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da blaze casino： Who will Johan Cruyff be supporting come Sunday? It’s definitely an interesting thought considering the emotional and ideological ties he finds himself caught in for both nations. On the one hand he embodies every quixotic notion that Dutch football has to offer and, on the other, he is very much responsible for the current Spanish contingent’s obstinate adherence to a possession-based philosophy.
It’s also a strange thing to hear such a polarised view about the Spanish national team. A majority of publications deal in terribly opaque rhetoric extolling the guile and craft of the Spaniards (failing to offer any insights on the actual football played and focussing more on the literary value that Spain’s precepts beget) whilst a small but vocal minority lament the ‘boring’, ‘death-by-a-thousand-cuts’, strangulating style that the team implements. I think that, much like the general tactics at this World Cup has proven, there is a blander middle ground being exhibited far closer to the truth – and Cruyff goes some way in representing it, whether he realises this or not.
For Dutch football there are few who can claim to be more influential than Johan Cruyff and I have spent far too many lines in the past few months dedicated to a man who I didn’t even have the good fortune to witness play. And in that admission lies the great danger of anything so widely recounted, reconfigured, and retold; my knowledge and experience of the early 70s Ajax team and Holland’s 1974 World Cup run is rooted in the aftermath of the event. The fact is forced, by the laws of physics and space/time, to be secondary to the interpretation of that fact. So everything I know, every facet of my understanding, is (at least) once removed from the actual event. And it is in this wall of mirrors that the truth becomes incalculably convoluted.
So imagine how Cruyff must feel? Constantly quizzed on the national team, he has been at pains to distance his own belief system from that on show at this World Cup – from the formation chosen to the players deployed; there is a tangible reticence in his dealings. But why do we, 36 years on, burden the weight of the gloriously unfulfilled past on the present Dutch team’s shoulders? It’s not only because there is an unresolved trauma surrounding the ’74 final for Dutch people but, more than that, there is a sordid and deeply romantic enjoyment to the epitome of the World Cup’s nearly-men in the wider football consciousness. We discuss them so widely, so heavily, and so passionately because they never won the ultimate crown. And on Sunday they have the chance to end this, to effectively trump Cruyff.
Germany have starred in seven World Cup finals and been serial iconoclasts in their toppling of Hungary in ’54 and Cruyff’s Holland in ’74 yet we never attribute anything near the cultural kudos to them. But with Holland, well, books have been written and many tears shed at the cosmic heartache felt at that team and that style’s captivating and almost-complete domination. Sneijder, Robben, Van Persie and co resemble the only universal truth in football and in life; it continues. Through tragedy or victory, it continues. Why do the Dutch play a 4-2-3-1 instead of three forwards? It’s because 2008, despite the same criticisms being levelled at Van Basten before the tournament, saw them beautifully entertain before being tactically outfoxed by Russia’s attacking fullbacks. And because, unlike club level (or the anomalous talent pool of ’74 and similarly this current Spain team), you are dealt your hand in the national team. I don’t think it’s a disrespect to say that this Spanish team possesses greater potential and talent than the Dutch but, equally, I don’t think it’s a disrespect to say that van Marwijk’s pragmatism has carved out a team of mental strength and discipline. It comes down to a single match on one day and there is a palpable chance here for victory but I fear that, instead of making history, this team will succumb to it.
“I am Dutch”, Cruyff writes in a Catalan newspaper, “but I support the football that Spain is playing.”
Spain enter Sunday as favourites but I also sense a greater confidence from them; one rooted in realising something which has been two decades in the making. Cruyff transformed Barcelona with four successive La Liga titles and a maiden European success and this Spain team adopts a similar approach to the game (and it’s plain to see that he loves it). It’s both creative and stifling, causing the mixed reviews from football fans. Some fall too easily by saying they are the creative apogee of football but 1-0 victories against Germany, Paraguay, and Portugal debunk this (statistically speaking).
And the other extreme is that ball retention is actually the reconfigured catenaccio. What’s so bad about that? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that having taken the lead, Spain have performed far better and thus systematically shut out the match. So the truth is a middle ground: they remain a supremely talented, perhaps unparalleled, creative group (watching Alonso has been a personal enjoyment at this tournament) who have not ‘clicked’ as many would have expected. But not compromising their style has led them to the final and to unexpected praise (or condemnation, depending on your outlook) as being defensively sound when in the lead – but this is the same ethos serving a dual function.
I think Spain survived a mini identity crisis. There was a period of a few matches where the balance of the team was certainly not right and an over reliance on Villa cutting in from the left materialised. But, in the game where it mattered most, Del Bosque proved his allegiance is with the ideology that has propelled Spain to something close to greatness; only one more match remains. And as for Cruyff, I think it’s far more interesting to note that his own national team distance themselves from everything he stood for (because it has become a burden) whilst he simultaneously associates himself with the team they face – a team who he believes he has much more of an ideological bond with.
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