Thank you for your kind words. I am conscious about not wanting to send your thread off on a tangent, but the Anglo-German footballing relationship you mention may be worth touching upon. I probably don't understand it fully, but it has always struck me as being more complex than it seems. David Downing wrote a book about it in 2000 called The Best of Enemies. For English football followers of a certain age, the Germans of course play a significant role in the story of 1966. It was just over twenty years after the war and many older folk were particularly keen for England to win the final. I recall a relative pacing up and down in front of the television, lighting one cigarette from another, when the game went to extra time. But the two countries' footballers were not rivals at this stage, and shared quite a lot in common. They had long played a similar brand of football: robust, physical, and until recently, a fairly rigid WM. England had never lost an international match to a German team. Once Eusebio's Portugal had been dispatched in the semi-final, most English followers expected their team to win the World Cup, which they duly did. The players of both sides who appeared in the final maintained friendships in the years that followed. Even when England lost to West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final in Leon, it was regarded back home as a one-off. The English had been two-nil up with a little over twenty minutes to go; goalkeeper Gordon Banks was absent through illness and his replacement did not have a good game; one of the German goals was somewhat freakish. All that changed in April 1972 when West Germany arrived in London for the first leg of a European Championship play-off. The manner in which England were outclassed and played off the park caused shock waves. As Beckenbauer and Netzer lorded it over Wembley, it was 1953 and Hungary all over again. Alf Ramsey had never been popular with the media (“You need me. I don't need you.”), or with the FA, but the public by and large thought he knew what he was doing. When, 3-1 down after the first leg, Ramsey opted for a defensive line-up in Berlin to keep the score down, his days were numbered. The twenty-first century arrived before England beat the Germans again in a proper competitive international fixture, although the record was more even in club football. English followers came to regard German teams with genuine respect but little affection. A procession of German tournament successes were variously attributed to factors such as organisation, luck, mental fortitude and coolness from the penalty spot. Individual German players tended to be damned with faint praise (“good engine”, “tactically disciplined”, etc) and underrated. In the internet age there are two sides to everything but the ranking of footballers at the very top has not changed that much. Pele is still number one for most people, followed usually by Maradona. Cruyff is generally #3 or #4, depending on where Messi is placed. Messi has pushed Beckenbauer out of the Top 5. British players, such as Matthews, Charlton and Best, used to feature in some Top 10s, but no longer do so. I don't know much about Anglo-German co-operation within UEFA and FIFA. Two of the Big Four leagues are based in their countries, and the Big Four seem increasingly to be looking after their own interests. As far as wider links between the two countries are concerned, I imagine the longstanding ambivalence remains between common interest and ancestry (eg Royal Family) on one hand, and continental rivalry/political differences (such as the EU) on the other.
Thank you @PuckVanHeel for this amazing thread I think, a local and elaborated view on how the dutch players (famous and less famous) are viewed, in comparison, had been necessary to people who loves football and the top football cultures.
Thanks. Yes, I try to do it as good as possible and bring over why they are in. I hope to have the next one finished this evening, who is in it for his cult status (and all the strengths + weaknesses that goes with it - despite being at the bottom VI has a long profile on him so it is pretty complete in that respect).
