rather than trickery, which made him perfect for Van Gaal.
‘I was a coach who wanted to attack with wingers – there aren’t a lot of good wingers around, and Overmars was one of the best,’ remembered Van Gaal. ‘He was a good dribbler who could beat people one-on-one and that was important for a winger in our system, but he also had a very good assist record and he could score goals. Every season he got 10–15 goals and they were nearly always important goals. We need his kind of player to maintain the game as an attractive spectacle.’ If Van Gaal could have fielded two Overmarses, one on either flank, he would have. Instead, he fielded him wide-left, and the speedy Nigerian Finidi George on the opposite flank.
The curious thing about Van Gaal’s use of wingers, however, was that they were almost decoys, part of the overall framework rather than star performers. Something similar can be observed of the centre-forwards: the likes of Stefan Pettersson and Ronald de Boer (who was also used as a midfielder) were tasked with leading the line rather than dominating the goalscoring, instructed to stretch play and occupy opposition centre-backs. Van Gaal’s reasoning was simple: if the wingers dragged the opposition full-backs wider, and the centre-forward forced the opposition centre-backs backwards, it would create more space for the star – the number 10.
For both Ajax and Holland during this period, that meant one man: Dennis Bergkamp. While not necessarily the best Dutch footballer of this period – Marco van Basten won the Ballon d’Or in 1992, while Bergkamp came third and then second in 1993 – he was certainly the most typically Dutch footballer of the 1990s, because his entire mentality was based around that familiar concept. ‘On the field, my greatest quality was seeing where the space was, and knowing where you can create space,’ he explained. Throughout his autobiography, Bergkamp explains everything about his game, and everything about his career path, with the same word: space. Why was he so obsessed with scoring chips? ‘It’s the best way – there’s a lot of space above the goalkeeper.’ Why did he struggle to connect with his Inter Milan teammates during his spell in Serie A? ‘There was a huge space between us, and it was dead space.’ Why did he transfer to the Premier League? ‘I knew you could get space in England.’ What was the key to his legendary 1998 World Cup winner against Argentina? ‘It was a question of creating that little space.’ And, even, what did he dislike so much about aeroplanes? ‘There was hardly any space – it was so cramped it made me claustrophobic.’
Bergkamp was an Amsterdammer who had risen through Ajax’s academy, although his journey to becoming the club’s number 10 was curious. As a teenager he was considered a pure centre-forward, and initially appeared under Cruyff in 1986/87 as a right-winger. ‘Wingers played a simpler game back then,’ Bergkamp recalled, confirming the accepted manner of wing play at the time. ‘You weren’t expected to get into the box and shoot – you had to stay wide, feel the chalk of the touchline under your boots. Your job was to stretch their defence, get past your man at speed and cross the ball.’
After Cruyff’s departure, Bergkamp was demoted to the B-team by Kurt Linder, a German coach who didn’t understand the Dutch mentality and preferred a rigid 4–4–2. In Ajax’s reserves, however, Bergkamp played under Van Gaal, who recognised his talent and fielded him as the number 10. When Linder was dismissed, Antoine Kohn became caretaker manager, but it was Van Gaal, now his assistant, who was in charge of tactics. Van Gaal insisted on fielding Bergkamp in the number 10 role, which prompted Bergkamp to set a new Eredivisie record by scoring in ten consecutive matches. When Leo Beenhakker was appointed first-team manager, however, he misused Bergkamp, deploying him up front or out wide again. It took the appointment of Van Gaal as manager, in 1991, for Bergkamp to regain his rightful position. The Dutch press were so captivated by Bergkamp’s performances in the number 10 role that they felt compelled to invent a new term for it: schaduwspits, the ‘shadow striker’.
