These 1974 Feyenoord-Tottenham UEFA Cup finals are two games I would like to see in full. At the end I notice the Dutch are again dressed in bathrobes when they lift the Cup. The Ajax players before them also did that. Was there a short-lived bathrobe-craze in the Netherlands back then?
I like to see the 1973 UEFA Cup final with Gunter Netzer - who played good in the reports I read. Is that available in full length?
There is a nice picture of the free kick in a history book about Feyenoord but it isn't available on the internet. It is really nice. You see the fear of the Tottenham players and the focus of Jennings. But I found this one instead: Velibor Vasovic congratulates the Feyenoord-players in late April 1970 with reaching the European Cup final. He handed flowers to Van Hanegem. Another one:
The 1973 UEFA Cup finals were two awesome games, judging from the highlights. Look at the Kop erupting: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuKU5_P7u-k"]UEFA Cup 1973 - YouTube[/ame] If only Heynckes hadn't wasted that penalty at Anfield .... But these two games are one of the hardest to get it seems. Been looking for them for a long time. They are in the vaults I assume, but so far not located by anyone. There's a German Liverpool fan who gets the weirdest games from the vaults and I am connected with him, but it drives him mad that he can't get these two '73 games.
In spring 1970, the British sporting press was quite certain that the 1969-70 European Cup season would end in an all-British triumph. Arsenal had reached the Fairs Cup final, which they eventually won against Anderlecht, Manchester City made the Cup Winners Cup final (which they won) and while Leeds got eliminated in the Champions Cup semi final vs. Celtic (the original "Battle of Britain"), there was still Celtic in the final who everyone expected to win against Feyenoord. It was quite a shock for the British to see Feyenoord beat Celtic in the Champions Cup final. It was a superb encounter. I once uploaded lengthy highlights to YouTube but it got taken down due to copy right claims of either UEFA or Feyenoord itself (I don't remember exactly, was 4-5 years ago).
Strange that confidence... Is that somewhere in a book or magazine? I know of course that Feyenoord was seen as underdog. The game against Milan was also very good, with a better Van Hanegem although Wim Jansen was seen the star of the match. I know that the manager of Arsenal made some compliments towards Ajax in 1970. This is also featured in the well-known Brilliant Orange book (in contrast to Alf Ramsey who approached the Dutch NT like an opponent from the stone age). Ajax was at that time riddled with internal conflicts, mostly revolving around Piet Keizer, who was as said once dubbed 'the Bobby Fischer of football'. He was uncontrollable and unpredictable. Michels seriously thought about selling him in 1970.
Also read once something about the Anderlecht versus Arsenal matches... Anderlecht was very confident after the first meeting although they had some complaints about the refereeing. The 3:1 win was seen as a safe result. The subsequent 3:0 loss was/is seen as a missed opportunity, and again there were complaints about the 'English-style' lenient refereeing. Anderlecht was completely pressed back and only had one shot on target in the whole match, by Jan Mulder. Anderlecht was physically overpowered and they had some complaints afterwards. They were anyway not accustomed to this style.
Forgot to add that not only Van Hanegem was unfit but also Moulijn was not fit and even a doubt. They decided at the last moment to field him. Also in the eyes of the Dutch was Feyenoord the underdog. Celtic were the favourites.
It was a sentiment portrayed by the "Kicker" correspondent from Britain - Arthur Rotmil (who was actually Polish) in his weekly column about British football. The English were World Champions at that time and their clubs did generally pretty well in European competitions so they had a reason to be self-confident.
Many here thought that England was past their peak in 1969 and 1970. Maybe Ramsey played a bit different tactics than some other teams? Ramsey's way of playing was despised as 'kick&rush'.
Interesting to see the the erratics of Yugoslavia. Finalists in 1968 but failed to qualify for WC1970. Of course, it was often said that Yugoslavia, just as Holland, was never an united team. But I like to know the details.
Thanks for that link. The link states too that Holland played well in the 1969 and 1970 encounters. Anyway, after those two games many saw England not as favorites for 1970WC... Maybe the players and pundits alike were a bit too negative about the Dutch own performances but that is what the consensus was. An vintage book about 1970WC discusses England in such a way too. TBH
[IK & I also understand that you aren't trying to be deliberately "snarky": my point was than in ACTUAL MATCHES what essentially stopped an arguably stronger England side/squad from going further at the '70 WC was a combination between Banks coming down w/"Montezuma's revenge" and the fact that Ramsey was a "ye olde tymey" manager who had never been forced to master the art of making substitutions in key matches.]
