Johan Cruyff matches and goals scored

It would be unusual for Vogts to be the captain because Netzer was also playing and Netzer was Gladbach's captain and Vogts his deputy.

This book does seem to have a list of friendly games per season:



http://www.amazon.de/VfL-Borussia-M...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340266157&sr=1-2

He is introduced as 'the leader'. It doesn't say literally that he is the captain indeed but I saw that Vogts was also the captain in some European matches for Gladbach (for example the 1973 UEFA Cup final when Netzer played too) so I assumed that this was meant with 'the leader'. But on the photo on the previous page Vogts is visible and he doesn't wear a band (I overlooked that). So yes, it was Netzer I guess.

This picture:

Correction: Netzer was also the captain in the 1973 UEFA Cup final.

Damn wikipedia!

254. 22/08/1971 --- Ajax – FC Den Haag 1:0

Attendance: 29000

Goalscorers: Swart

Season: 1971/1971


Headline: Ajax wins in last minute.


Ajax played in this game with:
Stuy; Swart, Hulshoff, Schilcher, Blankenburg; Haan, Neeskens (Krol), Suurendonk; Van Dijk, Cruijff, Keizer


This was an interesting match for a few reasons. The first reason was the influence a substitution can have. Neeskens fell out with an injury in the second half and Krol came back in the first team, sooner than expected. But this allowed Swart to move to the attack, which Ajax precisely needed.

Kovacs, and the observers, saw that "there was no connection between midfield and attack". This often resulted in high balls and sloppy passing to the forwards. Both the midfield and forwards acted as "islands", without a sign of chemistry. But the re-positioning of Swart and the introduction of Krol re-established a bit of the fluid style.

Cruijff himself was invisible for large parts in the "rough game". Cruijff was almost sent off after an retaliation but the referee had no control over the match at that point. Cruijff said about the criticism of Kovacs: "When I received the ball, four or five men closed me down and tried to hack me. So how is it possible to perform in his view?"

Still, 'Den Haag' (or 'The Hague') had more of the possession in the last 10 minutes of the game, despite the beneficial tactical switches by Ajax, and many thought that this game would end in a draw or loss for Ajax.

But then, like the happy end in a Hollywood movie, Cruijff escaped for once his markers. He evaded one assault, a second one and launched Swart. Sjaak Swart, now playing on his favorite right-wing position, did not fail and it was 1:0 in the 91th minute.

It is easy to think that Cruijff was the hero of the match, but he was more or less invisible throughout the game (although "the secure goalkeeper Van Thie" saved two shots of him) and his kicking of Weimar and slapping of Advocaat in his face did him no favor. Still, his assist in the 91th minute was decisive.

Two other fouls however were deemed as very excessive. Referee Dorpmans reported these two to the FA. Blankenburg made a "flying tackle" on Couperus and Mansveld was also facing an arbitration case in court after "a kick with his studs upright and a punch with a closed fist on Cruijff." Dorpmans stated to the press that these two assaults are the equivalent of "battery, and hence a criminal offence."

At hindsight, the Den Haag coach Jezek said that "we were maybe a bit too cautious in the first half."
This was also the view of Neeskens: "They played strict man-marking in midfield and played with an extra defender instead of an forward [in the first half]."

Summary: 1 assist.

I find the idea of Swart playing as right back intriguing. Imagine Bayern's rightback (Lahm) getting injured and Robben being drawn back to act as right back ... impossible.

As we can see in these reports man-marking was still prevalent in those days, even in a 'sophisticated' football environment like Holland. Today's stars really have no idea what they have missed .... I might upload a short compilation of Inter's man-marking on Netzer in the 1971 European Cup tie vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach. It's ugly, but it worked wonderfully for Inter.

Picture of the match:


Other pictures of the same matches were already posted before:



Subscript of the reporter was: "Cruijff almost send off by Dorpsmans after an retaliation on midfield."

Note that Feyenoord used zonal-system with great success against Ajax. Although Happel made sometimes an exception like sacrificing Van Hanegem against Neeskens.

The Hague, as can be read in previous reports, was infamous for its violence and "never die" attitude. Their willpower and enthusiasm was praised, their regular violence not so much.

Not every winger was the same. Keizer was certainly not suitable for the job. Swart was in the 4-2-4 era (i.e. before the switch to 4-3-3) also often the man, together with Crujff, who dropped back to midfield if necessary, to provide the extra man. Swart was the linkman with great stamina, in his prime. Not as artistic as Keizer but on the other hand more reliable too.

Maybe the successor of Swart is not someone like Robben but more someone like Maggio (of Italy) - just a thought.

Anyhow, I think that Swart was an exception in those days too.