Inside forwards @MaceBookspace Yes, a typical Dutch character of the 70s.— Beyond The Last Man (@BeyondTLM) October 15, 2015 Willy Brokamp (1946, Chevremont) https://mestreechtersteerke.nl/pag_BM-willybrkamp.htm https://mestreechtersteerke.nl/MB-willyBrokamp.pdf http://www.kentudezenog.nl/willy-brokamp-1946/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Brokamp The long-serving journalist Lex Muller (he had a small role in the 1994 World Cup bomb threat...) wrote this (google translate): Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler Does not exist anymore: rebel with talent like Willy Brokamp Who remembers Willy Brokamp? Icon of Limburg football, rebel at MVV and Ajax. A gifted left leg from the era of Johan Cruijff, Piet Keizer and Rob Rensenbrink. Now almost seventy years and for decades a renowned hospitality entrepreneur in the south. But still popular in Maastricht and surroundings. Brokamp was excellent, Johan Derksen once praised his teammate at MVV. If he felt like it, he could do everything. But he played in the period of the best Ajax of all time and ended up in Amsterdam only after the exodus of the stars. He also suffered from Western hegemony in the Dutch national team. Only six international competitions were selected, not infrequently after the firm choice had been canceled again. It did not interest him that recognition of his unique class lagged far behind the appreciation in the country. He disliked training and the daily discipline on the field. He repeatedly rebelled against whatever authority, smuggled constantly while walking around and left a book of anecdotes for posterity. With almost all trainers Brokamp could get along badly. Only George Knobel knew how to hit and stimulate him in the right way. De Brabander recognized his special value and occasionally closed his eyes at one of his many vagaries and provocations. For example, once in a break, he unexpectedly went into the shower, protesting that he had not received usable balls. Stopping him was useless. In his second season with Ajax, Brokamp experienced a forced reunion with Rinus Michels. As a supervisor, the Amsterdammer had left the enfant terrible, together with, among others, Jan Mulder, at home for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. Did he regret that? Hardly because he had enough entertainment at the Vrijthof all those weeks. In the capital he also fully enjoyed the atmosphere at the Leidseplein, where he himself had rented an apartment, far away from the house in a suburb designated by Ajax. It typified Brokamp, who did not always put soccer on top. That annoyed Michels, who was not a lover of freebooters, but admired him as a talented striker and regularly drafted him. How often it collided, is not exactly tracked. Hardly known, for example, is the story that he saw during a match of Ajax that Michels wanted to change a player. Although it was the intention to take Pim van Dord aside, Brokamp himself went to the dug-out and plopped down. Meanwhile he had informed the surprised trainer that he was still around ... The Brokamp type seems to be extinct and exchanged for an army of programmed robots. He, too, thinks back with some sadness to the last century, in which children learned to play football on the street and improve their technique with a tennis ball. Unfortunately it is not possible anymore, in the post-Bosman world academies can't survive autonomous, and the consequences have been visible in the Eredivisie for years. Brokamp does not feel the need to draw the current generation's attention to the many shortcomings. Like contemporary Cruijff, whose concerns he nevertheless shares. Just watch the matches of the past weekend, in which the storm quite easily blew away the entertainment at ADO Den Haag - Willem II. The players did not know what to do with the harsh conditions and lacked the (basic) technique to overpower the extra opponent. It was not the only confirmation of the malaise. Another summary by Frank Heinen: Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler You can live for football, and you can totally not live for it. Willy Brokamp did the second. Brokamp is maybe the best footballer from Southern Limburg, but at any rate one of the most convivial and sociable. When he debuts at his 15th in the first team of local club Chevremont and the young journalist Jean Nelissen liked to interview then he has "no desire for that". PSV and later Ajax informed about him to no avail, Willy prefers to play around the corner at MVV. Most probably Willy was better than he himself felt the need for. When in 1970 he could go to Feyenoord, he hesitated, and when MVV wanted to help him with buying a pub on the Vrijthof [the center of Maastricht], Brokamp saw the axe. His own pub was a natural fit for him. Some years, in 1974, later he tried for two years at Ajax, who arranged not without reason an apartment removed from the city. Without the club knowing, Willy rented another apartment close to the Leidseplein. Yet he was a fantastically good footballer, he was topscorer and voted footballer of the year in 1973, played six national team games in which he scored six goals, was in the preliminary squad of 24 names for 1974. After his career with 12 years Maastricht and two years Amsterdam, he