilling 4-0 demolition of Argentina. After a 2-0 win over East Germany, Holland defeated the defending champion Brazilians 2-0 with Cruyff on target again.

In the World Cup Final against the hosts, West Germany, Cruyff took the ball from the kickoff and displaying the type of football that won this great Dutch side so many fans, the Oranje pass the ball around 13 times, before Cruyff burst into the box and was upended for a penalty. Without a single German player touching the ball, Johan Neeskens scored from the spot to give Holland the lead. Unfortunately for Cruyff and company, West Germany got back into the match through Paul Breitner and Gerd Muller, while Berti Vogts and Franz Beckenbauer shackled Cruyff for the remainder of the match.

Despite their loss in the final, and the fact that Johan Cruyff never played in another World Cup, the impact he and his side had in 1974 will never be forgotten.

FOOTY FAIR

Football's Greatest Sides - Part 2 of 5: Ajax (1971 to 1973)

De Klassieker - Football Rivalries - Ajax vs Feyenoord

World Cup Heroes - Johan Cruyff

SEE THE OTHER HEROES IN THIS SERIES>