Every year the soccer club of my place of work takes a trip abroad to drink and to play a match against the locals. This year Munich was the destination, and 4-0 the victory against the footballing lawyers of that city. Despite the size of the margin, the Irish lads, a friend assured me, needed to keep their concentration right until the end. Why do you think that was, he asked me. Because, I replied, without the need for even a hint, You Can Never Write Off the Germans.
If the Germans and their unwriteoffability is European football's greatest cliché, then the tendency of the Dutch “camp” to have “trouble” in it comes a close second. There’s a school of sports writing that likes to conflate playing style with (stereotypical) national character. Thus the Nordic teams are strong, doughty and a bit boring, the Brazilians play to the rhythm of the Samba (a ridiculous notion, if you think about it for even a moment), the French ooze panache, finesse and even joie de vivre.
But where does that leave the Dutch? A sensible, reasonable nation, even their liberal views on drugs and sex seem to be born of pragmatism rather than radical hippiedom. And yet their football teams are volatile and cranky off the pitch and outrageously creative on it. Time after time they arrive at a tournament loaded with great players only to explode at the key moment due to an outbreak of player power, or the right back having an affair with the goalie’s wife, or an argument on the relative merits of smooth and crunchy peanut butter getting out of hand. Cutting a dash in their glowing orange shirts, they are as infuriating as they are entertaining, in part because of the nagging suspicion that you can’t have iron discipline and still play Total Football. This is football as it might have been conceived in May 1968, where every player is an artist, and “management” is no less than enslavement of the soul.
Of course it only works if you have vastly talented players, and the Dutch often have those aplenty. The year it all came together for them was 1988, their victory in the Euro Championships giving them their only tournament win thus far. The team contained their current manager Marco Van Basten, not to mention Ruud Gullitt, Frank Rijkaard, Ronald Keoman, Arnold Muhren and Hans Van Breukelen in goal. Looking back, it seems obvious that this was a great team, but in 1988, Holland were an unknown quantity. The Total Football generation had long passed, and there had been no Dutch participation in any tournament since 1980, when they didn’t make it past the group stage of the European Championship. In a friendly against England shortly before the beginning of the competition though, they put the world on notice that something special might be happening.1
Later immortalised by the European Court of Justice, John Bosman was the scorer of the goal in the purely formal sense that he was the one who headed it over the line, but you could have quite reasonably credited the score to the entire team. What was important about the goal was what it said to the watching world about the team’s attitude to the game. Passing the ball around easily and patiently, probing for weakness, then suddenly going in for the kill, this was an extraordinarily accomplished football team. Most teams would have given up and hoofed up a long ball somewhere around pass number five.
It was of course the Dutch who sent us home, (curse you Wim Kieft!), but we couldn’t be especially angry at them, not after a second flamboyant trouncing of England (this was back when it was still OK to enjoy watching England lose. The whole “our maturity as a nation” business was to come later). Van Basten scored a wonderful hat trick in that game, setting himself up as the great star of the tournament. He took his form all the way to the final and finished it with a remarkable goal, a volley at an impossible angle from a high pass from Muhren. Looking at his goals on Youtube, I am reminded of the sheer pleasure he gave me that summer. Seeing them again is like hearing a once-loved pop single on the radio.
Two years later, the same team had a dull and dour World Cup, utterly forgettable apart from the famous Rijkaard-Voller spitting incident. Since then, it’s been back to the same old pattern of flakiness and talent in equal measure. This year, if not up to the standards of '72 or '88, they have some decent players, and the mood of the squad has not yet turned nasty. In the absence of an Irish team to root for, I plan to adopt them for the purposes of this blog. I’m not sure what actual effort on my part that might entail, but I’m sure they’re grateful to have my best wishes. I’ll be with them all the way to the semi-final, which they will lose after having an all-in brawl in the dressing-room at half time. I can hardly wait.