became big in the catering industry. Today you can still order a pint in Maastricht or Kanne [Belgium] within a Brokamp establishment. Who knows how much better the eccentric and creative Limburger could have been, and who knows how much less sociable life would be. April 1970 there was this summary: Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler Willy brokamp has developed into a dangerous attacker, who prefers to operate on the left wing. His decisive action, based on a quick reaction and a large walking speed, is a big problem for many defenders. In addition, he has a hard shot that for many a keeper is too powerful. (trying not to be double, repeat and superfluous below, above links and things are very good) Brokamp is a stereotypical example of a cult footballer. Creative, imaginative, eccentric but also likable as a person. Interviews with him were highly comical and he didn't like the banal talk about the sport. Difficult for many coaches (he had only with Knobel a good understanding) but also sympathetic and kind. He has always refused to wear a tie. Some regard him as the best footballer Limburg had. His career coincided with one of the most difficult times for the region. The mining got closed (decision announced in 1965, process completed in 1974) and despite efforts to soften the impact 70000 people lost their job. Some think the region has never fully recovered from it (at the same time: current Eurostat unemployment is in no municipality higher as 6.2%), with a famous 1990s book titled 'The Friends Republic' (written by a Limburger) and pejorative nicknames as 'Palermo at the Meuse' as a result (as The Economist noted a few years back: in almost all continental West-European countries the south has a more warm but corrupt reputation as the north). For Brokamp his local reputation that was however not a negative thing. As a kid he grew up very close to the action, the very oldest mine was just around the corner. The teenager Brokamp refurbished and renewed railway sleepers, used for transporting the coal. He knew he needed motivation. "I have a contract with a low basic salary but high premiums. Somewhere that is fortunate, because that stimulates. I have been lazy, five years long. I wasn't so interested. I'm after all not a football maniac." When he was called up to play as a starter against Italy in 1975, he refused with the comment "I just don't fancy." His trademark shirt number was 12. In his second year at Ajax he fell out of favor and returned back to MVV. He retired at the age of 32 and became - maybe somewhat surprisingly - a sound entrepreneur in both Netherlands and Belgium. ---- Think this maybe merits some further discussion, nuance and scrutiny @annoyedbyneedoflogin. He indeed was voted high in 'footballer of the year' several times, as the English wikipedia notes.
I found this later with 10 questions to him by the newspaper of record https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=KBNRC01:000032059:mpeg21:a0098 It is said he couldn't reach a personal agreement with Feyenoord, Valencia or Beerschot. His club MVV wanted 1.7 million guilders (which he himself labels as "unworthy for a sportsman" but is "convinced the figures will rise indefinitely"). His owns demands was that the new club should pay him at least as much as his current footballing activities plus what he earns from two catering companies in Maastricht (he isn't at a stage yet that he can run it from more distance). He does all the negotiations by himself (doesn't see the need for an agent) and has for the moment thanked for playing in the national team. "Past number of seasons I thanked for the Orange team, because certain commitments about the line-up weren't respected. The peace with the directorate of the national team and myself is signed again. My hope is I will be chosen again." I think he was a typical cult footballer (league topscorer and footballer of the year in 1973, at other moments close) - other countries have that type too - and as such finds a place near the bottom. Whether he was really 'better' than some omitted players is probably more open for discussion. Certainly a creative, imaginative and inventive player. Someone who didn't like running, but ran marathons after his career.
I find Brokamp's inclusion an odd one. If it comes to undermining training, then de Korver should be listed for his merits, above the likes of Brokamp. Willy Dullens and Jan van Breda Kolff I also find more deserving talents. Perhaps the inclusion has to do with VI's preference for color commentary. Why else would they have a person like van der Gijp at their talkshow?
Maybe. Brokamp was for 10 seasons club topscorer of MVV but before he broke his leg (and had to quit his career) Dullens was generally considered the best footballer of Limburg. That is right. What have you seen of him? Recently a good (and critical) article appeared about him in a magazine named 'Tardelli'. I think the slender Dullens looks as the more intricate and two footed player on film (a very young Cruijff famously said he was better than him) but of course thanks to a longer career Brokamp has more pieces of ingenuity saved. Well, as you know the magazine broke up with the programme five years ago, forcing them to change the name.