Some additions to earlier names and new names: Youth idol of Jari Litmanen was Kenny Dalglish. Like many, also he noticed what kind of smart player and sweet connector of the ball Dalglish was. Dalglish was his idol and served as example for the player he wanted to be as a natural-born midfielder - Dalglish was more of an forward of course while Litmanen was a midfielder in nature. Youth idol of Wesley Sneijder was Raul. And who is this guy? Youth idol of Rafael van der Vaart was Romario and he was a PSV fan too in his youth (not an Ajax supporter ). All-time topscorer Patrick Kluivert had two youth idols: Rijkaard was of course also the one who assisted Kluivert in the 1995 Champions League final. Rijkaard had a one-two in mind but Kluivert went for his own chance instead. Ruud van Nistelrooij, exactly born on the same day as Kluivert, had the same youth idol and had multiple posters of Van Basten in his bedroom. He would never play for the club he supported during his youth. In his late teens and early 20s Van Nistelrooij also considered Bergkamp as an example to learn a lot from. This became a touchy aspect when Van Basten and Van Nistelrooij developed a fractious relationship when the first one was national team coach. According to some, Van Nistelrooij was too emotionally attached. According to others, Van Basten had difficulties to understand that the things that were for him natural and self-evident, were not experienced in the same way by other forwards. A 'simple' trapping or step sideways, which looks easy, wasn't so easy for others.
Rui Costa picked out Michel Platini I see now, with some interesting comments: http://www.fifa.com/live-scores/news/y=2008/m=6/news=rui-costa-portugal-prince-793719.html "Platini, no doubt about it. It was the way he played, the intelligence with which he positioned himself on the field, the way he dictated play, and let us not forget those mazy dribbles and cool decision-making. On top of all that, Platini played in a position where I dreamed of playing one day. He was one of those players who always inspired me. Here in Portugal, Carlos Manuel was also one of my childhood heroes. And looking at the nickname of the person who asked this question, I'll take the opportunity to say that [Juan Roman] Riquelme is, in my opinion, the best No10 around at this moment in time."
As we recently discussed Hagi a little bit (I said that I wouldn't call his euro 96 legendary or so but that he still showed flashes and maybe did as good as he could with that team) I just discovered this. In October 2012 he said to FIFA: http://www.fifa.com/development/news/y=2012/m=10/news=hagi-football-everywhere-1789834.html And more recently he said this December to BeinSport: "I learned a lot of him. When he called me at the [1994] World Cup, [to tell me] that he wanted me in Barcelona, it was a happy day for me. I knew if I went there I would learn a lot from Ajax, Cruyff, Barcelona too with the concept. "So it was an honour for me to be coached, to learn, to see the hero of my childhood, to be near him, to see how he thinks, to see how he acts if you do something wrong - and that happened two or three times because I made mistakes. "I learned a lot from him. All his thoughts about football, how he thought, how he created, how he trained, that was fundamental. I say that Barcelona changed my mind." Don't know whether he exaggerates but he had after his Barcelona spell indeed some good years there at Galatasaray (and in Europe with his club too).
Ronaldinho gaucho/henrik larsson https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Football: Ronnie: Barca pal Larsson is my idol; Exclusive.-a0144951096 Javier pastore/riquelme http://m.goal.com/s/en/news/1722/li...reat-but-i-only-had-eyes-for-riquelme-pastore Luis suarez/gabriel Batistuta http://www.weloba.com/luis-suarez-my-idol-was-batistuta
Marcel Desailly/bernd Schuster http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/marcel-desailly-one-one Diego Maradona/Ricardo bochini http://soccerfootballwhatever.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ricardo-bochini_9.html?m=1 Matt Li tissier/Glenn hoddle http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/matt-le-tissier-one-one
Robert lewandowski had quite a few idols growing up First roberto baggio when he was a child then del Piero when he grew up then finally Thierry Henry when he matured and developed a greater understanding of the game http://www.squawka.com/news/roberto...ierry-henry-replaced-baggio-as-my-idol/828646 Can't find the source but I'm pretty sure R9 looked up to zico in his childhood(as did nearly every other brazilian male born in the mid-late 1970s)
Some interesting ones there Carlito. I only knew the Le Tissier/Hoddle one for sure. I know Maradona often cites Rivelino as an idol/inspiration but of course it's feasible to have more than one (as Cruyff had Faas Wilkes and Florian Albert as domestic/foreign idols and favourites for example). Nice links re Hagi and Johan too Puck - not sure if I saw a passing mention of him being a favourite or not (various players did have Cruyff as a favourite from that generation of course, including Michael laudrup as we know) but nothing so detailed anyway.