Besides, another thing that went through my mind, the Ajax first team squad had only 16 players so being a bit inventive was necessary.

Arnold Mühren and Johnny Rep, who played in Mönchengladbach friendlies, were second team players and not part of the core squad. Also not full-time professionals too - at that stage in their career, so not working with a professional training scheme.

So the 'pool' of available players was quite small to lean on.

255. 29/08/1971 --- Sparta – Ajax 1:1

Attendance: 31000

Goalscorers: Swart

Season: 1971/1972


Headline: Swart saves the day again


Ajax ran out of luck in this match. They played with:

Stuy; Swart, Schilcher (Krol), Hulshoff, Suurendonk; Haan, Neeskens, Blankenburg; Van Dijk (Rep), Cruijff, Keizer

Suurbier was still injured just as both brothers Mühren.

The introduction of Krol was again viewed as the turning point in the match. Ajax was with 1:0 behind after a goal by Klijnjan, from the penalty spot (36th minute). Heijerman made a trick in the penalty area and Suurendonk did not retract his arm. Handball, and the penalty kick was kicked in by Klijnjan. "It was a well deserved lead."

But with the entrance of Krol, when Schilcher felt dizzy, the formation was changed for the better. It was in the second half:

Stuy; Hulshoff, Suurendonk, Blankenburg, Krol; Haan, Cruijff, Neeskens; Swart, Van Dijk, Keizer

With Cruijff indeed "even more focusing on the defensive side of the game." But Sparta also "sat deep and was using the quick breaks."

Cruijff: "After the 1:0 it was our turn to press, and playing on the half of the opponent is difficult at the moment."

One might think that such a move would nullify the danger of the Ajax attack but the reporters described the state of Ajax in the second half as "stable, efficient, decent and reliable. With a better interplay and movement between the three sections of the line-up."

Hence, it was again Swart who saved the day in the 88th minute. Johnny Rep crossed from the left and Swart tapped in.

Cruijff played a good game, caused much danger and had also a part in the equalizer - a pass to Neeskens at the left who played towards Rep, and Rep made a left-side cross to Swart.

"Cruijff had a well-balanced game", said Sparta trainer Elek Schwartz.

Swart himself said afterwards that he was happier with the "containment of Kristensen. That is a good player and Wim [Suurbier] often has a hard day against him."

Only one player in the match was booked; Walbeek, after a foul on Cruijff in the 15th minute.

Best Sparta player, "by a distance", was Charly Bosveld, who showed "great intelligence and vision, with inch-perfect passes as a result."

Kovacs said: "Our midfield is too young with Haan and Neeskens. We miss an experienced and clever guy like Gerrie Mühren, who is perfect in maintaining the patience and balance."

Elek Schwartz was the man who introduced zonal marking to the Bundesliga in the mid-1960s when he managed Eintracht Frankfurt. It was always the Hungarian managers that had a soft spot for zonal marking (also Gyula Lorant, Pal Csernai).

EDIT: Just see that Schwartz was Romanian (but born in Austria-Hungary).

Correct, and Twente (often 'best of the rest' behind Ajax and Feyenoord) used a zonal system too. Their coach was Kees Rijvers and he became a proponent of this system in France, he said once.

Sparta had a tendency to use it too, indeed, before Schwartz came but they made an exception in some games against Ajax, I see.

PSV used to play zonally too but their coach Kurt Linder changed this and also clashed with many of his star players, most notably Van der Kuijlen. When Rijvers became coach of PSV in the mid-70s, this was reverted. The Linder-episode is well-known domestically.

That said, some/most coaches were also flexible with this.

Are those facts and important transitions mentioned somewhere in a history book?

257. 15/09/1971 --- Ajax – Dynamo Dresden (GDR) 2:0 [EC-1, 1st rnd]

Attendance: 55000

Goalscorers: Swart, Keizer

Season: 1971/1972


Headline: Ajax misses chances


The opinion among the pundits was that Ajax missed too many chances. Ajax played very well in the first half, which reminded viewers of "the great meetings against Liverpool and Benfica." This was less so in the second half when "too many attacks lacked any width."

Ajax played with:
Stuy; Swart (Rep (Suurendonk)), Hulshoff, Blankenburg, Krol; Neeskens, Haan, G. Mühren; Cruijff, Van Dijk, Keizer

Swart fell out with an injury in the 32th minute after a "charge" by Haustein. But his replacement Rep, not accustomed to playing that many games, was very tired and in turn replaced by Suurendonk in the second half.

Cruijff played good too, especially in the first half, and he pre-assisted the second goal of Keizer, who scored with his weak right foot in the 24th minute.

The first goal was a result of a corner-kick by captain Keizer. Keizer took it, the ball was headed away by Dörner and came in the feet of Van Dijk. His attempt bounced off the post and Swart tapped in the rebound. This happened in the 2nd minute.