https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/...many-thought-couldve-been-better-than-cruyff/ (this one is not half as good as the 'Tardelli' dissection but okay) Obviously Kolff and De Korver are from before the television age, but I've been thinking more about the Dullens vs Brokamp comparison (same generation, both Limburgers - a highly populated area). What are the main ingredients behind Dullens his fame? Dullens looks a bit like Sivori on old video tapes. Intricate and with a joy in nutmegging other people (which he did against Feijenoord with both his left and right foot). He had a very strong start of his national team career (games against Belgium, Scotland in particular), was footballer of the year while playing in the second division (ahead of the 'big' names) and Cruijff saw him as the better player than himself. To start with the last thing, Klaas Nunninga remarked this: "It was well meant by Johan but he was 18 and 19 and didn't fully realize how good he personally was. He had not only brilliant moves and effectiveness, he also made it happen that the others and the opponents started to play better. It made objectively a big difference. With that he was far ahead of the rest. Willy had an aptitude for that too, sure, but because of his premature elimination we will never know whether his talents had reached as far and wide as the ones of Johan." How does his scoring profile look? In the first season he scored 18 goals and they promoted to the first division. There he scored 6 goals but relegated again, after which 6 more league goals followed and promoted again (and was footballer of the year). Then he got fatally injured. If we look with a critical eye at it, we see Brokamp in his first Eredivisie season scored more goals than Dullens did in his first Eredivisie year. In his second season he scored more too than Dullens in his last (at the second division). In his first three season Brokamp scored 36 goals, Dullens 30 (of which 24 in the second division). Furthermore, MVV relegated when Brokamp left the club. So I think it is justified VI didn't get along with the mythology and gives Brokamp the benefit of doubt (who was more of a forward though). Quite a few see him as the best Limburger anyway, but he became a national team player and sort of a continental performer at a later age it might be said. Dullens had the higher peak for the national team, but in the end Brokamp reached higher peaks in the first division and at the continental stage ('friendlies' plus a few competitive matches).
I consulted my father about his generation's take on Brokamp. He only confirmed the unrealized talent and that he was too good for MVV. I also dug around for some footage but found nothing worthy of the thread. Who's next?
Kees Rijvers (1926, Breda) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kees_Rijvers http://www.voetballegends.nl/profile.php?id=153 http://www.kentudezenog.nl/cornelus-bernardus-kees-rijvers-1926/ https://www.football-the-story.com/kees-rijvers http://www.poteaux-carres.com/article-C3820060429165935-27-mai-1926-Naissance-de-Kees-Rijvers.html (last two links are in French) In his own words he became a footballer because it was the only thing he could do well. Likewise, he became a manager because it was the only thing he could properly do. He felt most at ease in the rain, he said, which gave him a confidence boost. Rijvers had very arguably not the same aura as his contemporaries Lenstra and Wilkes (when all three played together the national team lost only one match) but played with great diligence and a functional technique, and was probably more reliable than Lenstra. Rijvers was an inside-forward who had a bit of everything, though he was somehow also frequently nicknamed 'Le Kopa Hollandais' and 'the dribbler of the low countries'. Noteworthy is him winning the inaugural edition of France Football Etoile d'Or in 1957 (he went back to his homeland in the same summer - in 1956 he made the BdO list). More recently, France Football named him among the 50 best foreigners, as one of four players to have played games in the 1950s. He also featured in Rethacker's 'La Fabuleuse Histoire du Football' - who apparently saw him as a real 'meneur de jeu' - and funnily Platini reserved a few comments about the trainer & player in his autobiography. And there were a few others too. Eskenazi and Gassmann (1979) remarked about the player: "Ce petit Hollandais pétillant d'intelligence et de malice, d'une activité inlassable, et insaisissable pour qui avait la charge de le marquer, restera le prototype de l'inter impersonnel, mais indispensable à une èquipe qui veut jouer les premiers rôles." As a manager he has been credited with lifting Twente (they're fourth in the all-time table) and later PSV (before him PSV was despite all their wealth not a consistent top three club; he is sometimes seen as the 'founder of the big three'). As a national team manager he received some credits for renewing the team and gave various later famous players their debut (though only saw them for a few days in a year, and therefore has