In that role Bergkamp was sensational. At Ajax he developed an excellent partnership with Swedish centre-forward Pettersson, a more conventional forward who also made intelligent runs to create space for him. During this period Bergkamp won three consecutive Eredivisie top goalscorer awards, jointly with Romario in 1990/91, then outright in the following two seasons, despite not being a number 9 – or, in Dutch terms, precisely because he wasn’t a number 9. Cruyff is the obvious example of a prolific forward who dropped deep rather than remaining in the box, but the Eredivisie’s all-time top goalscorer – Willy van der Kuijlen – was also a second striker, not a number 9. Van der Kuijlen, who spent nearly his entire career with PSV, had the misfortunate to be playing in the same era as Cruyff, and squabbles between Ajax and PSV players meant he was underused at international level. But in the Eredivisie he was prolific, and formed a partnership with Swedish number 9 Ralf Edström that was identical in terms of nationalities and style to Bergkamp and Pettersson’s relationship two decades later: the Swede as the target man, the Dutchman as the deeper-lying but prolific second striker.
That was the Dutch way: the number 9 sacrificing himself for the number 10, and this arrangement continued at international level, despite the fact that Holland’s striker was the wonderful Van Basten. At Euro 92, when Holland sparkled before losing to Denmark in the semi-final, their best performance was a famous 3–1 thrashing of fierce rivals Germany. Their third goal was significant: midfielder Aron Winter attacked down the right and assessed his crossing options. Van Basten was charging into the penalty box, seemingly ready to convert a near-post cross. But when Winter looked up, Van Basten had just glanced over his shoulder, checking Bergkamp was in support. He was. So, while occupying both German centre-backs and sprinting frantically to get across the near post, Van Basten threw out his right arm and pointed behind him, towards his strike partner. Winter saw Van Basten’s signal and chipped a pull-back behind him, towards Bergkamp, who neatly headed into the far corner. It was the most fantastic example of the Dutch number 9 creating space for the Dutch number 10.
Bergkamp was the tournament’s joint-top goalscorer, while Van Basten finished goalless but was widely praised for his selflessness, and both were selected in UEFA’s XI of the tournament. Their partnership worked brilliantly. ‘Marco was a killer, a real goalscorer, always at the front of the attack – whereas I was more of an “incoming” striker,’ Bergkamp said. ‘If records had been kept they’d show how often Marco scored from ten yards or less. For me, it was from about 15 yards.’
Bergkamp had a curious relationship with Van Gaal, who had initially shown tremendous faith in him, ‘inventing’ his shadow striker role. When Bergkamp missed the second leg of Ajax’s victorious UEFA Cup Final against Torino because of flu, Ajax’s celebratory bus parade detoured to take the trophy past his apartment, and at the reception Van Gaal took the microphone and bellowed Bergkamp’s name from the balcony of the Stadsschouwburg Theatre to the assembled masses below, who responded with their biggest cheer of the day. But the two constantly quarrelled in Bergkamp’s final season at Ajax in 1992/93, before his move to Italy. Having already announced his intention to leave, Bergkamp’s performances were criticised by Van Gaal, who substituted him at crucial moments when Ajax needed goals to keep their title bid alive. In Van Gaal’s opinion, Bergkamp had become too big for his boots. By treating him harshly, he sent a message to Ajax’s emerging generation that superstars would not be tolerated – the team, and the overall system, were far more important.
Bergkamp endured two unhappy seasons at Inter, before becoming the catalyst for Arsenal’s evolution into the Premier League’s great entertainers. The reason for his failure in Italy, and his unquestionable success in England, was inevitably about the amount of space he was afforded. ‘English defences always played a back four, with one line, which meant they had to defend the space behind,’ he said. ‘In Italy they had the libero, but the English had two central defenders against two strikers, so they couldn’t really cover each other. As an attacker I liked that because it meant you could play between the lines.’ From that zone, Bergkamp became the Premier League’s most revered deep-lying forward, although he became more prolific in terms of assists than goals.
Ajax, however, didn’t desperately miss him. In Bergkamp’s three seasons as Eredivise top goalscorer, Ajax didn’t win the title