Ernst Happel was watching too and said: "The skepticism of the foreign press is gradually evaporating. The buzz in the stands about mr. Cruijff was big. They start to realize that Cruijff is not good because he plays in the team of Ajax, but that Ajax plays the way they do because they possess Cruijff. He is a footballer and prophet in one person."

The 'prophet part' had an example in one specific scene. It was a scene where Cruijff seemed to instruct Keizer. This was viewed as remarkable because Keizer was the 'official' captain. In the previous seasons Vasovic was the captain and, as often was the case, a division of labor existed: a leader for the defense and leader for the creative side of the team. Cruijff had behind the scenes discussions with Vasovic but on the pitch this division of labor was more or less respected and it rarely, if any, happened that both had an argument on the field. But Keizer, a fellow attacker, was now elevated to captaincy and to see Cruijff handing out instructions to his captain was for some traditionalist commentators something close to mutiny.

"Cruijff making gestures and suggestions towards his team-mates is nothing new, but directly undermining the authority of the captain is something unheard of. If he wants to be the leader, why has someone else the armband?"

Apart from this, also another highlighted moment stood out - an overhead flick which resulted in a goal that was annulled by the referee.

But he created also a few other chances:

• A solo run in the first five minutes, shot saved by Kallenbach.
• An "smart through ball" to Swart in about the 10th minute, shot wide.
• Gerrie Mühren shot over, after a headed ball by Keizer. Cross was made by Cruijff.
• Another header by Keizer, cross Cruijff.
• Shot by Johnny Rep in the 47th minute, saved by Kallenbach. Through-pass Cruijff.

Those were the biggest ones, and the consensus was: they missed too many chances.

Although Cruijff complained a bit about some hard fouls of the East-Germans, which resulted in the departure of Swart as well, he admitted that he "felt fresh" and "it felt as an effortless game. Without pain, without worries." Happel again: "In this shape a one man army."

As a team, Ajax had worries. Their defense made again a "insecure" impression and "conditionally the East-Germans were miles ahead."

But the first half was "as good as any game Ajax has ever played in Europe." Also Mühren played a highlighted game.

Keizer played not a good game but he was under intense pressure. He was send off in the league match against Groningen, in the game before.

Here both moments. On 4:03 and on 5:04.

That would be great by the way. Similar footage exist of Cruijff marked by Oriali although Oriali played 'clean', and Cruijff showed his appreciation for the clever marking of Oriali such as obstructing him at the right moment and pulling his shirt at the right time.

I also thought about that violence is not necessarily related to man marking. Theo Laseroms was widely seen as one of the dirtiest defenders around (if the ref handed him a carte blanche) but played in a zonal system. Footage of that exist too, included in a lengthy documentary about the Ajax-Feyenoord clash. At the same time, Laseroms felt guilty for what he did. He felt guilty when he kicked ( ? ) Netzer out of the game in 1967 and also said one time that "it doesn't feel great to cripple the best player in Europe" [i.e. Cruijff].

And defenders had also other weapons at their disposal such as pulling away the attacker - this also happens in the 'Celtic compilation', where Cruijff breaks loose but the Celtic defender Hay pulls him away.

Pictures vs Dresden match at home:




[goal Keizer]

[Ajax celebrates the 1:0 - goalkeeper and defender collided]

[Cruijff about to make a shot on target, GK saved]

You mean a book that covers the general development or something more specifically tied to a country/managers/clubs? Jonathan Wilson tried it in the first case (did that very well but his book suffers from being dependant on the information he got from regional "experts" - it showed in his book that he relied on some incompetent sources, Germany especially mentionable is Wolf Biermann - a good writer certainly but somewhat clueless on the tactical development in German football over the past century), in the latter case, I got my info on Elek Schwartz from a 1967 pre-season book called "Bundesliga 1967-68" (not by Kicker).

Here is the part on Eintracht Frankfurt:



One of the earliest mentions of zonal defense in German literature might be the Kicker report on the 1954 World Cup game of Germany vs Yugoslavia (which is called the "Brazilian style" from the 1950 World Cup):



Here's an article from "Spiegel" archive from 1977 on the great success of Gyula Lorant's zonal system which he played at Eintracht Frankfurt:

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-40992539.html

Regarding the "ugly" part - I think I worded that wrongly. I didn't mean to say that the Italians played unfair, with "ugly" I meant that the "beauty" of the game suffered from the close marking of Gladbach's central player. I am a fan of Netzer's passing skills and I was looking forward to watch him in action once more (during his absolute height - autumn 1971), but he could barely breathe because of one or two Italians always being very close to him.

Which full games exist with a prime Netzer?