downplayed his own role somewhat). I saw wm442433 wrote this about Rijvers on his website (on players in France): "Kees Rijvers : contemporary of Appel in the French League (Rijvers was born in 1926, Appel in 1921), and Dutch international player like him, this player gave much services to AS Saint-Etienne, starting with bringing 100 kilos of screw-in studs in his bagages, an equipment that was unknown in France. First played at the club from 1951 to 1957 with a parenthesis at Stade Français. If he he is the first scorer in a derby Saint-Etienne-Lyon (in '51), his main claim to fame remains however the Champion of France title of '57, a year he became also the first recipient of the best League player of the year award of France Football. He then joined Feyenoord for the next season, then again played for Saint-Etienne in the next decade from 1960 to 1962 before ending his career at NAC Breda (his first club) to soon start a career of coach that would be particularly succesful towards Eindhoven in the 70s. A career to wich he was maybe intended, he who always discussed every point about everything. Technically very gifted as a player (known for his footwork and his feints), he had also his views on how football should be played and how a club should work. As a coach he incidentally met ASSE twice in the Champions Cup, both times in the year '76, for two narrow losses, each time on the same score (0-0; 0-1). He then has beaten the Corsicans of Bastia in the 1978 UEFA Cup Final." Interesting is how the accounts on his playing style differ a bit. Some give more credit to his technical side, others perceive him in terms of diligence and functionality (comparable to Overmars in that regard; in fact some old-timers stylistically compared the young Overmars with the 1950s 'low countries dribbler'). I'll leave that in the middle...
This is what the 1973 World Soccer from A to Z book said about him: "Talented little inside-forward who divided a succesful playing career between the Netherlands and France. In 1951, having won 19 caps, he moved to France where he was the general of the St-Etienne side that won the championship in 1957, his promptings being one of the main reasons for N'Jo Lea and Mekloufi scoring 54 goals between them. On his transfer to Feyenoord, he was recalled to the national side and went on to make another 14 appearances between 1957 and 1960, including two as captain." I don't think though he had the same 'mythical' aura as the next one...
Just one little thing about Rijvers : I read 2 or three times in France Foot (of the time and then also present) that what was his trademark as a player was the long passes on the width in order to "invert/ reverse the game" (dunno how to say it in English).
I am not quite sure but maybe you mean a combination of 'switching the play' and a 'reverse pass'. Which I think would be a diagonal pass played forwards to the opposite side of the pitch, when he was facing his own goal (but not played with a backheel).
Yes, 'switching the play', with one long diagonal (or quite horizontal, btw this is it, more) pass. More or less facing the opponents but not turning his back to them, just turning a bit in direction of the inside of the pitch like parallely to the half-way line (not played with a backheel).
Yes thanks PDG. It is interesting what wm442433 says because I can't remember/see Rijvers getting big praise for that in his own country. Video footage would help but there isn't as much for him as for Lenstra and Wilkes (those three together lost only one game, 3-4 against Great Britain in 1948 London Olympics). Rijvers hasn't that aura, though he gets in turn (rightly) more praise for his managerial career and how he helped to get teams on the right track (Twente, PSV, national team). Wilkes is the only one of the three about which I'm actually sure he was very good/great player, since he also made an impression in Italy and Spain too (getting footballer of the year awards in both) and there are also some other things that make it more probable he was a very good player. I'd say he got more praise for those type of passes. Lenstra was probably the more popular player in his own time (scientific pieces have appeared about this phenomenon), but will get to this later. For example Lenstra Wilkes (there was also one Valencia match where he's seeing playing a 40 meters long pass) So footage of Rijvers would help. At the end I will list some notable exclusions (some have already been discussed and mentioned).
There are moments from Rijvers at 1.00 (pre-assist) and 1:25 here that could be relevant (he also gets the goal, plus maybe assists the previous one and has a nice touch at 2:35?):
What I notice though is that your overview shifts in focus several times. I.e. how many in top 10, top 20, top 30, top 125 and those type of changes in focus. Your own top 100 is a lot less generous than most of those painted pictures (Hungary and Uruguay gets same number of inclusions), and as such fitting in said tendencies of the last 25 years. Anyhow, I doubted about making the comment because it fits better for another time.
