while winning the Champions League in 1995 and reaching the final the following year. This wasn’t solely down to Bergkamp’s departure, of course, and more about Ajax’s emerging generation of players. It helped, however, that Bergkamp was replaced by an equally wonderful talent, the Finnish number 10 Jari Litmanen. ‘Dennis Bergkamp was brilliant for Ajax, but the best number 10 we have ever had was Jari,’ said Frank Rijkaard. Litmanen was Finnish rather than Dutch, and therefore his qualities are less salient here, but he perfectly encapsulated the Ajax idea of a number 10. He was excellent at finding space, had a wonderful first touch and could play the ball expertly with either foot. Van Gaal said that whereas Bergkamp was a second striker, Litmanen was the fourth midfielder.
After his retirement, when asked to name his ‘perfect XI’ of past teammates by FourFourTwo magazine, Litmanen spent two days mulling over his options – Ballon d’Or winners like Luís Figo, Michael Owen and Rivaldo, and other world-class options like Michael Laudrup, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Pep Guardiola – before simply naming the entire 1995 Ajax side. That underlined the harmony of Van Gaal’s Champions League winners; Litmanen didn’t want to upgrade in terms of individuals, because the collective might suffer.
1994/95 was an extraordinary campaign for Ajax; not only did they lift Europe’s most prestigious club trophy, they also won the Eredivisie undefeated. Van Gaal counted on a sensational generation of talent, but also created the most structured, organised side of this era.
Tactical organisation, at this point, was often only considered an important concept without the ball; teams defended as a unit, while attackers were allowed freedom to roam. But Van Gaal was obsessed with structure within possession, almost robbing his attacking weapons of any spontaneity. The crucial difference between Van Gaal’s system and the approach of his predecessors Michels and Cruyff was that Van Gaal effectively prohibited the classic position-switching up and down the flanks, the hallmark of Total Football. Previously, Ajax’s right-back, right-midfielder and right-winger, for example, would often appear in each other’s roles, but Van Gaal ordered his midfielders to stay behind the wingers; not because he didn’t subscribe to the concept of universality, but because it harmed the side’s structure. Ajax were supposed to occupy space evenly, efficiently and according to Van Gaal’s pre-determined directions. ‘Lots of coaches devote their time to wondering how their players can do a lot of running during a match,’ he guffawed. ‘Ajax trains its players to run as little as possible on the field, and that is why positional games are always central to Ajax’s training sessions.’
The classic starting XI featured Edwin van der Sar in goal, behind a three-man defence of Michael Reiziger, Danny Blind and Frank de Boer, three technical, ball-playing defenders. Ahead of them was Frank Rijkaard, an exceptional all-rounder who played partly in defence and partly in midfield, allowing Ajax to shift between a back three and a back four. The midfielders on either side of the diamond were the dreadlocked, Suriname-born duo of Clarence Seedorf and Edgar Davids. They were both technically excellent but also energetic enough to battle in midfield before pushing forward to support the central attackers rather than the wingers, Finidi George and Marc Overmars, who were left alone to isolate opposition full-backs. Then Litmanen would play between the lines, dropping deep to overload midfield before motoring into the box to support Ajax’s forward, generally Ronald de Boer, although he could play in midfield with Patrick Kluivert or Nwankwo Kanu up front.
Ajax’s 1995 side is certainly comparable to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona side a decade and a half later – possession-based, tactically flexible, adept at pressing – but whereas Barca attempted to score following intricate passing combinations through the centre, many of Ajax’s goals were much simpler. The midfielders would service the wingers, who would dribble past the opposition full-backs and cross for the forwards. When Ajax were faced with a deep defence, the most fundamental part of their possession play involved building an attack on one flank, realising they were unable to get the nearest winger in a one-against-one situation, so quickly switching play to the opposite flank, where there would be more space, to try the other winger. This was generally achieved with two or three quick passes flowing through Davids, Rijkaard and Seedorf, rather than with a long crossfield ball. This way, opponents were momentarily drawn towards those central midfielders, which allowed the opposite winger a little extra space.
Ajax’s crowning moment was the 1995 Champions League Final victory over Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. While Capello almost always selected a 4–4–2 formation, for the final he narrowed his midfield quartet to help compete with Ajax’s diamond. Capello tasked his creative number 10, Zvonimir Boban, with nullifying Rijkaard before dropping back towards the left, while defensive midfielder Marcel Desailly performed a man-marking job on Litmanen. With hard-working forwards Marco Simone and Daniele Massaro cleverly positioning themselves to prevent Blind and De Boer enjoying time on the ball, and therefore directing passes to the less talented Reiziger, Ajax struggled before half-time.
After the break Van Gaal made three crucial changes that stretched the usually ultra-compact Milan, allowing Ajax extra space. First, Rijkaard was instructed to drop back into defence, in the knowledge that Milan’s midfielders wouldn’t advance high enough to close him down. Rijkaard started dictating play. Second, Van Gaal withdrew Seedorf, shifted centre-forward Ronald de Boer into a midfield role, and introduced Kanu, whose speed frightened Milan’s defence and forced them to drop deeper. Third, he added yet more speed up front by sacrificing Litmanen, widely considered Ajax’s best player, and introducing the extremely quick 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert.
In typical Dutch fashion, Ajax had increased the active playing area by tempting Milan’s attack higher and forcing their defence deeper, thereby giving themselves more space in midfield. The winner came five minutes from full-time, with substitute Kluivert exploiting Milan’s uncoordinated defensive line and poking home after Rijkaard had assisted him from the edge of the box. That might sound peculiar: Ajax’s holding midfielder, who had been told to drop into defence, playing the decisive pass from inside the final third. Defenders showcasing their technical skill, however, was another key feature of Dutch football during this period.
3
European football’s epochal moment in 1992 wasn’t about the formation of the Premier League nor the European Cup being rebranded as the Champions League, but about the back-pass law. Forced into action by the disastrously negative 1990 World Cup, and the increasing popularity of time wasting by knocking the ball around in defence before returning it to the goalkeeper, FIFA ruled that a goalkeeper could no longer handle the ball if deliberately kicked to him by a teammate. The final major tournament under the old rules was Euro 92, with Denmark triumphing courtesy of a defensive strategy that relied heavily on Peter Schmeichel picking up back passes.
The impact of the law change was overwhelmingly positive – goalkeepers and defenders, now forced to play their way out of danger, became more comfortable in possession and the speed of matches increased dramatically. The first major tournament under the new rules, incidentally, was the football tournament at the 1992 Olympics, a largely entertaining competition with the gold medal won at the Camp Nou by a Spain side featuring Pep Guardiola.
Initially, reaction to the law change was universally negative. World Soccer magazine launched a ‘Save Our Backpass’ campaign, while more surprising criticism came from Johan Cruyff, a man usually determined to promote technical, fast-paced football. ‘The law changes don’t make sense to me,’ he blasted. ‘All they’re doing is complicating life for officials, coaches and players. What’s been done is a typical product of people who play their football sitting behind desks in an office and have never been out on the pitch in their lives.’ But the biggest beneficiary would be the Dutch, and those who represented Cruyffian football. In most other European nations, goalkeepers suddenly needed to adjust and develop their kicking, while rudimentary old-school defenders quickly became extinct. The Dutch, however, were already producing technically gifted