By the way, I see that the Dynamo Dresden game also exist in full version. I've only seen the highlight version once, and I made as note (I do that sometimes if I see a classic on television) "Cruijff sets up about a half a dozen chances in the first 55 minutes but his team-mates wasted them." Anyhow, that should be a good watch.

The absolute height of ugliness, as reported before in this thread, took place against Carl Zeiss Jena in March 1970 when Jena played with iron studs. This always returns in history books.

I googled on the book you mentioned but that seems to be a very rare one isn't it? The same is true with most volumes covering individual eredivisie seasons although some libraries have them, but most of the times not complete.

From autumn 1971? The 0-0 vs. Inter & the 3-1 in Poland (ECQ). His massive outings vs. Inter (7-1) and vs. Schalke 7-0 from that period have yet to surface in full length.

260. 29/09/1971 --- Dynamo Dresden (GDR) – Ajax 0:0 [EC-1, 1st rnd]

Attendance: 32000

Goalscorers: N/A

Season: 1971/1972


Headline: Ajax plays the game professionally


Professionally means in this case that it was reliable but also a bit boring. "Ajax performed as a Volkswagen", said the reporter.

Line-up:
Stuy; Swart, Hulshoff, Blankenburg, Krol; Neeskens (Schilcher), Haan, Mühren; Van Dijk, Cruijff, Keizer

Neeskens leaved the pitch after Kreische kicked him in the chest. Neeskens was "breathing for air" and replaced by Schilcher.

This was also the main reason why Ajax played not on 100%, admitted the coach Kovacs. They wanted to avoid any risk. Still, also Ajax did a few dubious things such as an "upper cut" of Keizer against Klaus Sammer but the English referee Burns "made like many English referees a mess of the game."

Interestingly, Stuy made now a "secure and relaxed impression."

Ajax played a bit more entertaining in the second half and "Cruijff created a few chances for himself and his team-mates but goalkeeper Meyer performed well."

"Cruijff operated from within the 'second line' [archaic term for midfield] and created five very good chances for his team-mates. In particular Van Dijk was wasteful with these possibilities."

As excuse pointed Ajax towards the pitch. It had rained and the pitch was "heavy". Cruijff said about the performance of his team in the first 60 minutes: "The pitch felt very heavy and tiring. And when you have to traverse distances of 40 to 50 meters to the opposing goal, it is even heavier. So we turned this around in the last 35 minutes. I said to Gerrie [Mühren] 'lets move with the whole midfield 30 meters further'. It worked."

Dresden had as excuse that they missed three first-team players in the match.

Klaus Sammer and Arie Haan received a booking in this match. Sammer after 8 minutes (after two fouls on Cruijff and one on Keizer), Haan in the second half.

Autumn 1971 or the whole 71/72 season. Why are you that sure that he was at his best at this particular small window of time?

Anyhow, do you have some tips for finding rare books? Then I can look at some vintage eredivisie books too, esp. the ones that the library does not have.

It is this magazine here:



Among other things it features a tactical scheme of every Bundesliga team ahead of the 1967-68 season. Like this for Eintracht Frankfurt:



As you can see it has a flat back four like described in the text I posted earlier. Looking at the other teams though, Eintracht wasn't the only one depicted in the tactical scheme with a flat back four. Actually the majority of teams (10) were depicted that way, 7 were depicted with playing with a sweeper behind a 3-man defense consisting of a stopper and two full backs and one team was depicted playing a 2-3-5 system (Borussia Neunkirchen).

Almost all teams played 4-2-4 (16), one 4-3-3 (Eintracht Braunschweig) and one 2-3-5.

I regularly receive the "big" catalog by Agon which has plenty of vintage football books on display. You can order that on their website I think.

The Netzer time frame of his peak form can of course be extended to the whole season of 1971-72. His absolute peak in my estimation was the week in October when they first beat Inter 7-1 and then 4 days later top-of-the-table unbeaten FC Schalke 04 with 7-0. You can find a report on that latter game here (no footage has surfaced so far but most likely is hid in TV vaults like many Bundesliga games):

http://bundesligafanatic.com/bundesliga-rewind-borussaia-monchengladbach-v-schalke-04-1971-72/

The goals of the Inter 7-1 can be seen here:



My favorite goal can be seen starting at 1:55 minutes when Netzer characteristically passes to Heynckes with the outside of his right foot, receives the ball back from Heynckes inside the Italian box and then Netzer proceeds to lift the ball into the Inter goal with an immaculate chip. Make sure to watch the slowmotion as Netzer's pass and his chip as well as his goal "celebration" are great to watch. The commentary mentions that referee Dorpmans stopped the "many fouls" on Netzer which occurred earlier in the game.