The various sources offered lists of differing lengths. More detail can be provided if required but the intention was to strike a balance between top rankings and those lower down. There is a lot of difference between having three players in the Top 20 and three between 80 and 100. The Top 100 I posted before was not so much mine, but more an attempt to summarise the input of BigSoccer posters. You said at the time that 5 or 6 Dutch players in a Top 100 woud be fair. (Placar and Venerdi had 5, Planete Foot 4), The list I produced included seven. Also, the list went back to 1872. The further we go back in time, the more the likes of Uruguay and Hungary feature. Some of the lists from twenty years ago concentrated almost exclusively on the period from 1950, despite titles like “all-time” and “twentieth century”. Your point seems to be more about the reputation of Dutch players declining during the two decades since those end-of-century polls were conducted. That may be true, although Cruyff is the only European who remains in most Top 5s. The decline applies to other countries too, including the UK, and the reasons could be more innocent than sinister. I don't know what the average age of a football internet poster is now, but let's say it's 30. That would mean most posters have never seen a Dutch team win anything (apart perhaps from Feyenoord's UEFA Cup in 2002). The Bosman ruling has limited UCL wins to nine clubs from the Big Four Leagues (with the one exception of Porto), with the last five winners coming from Spain. The collective memory of posters is reinforced by a media focusing increasingly on winners, recent events, and where the money is. The World Cups of the past twenty years have been won by three of the countries hosting the Big Four Leagues plus France (twice) and Brazil. European Champonship winners have been Spain (twice), France, Portugal and Greece. Brazil has won half the Copa America tournaments since 1997. As far as individual players are concerned, the formative years of many posters will have been influenced by Zidane, R9, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and forum content reflects this. With the last two dominating the narrative during the past decade to an unprecedented level, players from other countries have been pushed into the shade. As suggested by Comme, it might be interesting to draw up a list of footballers from all countries whose reputations have declined most during the twenty-first century. And then to separate them between those overrated before, and those underrated since.
Abe Lenstra (1920, Heerenveen) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Lenstra https://web.archive.org/web/20051120075704/http://www.friesgenootschap.nl/artikelen/abe.htm http://www.voetballegends.nl/profile.php?id=116 http://www.football-oranje.com/hall-of-fame-abe-lenstra/ http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn4/lenstra Lenstra was the most popular footballer of his day. This resulted in that a stadium was named after him in 1986, and six streets in the country have his name (already a few during his lifetime). No other footballer has the same. He continues to fascinate people to this day, but at the same time he is sometimes also seen as a myth. His name is forever tied to his improbable comebacks and also a few games against the neighboring countries. 'Defending' was something that he didn't do as much as Wilkes and certainly Rijvers, but compensated it with his higher speed.
Also Heerenveen their own website mention he was a 'lazy' player. The English version: Another fine article was this one from 1999 (use google translate): https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ac...komt-moet-de-kop-omhoog-abe-lenstra~b81d4032/
This book says about him: "Considered one of the finest Dutch players of his generation and the country's leading goalscorer with 33 goals until Faas Wilkes passed his total in 1959. He made his debut for Heerenveen at 14, and won the first of 47 caps in 1940. In 1953 he fell into dispute with the Dutch selectors because of his preference for the inside-forward position, but he won his battle and returned to the national side as captain for three games."
It are actually seven I see now (was doubting about which number was correct but seven is the right number). Worth to add here that Cruijff has 0 in the Netherlands, and probably that will not change soon because a previously passed proposal has been cancelled (very typical for talking shop Holland). He does have two in Spain and one in the United States. Another 'oddity' is Wilkes having a street in Amsterdam but not in his birthplace Rotterdam. Still, that Lenstra has six spread throughout the country (including one in The Hague and one in Amsterdam) illustrates his popularity well. He had indeed a closed character, as above profile states.
Noticed now that this wikipedia page is pretty extensive somehow https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Lenstra