Everything you say about the Dutch seems fair enough. Although, they at least lifted that trophy in ‘88, unlike the Croatians or Portuguese, to name two other countries with recent “golden generation” teams.
P.S. You may have your Bosmans in a twist. The one of European ruling fame was a Belgian journeyman pro called Jean-Marc!
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:58 pmDoh! Still, at least I got another footballer. I could have confused him with Meyer Bosman the South African rugby player, Loots Bosman the South African cricketer or Dick Bosman the American baseball player
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:25 pmI’d forgotten quite how beautiful that goal was. For England fans it must come as a bitter reminder of why, despite considerable promise, they continue to flop and fail at major tournaments (if, indeed, they even manage to qualify for them).
Teams on these islands are conditioned, from early age, to practice a dynamic (”get the ball forward quickly”) form of high-energy kick ‘n’ rush.
Patience, probing, and the confidence to retain possession until just the right moment (the qualities that allow you to score goals like that) have never, alas, been actively encouraged.
They also, of course, help you win major tournaments. After all, it’s just these virtues (and not Samba!) that the whole Brazilian ethos is built on.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:06 pmThe ultimate example of a “golden generation” making a balls of their potential was, surely, the Hungarian team of the 1950s.
Nearly everyone who was around at the time describes them as the best team in the world by an absolute mile - yet the World Cup somehow eluded them.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:14 pmThe importance of the Dutch style is that it gives European teams a model for beautiful football. It would otherwise be all too easy to shrug “we can’t be Brazil” when confronted with criticism about boring play. That this flamboyant style emerged not from the spicy Mediterranean or even La Belle France, but from the solid burghers of the lowlands only reinforces this.
There’s something terribly poignant about golden generations, I always think. When I watched the 86 world cup, the first one I can remember, I listened, disbelieving as my Dad told me that the Dutch, of all people, were once a powerhouse. It seemed a ridiculous idea, as will, one day, the notion that Sweden, Romania and Czech Republic were once contenders. But without a tournament victory in the record books, those golden generations disappear into history, and kids end up asking their Dads “Hungary? Really?”
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pmTo tie that back into the post above, the Irish team that scraped into Euro 88 was very much the tail-end of a generation of fine footballers that mostly managed to be less than the sum of their parts in the Irish jersey.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm‘Tis true, but they did get agonisingly close to (partially) fulfilling their potential. The most painful near miss was probably during the qualification for the 82 World Cup.
We beat Holland & France in Dublin and only for a very harshly disallowed Frank Stapleton goal at home against Belgium (and a very generously allowed goal for the Belgians - after a blatant foul on ‘keeper Jim McDonagh) then Ireland would have been at the World Cup (as it was they missed out on goal difference).
Still, these are all ifs and buts. The more significant problems (as we mentioned in the comments of a previous post) were farcical mismanagement and disorganisation.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:15 pmSpeaking of Romania, it should be noted that they (along with Italy & France) are in Holland’s “Group of Death”.
Pundits have tended to see the group as a straight three-way shoot-out in which one of the “Big Three” will end up packing its bags and going home early.
The Romanians deserve more credit that that. After all, they topped a qualifying group that contained - guess who? - Holland!
Not only that, but the Romanians can make (modest) claims to being another European embracer of “Brazilian” virtues. They were one of my favourite teams during the mid 90s and I’ll be cheering ‘em on again this year.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 pmThey had a real swagger about them in the 94 World Cup in particular. Their wins against Columbia and Argentina were two of the best games in that competition.
It occurs to me that as the years go by, I develop soft spots for more and more international teams. Even the Germans won me over two years ago. Give it another decade or so and there won’t be a single team in World Football that I don’t have a sentimental fondness for.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 pmLovely, lovely goal. What surprised me, though, was the pass-back the keeper picked up. I thought those had been outlawed years before.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:43 pmWhat surprised me, though, was the pass-back the keeper picked up. I thought those had been outlawed years before.
Think we have Italia 90 to thank for that one Kevin! It was a great rule introduction really!
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm