Holland badly need Johan Cruyff to perform his last trick

Arjan Plantinga
Monday 01 December 2008

The influence of Johan Cruyff on Dutch and international football is immense and it's hard to think of any other person in football who has had such a deep and long lasting impact on football over the last 40 years. Now that Dutch football seems to be developing in the wrong direction it is time that the master returns into an active role in Dutch football and works his magic one last time.

Influential
Sure there have been players who were considered better on the pitch by some.

There are those who think Pele and Maradonna were better than Cruyff, but that is mainly because of their performances at the World Cup and actually winning the trophy.

Cruyff's performance in 1974 was as good as Pele's in 1970, but ... , well, let's not get into that.

At club level Pele's record is as impressive as that of Cruyff, winning all titles available at club level several times.

When we compare the career of Maradonna to that of Cruyff it's hard to see why people might think the Argentinean midfielder was the better player.

Sure he won the 1986 World Cup, but at club level his career is bleak compared to that of Cruyff: three league titles, a UEFA Cup and two national cups and that's about it.

But where Pele never even attempted coaching and spent most of his inactive career in films and politics and Maradonna is making some feint attempts at coaching at this very moment, Cruyff went on to be one of the most successful and influential managers in Europe or even in the world - ever.

As a player Cruyff changed football, first of all in Holland.

Dutch football didn't mean anything in the world when Cruyff started playing for Ajax at the age of 17 in 1964.

Dutch teams managed a few rounds in the European Cup at best and Holland had not qualified for a World Cup since 1938.

When Johan Cruyff arrived at the scene everything changed.

In the Dutch Eredivisie he had an immediate impact and it was clear to everyone that that 17-year-old who was telling his much older team mates what to do was something else, something very special.

With a 19-year-old Cruyff leading the way Ajax were first really heard of in Europe when they beat English giants Liverpool 5-1 in Amsterdam to knock them out of Europe after a 2-2 draw at the banks of the Mersey.

That European Cup tie was the start of Holland as one of Europe's great footballing nations.

Three years later Ajax reached the European final for the first time, in 1970 Feyenoord actually won the Cup and in the years after Ajax fully dominated Europe and won the Cup three times in a row.

Feyenoord and PSV also won a UEFA Cup in the years after, and of course Holland reached two World Cup finals in the seventies.

At the hand of all this football success everything in Holland changed.

From a dormant peasant nation with no self-consciousness and low self-esteem in the fifties and early sixties Holland became a leading force in all sorts of areas.

Their skaters started beating the unbeatable Norwegian competition with men like Ard Schenk en Kees Verkerk winning World Championships and Olympic medals.

And in music the dull and innocent tunes of Teddy Scholten and Corry Brokken were replaced by illustrious bands like Shocking Blue, Cuby & the Blizzards and the Golden Earring.

Dutch society changed from closed and gray to open and colorful, Amsterdam became the cultural center of the world.

Holland had been put on the map and although it would go too far to give all credit to Johan Cruyff, it can be argued that he was the fire starter or the instigator with his personality, his ideas and his success.

When Cruyff 'retired' at the ridiculous age of 31 and went playing football as a tourist in the USA Dutch football fell from it's pedestal and the Netherlands were hit hard by the recession of the early eighties.

Holland took part in Euro 1980, but the team of aging stars and less talented youngsters played an insignificant role and went out in the first round.

They then failed to qualify for Euro 1984 and the World Cups of 1982 and 1986, Dutch skaters won nothing at the 1984 winter Olympics and Dutch music was as dull as it had been in the fifties.

Holland were a nation in decay in the early eighties.

Attendance at Eredivisie matches was at a low due to violence and aging stadiums and Dutch teams were nowhere in European Cups.

What was even worse was that between 1978 and 1983 no talents worth mentioning emerged from the ranks of the Dutch clubs.

This all changed when Johan Cruyff returned to Dutch football in the winter of 1981/82.

Second coming
In the 2½ years he returned to the Eredivisie as player he won two league titles with Ajax and one with Feyenoord, but what is more important: Cruyff instigated a new wave of success in Dutch football.

While he was at Ajax he recognized and guided the talent of a busload of new young players.

Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Gerald Vanenburg, John Bosman, John van 't Schip, Sonny Silooy and Stanley Menzo are but a few names who thrived under the influence of the master.

Would Van Basten have scored his magnificent goal in 1988 when Cruyff wouldn't have lost all his money which forced him to return to football?

That question can not be answered, but it is doubtful whether the likes of Aad de Mos and Kurt Linder (coaches at Ajax in the early eighties) would have recognized the supertalent of a skinny fellow from Utrecht and whether they alone could have made him into one of the best center forwards in Europe ever.

In his one year at Feyenoord Cruyff kick-started the career of a young forward called Ruud Gullit - an athlete before Cruyff's arrival but an all-demolishing bombshell after 1 year of playing with the master.

After a few years of retirement when he stopped playing football at 37 in 1984 Cruyff took over as manager at Ajax in 1986.

With his arrival Ajax started a new ten year period of great success both nationally and in Europe and with the talent Cruyff brought forward many European clubs won their biggest prizes and played their best football in later years.

