Re: Total Football - How it made Ajax Great..

rai Mihawk wrote:Thirty years after the Dutch invented 'total football' Ben Lyttleton examines the influence of Holland's flat landscape on this groundbreaking new footballing philosophy.

If you ask a Dutchman to draw a horizon, he will draw a straight line. If you ask an Englishman from Yorkshire or an Italian from Tuscany for the same thing, the drawing will have bumps and hills.

Holland's flatness has affected its art (post-modern sculptor Joroen Henneman calls the work of Vermeer 'roomy') photography, (snapper Hans van der Meer says 'every damned thing is straight') and architecture (Amsterdam's Schipol Airport was one of the first to include everything under one flat roof).

The landscape also determined the way the Ajax side of the 1970s played football.

Space was always a precious commodity for a small country with a population of 15 million, and Ajax defender Barry Hulshoff explained how the team that won the European Cup in 1971, 1972 and 1973 worked it to their advantage. 'We discussed space the whole time. Johan Cruyff always talked about where people should run and where they should stand, and when they should not move.'

The constant switching of positions that became known as Total Football only came about because of this spatial awareness. 'It was about making space, coming into space, and organising space - like architecture on the football pitch,' said Hulshoff.

The system developed organically and collaboratively: it was not down to coach Rinus Michels, his successor Stefan Kovacs or Cruyff alone.

And yet it was Cruyff, who was only 17 when he broke into the Ajax side, who oversaw proceedings on the pitch. In his book Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, David Winner explains that Cruyff saw space in the Dutch way:

He is admired for his innate understanding of the geometry and order on the pitch.' Cruyff, who once criticised a player's technique while looking away from the pitch by claiming that the sound was wrong, has been called 'Pythagoras in boots'.

Cruyff was the first player in that era to think so creatively about the use of space. Henneman the sculptor said: 'In the time of Cruyff, suddenly football was not about kicking each other's legs any more. There was something spiritual going on, which was perhaps to do with the sense of beauty that goes with the football in Holland. Cruyff saw football as a total movement of the whole field, not as individual actions in one part of it. Cruyff would have been satisfied with a pitch two kilometres long with beautiful waves of abstract movement going up and down.'

Cruyff summed up his philosophy: 'Simple football is the most beautiful. But playing simple football is the hardest thing.'


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Questions:

- Is Total Football dead?
- Can you see any sides adapt the tactic (today)...hopefully a certain side in Amsterdam (however you need the players to be adaptive..)
- How great was the Ajax side of the early 70's side?

the complete king that is ballacktheblue wrote:I think the idea of Total Football is dead. Total Hockey is now used a lot more in hockey as players usually have a lot of skill on the ball.
I dont think any more teams will play total football which is sad as it was very nice to watch and ive had the privelege of seeing MANY videos of it.

Distinguished dutchman wrote:Total football won't die. It will make a comeback, but it will take a while.

Total football has to be developed among a group of youngsters (Ajax 71-72, or Ajax 93) from early on so they can remain "in touch".

The big trouble is, to play TF you need a group of people who are so "in-played" with each other as a team that they can pull it off.
Total Football won't thrive for a while, because it isn't a quick fix, you need to cultivate it among a group off players that have the quality to play it - often a generation of young players at a team.
Big clubs won't play TF, because since its the opposite of a quick fix, and big clubs don't have the time to wait or if you will, they have the money to not need to wait.

Smaller clubs need another approach, and are more likely to use a grassroots aproach. You can expect TF to come again from these international "small" clubs. A club with a good youth system are evry liley to bring it back.

To cultivate TF, the club management also needs to know the approach used, and not sell certain players when the offers come.

My bet is that Ajax will have TF again in the future, but not within 2 years.

The club who can pull it off - a TF playing team who are in so touch with each other - can defeat everyone. They will win the CL again.

My short take on it. Jeez, its much easier to talk than to write about it.

rai Mihawk wrote:

MightyBarca wrote:barca play total football

Barcelona could have the players to adapt to Total Football (now they signed a versatile full back in Zambrotta).

saintgoingmarching wrote:

Obispo-host wrote:That's just covering.

Total football is more a complete adaptability from every player on the team. Centrebacks suddenly become ballplaying midfielders, fullbacks are suddenly in the wide area in a 4-3-3, and yet nothing is lost from the original team. No player is weak playing elsewhere on the park.

That's how I've understood it.

This is essentially it, yes, and total football teams have tended towards formations that allow lots of players in each part of the pitch, like 4-3-3 and 3-1-3-3 and 3-4-3 for this exact reason. The sweeper can move to centreforward, or drift to either flank, and the players around slot into the gaps to ensure that the space is occupied. Covering is the stripped-down version of defensive total football, the idea with the proper version being that it works in both attack and defence, obviously. That way each player is a potential threat to the opposition (making man marking futile if not impossible) and the ball can be won on any part of the pitch.

As has been said, it only really works if you have a group of players who've grown up playing two-footed football in just about every position on the pitch. It's a shame we don't see more of it.