Friday marked the anniversary. It was a year to the day since Johan Cruyff died, lung cancer taking not just one of the greatest footballers in history but one of the game’s most influential and original thinkers.
On Saturday, Barcelona unveiled plans to build a statue of their former player and manager. As others have sought to learn from Barcelona, Cruyff’s theories have rarely been more prevalent in world football.
But many have taken Dutch ideas and deployed them better. The great overachievers of the international game are becoming the great underachievers. Saturday had a second significance in the Netherlands. The national team lost 2-0 to Bulgaria, slipped to fourth in Group A and ushered in unwanted change. The Dutch tradition of plain speaking has spread from players and managers to the national federation.
In a statement, the KNVB described the defeat to Bulgaria as “an evening when literally nothing went right”. It is hard to imagine the English Football Association describing any of England’s chastening setbacks in such terms.
__________________________________
Read more
■ 'We must part company': Danny Blind sacked as Netherlands manager
■ In pictures: Defoe and Vardy on target for England in 2018 World Cup qualifying
__________________________________
Another emblematic figure paid the price. Danny Blind, the captain of the last Dutch side to win the European Cup, Ajax's class of 1995, was sacked as manager. His assistant Fred Grim is in temporary charge. To English speakers who ignore the Dutch pronunciation, it is an unfortunate case of nominative determinism. The Blind (Danny) was leading the Blind (son Daley). Now it is Grim for Holland.
In reality, it has been grim for a while. An inability to reach a 24-team Euro 2016 was arguably the greatest failure in qualification of any European national side ever. The Netherlands only missed one tournament between 1988 and 2014, a record more populous countries such as France and England could only envy. Success tends to be cyclical for smaller nations. Holland were the exceptions to the rule.
Not any more. While neighbours Belgium have their golden generation, Holland have the worst group at the peak of their powers since the early 1980s, in the interregnum between Cruyff’s Total Footballers of the 1970s and the side dominated by his proteges Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Ronald Koeman, when they missed two World Cups and a European Championship.
The loss to Bulgaria raised the very real possibility that Wesley Sneijder, arguably the best player in the 2010 World Cup, and Arjen Robben, among the most dynamic, destructive footballers of his era, will never play in a major tournament again. They will be 36 in Euro 2020. Sneijder diplomatically said that it would be “very complicated” to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. It would almost certainly entail leapfrogging Bulgaria and Sweden to finish second and then win a play-off.
Holland are now in a cycle where failure can seem self-perpetuating. They are suffering in part because they are not top seeds, pitted in a group with France, and their difficulties mean they will be drawn against more favoured sides in future pools. They have the age-old lament of the struggling, injuries, and their defence may have been more resilient were Virgil van Dijk and Stefan de Vrij fit.
Unlike arguably every Dutch side since the 1980s, they have no one remotely resembling a world-class player age between 26 and 31. In typically Dutch fashion, Blind turned to youth and the 17-year-old Matthijs de Ligt endured an awful debut in Sofia. He had only started two top-flight games for Ajax. Sadly, it showed.
Even their most recent display of excellence illustrated that Holland are unable to replicate their past in traditional methods. The 2014 World Cup semi-finalists played a counter-attacking 3-5-2, not a Total Footballing 4-3-3. Louis van Gaal’s second spell in charge of his country could still bring pangs of nostalgia, unlike his stint at Manchester United, because Holland’s subsequent decline has been swift and undignified.
Blind was his captain at Ajax and his assistant at Holland. He leaves them facing up to the prospect of another summer at home. Grim times indeed.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