I remember a European match of Ajax against Malmö FF in 1987 and on the right flank, glued to the sideline a young, skinny almost brittle forward made his European debut with Cruyff on the bench.

His name was Dennis Bergkamp and he would go on to challenge Cruyff's status as the best Dutch player ever (some in Holland actually think Bergkamp was better than the master...).

Cruyff only stayed on as coach at Ajax for two years, but in these two years his influence was bigger than that of anyone before him or even after him.

With Cruyff back at the helm Ajax won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1987 and reached the final in 1988, PSV won the European Cup in 1988 and Holland finally won a big prize that same year by beating Russia in the final of the European Championships.

Can we still speak of a coincidence?

Or is it that whenever the master waves his hand in Holland Dutch football starts winning things?

Looking at skating again, Yvonne van Gennip won three gold medals at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, after Holland had been nowhere in the years before.

Cruyff then left for Barcelona where he worked his magic again and gained the status of El Salvador by giving the Spanish club four consecutive league titles, a European Cup and a bunch of other prizes.

Barcelona at some point played perhaps the most exciting football ever seen on this planet and the club have been a force in Europe ever since.

The fact that Cruyff stayed close to the club as an advisor may have something to do with that...

After he left Ajax the bunch of talent he recognized and guided grew up and again dominated Europe for half a decade.

Players like Dennis Bergkamp, Frank and Ronald de Boer, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert and Edwin van der Sar had all been touched by the magic of the master and even though it was Louis van Gaal who took most of the credit - as he was actually the coach when Ajax won the UEFA Cup in 1992 and the Champions League in 1995 - it was clear for all with a bit of vista that the source of all that success was again Johan Cruyff.

In 1998 the management skills of Guus Hiddink almost got the most out of that 'class of 1988' as we might call it, when Holland should have gone and win the World Cup in France.

The 'third Cruyff generation' played one last terrific tournament under the guidance of one of the members of the 'second Cruyff generation' when Rijkaard almost led them to the European title in 2000.

After that Cruyff's influence wore off, it had been sifted out of the memory of the players who became great largely because of his guidance in their teenage years.

The Netherlands failed miserably to qualify for the 2002 World Cup as school teacher Louis van Gaal actually thought that it had been his ideas of the game that had made Ajax so successful in the nineties.

That campaign proved how wrong he was.

Only last summer did we finally see glimpses of Cruyff's influence again when led by one of his early students and protégés - Marco van Basten - Holland showed for the first time since 2000 how well they can actually play.

But was that the end of the master's influence?

By all means: no!

Dennis Bergkamp is studying to be a manager and so are Frank de Boer and Philip Cocu.

It won't be long before Frank Rijkaard takes charge of a new club where he will no doubt again use all he learned from his teacher as he did in Barcelona, and at this very time Van Basten seems well on the way of turning Ajax into a force again, although it's too early to call whether he will succeed.

In Spain a member of the 'fourth Cruyff generation' is again showing just how far-reaching Cruyff's influence is.

Pep Guardiola was a member of Cruyff's Dream Team from 1990 and watching Barcelona play now is almost like watching the team of 1990 to 1994.

Barcelona of today are like a storm.

They have not lost in 18 consecutive games this season, they won their last 10 away games and the way they beat Seville 0-3 on Sunday was astonishing.

Guardiola might never say it but it's clear that he had his eyes and ears wide open when he was taught by the master 15 years ago.

The way his team plays and the way in which he coaches plus his eye for detail, knowing that at his level it's those details that decide a game, again show the master's influence.

With Cruyff constantly looking over his shoulder and expressing his approval in the media Guardiola must feel unbeatable at the moment.

Not all of Cruyff's pupils succeeded as coaches.

Ronald Koeman's career at the top seems over after he failed at three clubs, Michael Laudrup has not been successful at Getafe and Brøndby IF and is now having a third try at Spartak Moscow and the same goes for Christo Stoitsjkov, a player who thrived under Cruyff as a player, but now again faces the shortcomings in his character that Cruyff was able to channel so well.

As for Dutch football Cruyff's influence now is limited to his heritage, to his comments in the media and to a minor advisory role at Ajax and at the KNVB.

At 61 he is not likely to start a new career as coach or even supervisor at a club or for the FA, but looking at the state of Dutch football a return of the master is desperately needed

Dutch clubs have been reduced to 'also rans' in Europe, the number of youngsters breaking through is falling and apart from Edwin van der Sar and Clarence Seedorf all members of the 'third Cruyff generation' have stopped playing.

The Dutch national team is still above average as players like Wesley Sneijder, Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben can lift the team above most in Europe, but there are no exciting new youngsters coming through.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Urby Emmanuelseon, Dirk Marcellis, Royston Drenthe and Evander Sno are decent players, but they don't stand out and are surely not World class.

In the next ten years Holland could easily fall back to the level of the early eighties and with no promising young players emerging one can only hope that Johan Cruyff will pick up an active role in Dutch football one last time to identify and shape the next generation of Dutch top players.

If he doesn't there is a good chance Holland are back in the 1950's by the end of the next decade.

And who is relishing that?