impressive than the Argentina strike. ‘It wasn’t a simple thing to do, but I’d done it so often with Dennis when we’d played together at Ajax,’ De Boer recalled when speaking of the Argentina goal. ‘When you watch the footage of Dennis at Ajax, I must have given him assists like that three or four times. We felt good together – when he went forward, I knew he wanted to go deep, and vice-versa … everything went right, and the pass was beautiful. But that was one of my strengths, and the chances of the pass getting there are higher for me than for other players.’ That’s because De Boer was simply an excellent passer, and that specific diagonal ball, from De Boer to the centre-forward, became a familiar part of Ajax’s attacking under Van Gaal.
Ajax’s final defender, right-sided Michael Reiziger, was a different type of footballer entirely: less creative but extremely quick, which meant he was the most effective defender at covering the space in behind, and lithe and tricky when bursting forward. Reiziger was another academy product, and when loaned out to Groningen was deployed as a right-winger, such were his attacking skills. ‘He’s quick, has good anticipation and sufficient ability to participate in build-up play,’ said Van Gaal, with ‘sufficient’ a telling choice of word. ‘Initially his defensive play was not so good, but this is an aspect which can be taught quickly – I give a player like him more time to play himself into the team. It’s not such a big gamble, we play near the halfway line, so Reiziger has time to use his basic speed to correct any mistakes.’
It’s crucial that Van Gaal suggested defending could be ‘taught quickly’, whereas Ajax’s passing patterns took longer to master. It was therefore much easier to convert an attacker into a defender than the other way round. In truth, Reiziger sometimes appeared to be Ajax’s weak link, but the importance of his speed shouldn’t be underestimated in combination with the guile of his defensive colleagues, and athleticism and adaptability meant that Van Gaal once declared him ‘the symbol of this Ajax side’. In all, this was the most technically gifted four-man defence football had witnessed. Significantly, three would later head to Barcelona: Reiziger in 1997, De Boer in 1999 and Rijkaard, as coach, in 2003.
But the Dutch defensive style had already been imposed at the Camp Nou by Cruyff in the early 1990s, and was naturally best epitomised by a Dutchman, the magnificent Ronald Koeman, who demonstrated a determination to attack like few other centre-backs in history. The most notable feature of his career – among eight league titles, two European Cups, the European Championship and 78 Dutch caps – is his extraordinary goalscoring tally at club level, 239 in all. He even finished joint-top goalscorer in the 1993/94 Champions League, with eight goals. Three were penalties, and Koeman also scored a number of free-kicks throughout his career – the 1992 European Cup Final winner against Sampdoria the most significant – but 239 remains a staggering figure for a player in his position. It’s 39 more than Kluivert and only 25 behind Bergkamp. Koeman is regarded as the most prolific central defender of all time.
‘I was a defender who wasn’t really a defender,’ Koeman explained. ‘I scored so many goals because I used to step forward out of defence a lot, and my coaches asked and expected me to do that. My set-pieces were a big strength too, but even in general play, I would be in those kind of positions, able to take long-range shots.’ His greatest mentor was clearly Cruyff, whom he’d played under at Ajax in 1985/86 and then, after a controversial switch to PSV, rejoined at Barcelona in 1989. His booming diagonal balls became a regular feature of Barca’s play, particularly when switching the ball out to left-winger Hristo Stoichkov, and Cruyff had a very special trust in Koeman, perhaps only rivalled by his affection for Pep Guardiola. ‘Koeman likes the football that I preach about,’ said Cruyff. ‘He’s the ideal man at the back, a defender who is good for 15 goals a season. He can live in that position because I want players like him, who can make decisive moves in tiny spaces.’
‘Koeman was one of the first central defenders with the quality not just to defend,’ said Guardiola, who Koeman took under his wing at Barca. ‘I think Johan Cruyff bought Ronald Koeman to show us, to teach us, why we need a central defender like Ronald … most of the quality was his build-up, amazing long balls, forty metres, quick balls. He is one of the best central defenders I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Koeman’s regular forward charges rarely exposed Barcelona in a defensive sense because they could rely on Guardiola’s selfless, intelligent play in the holding midfield position. This was particularly crucial when Cruyff played the 3–4–3, with Koeman the centre-back and Guardiola the holding midfielder. Guardiola, often wearing number 3 at this stage, would effectively become Barcelona’s main defender, covering for his attack-minded teammate in the original manner of Total Football.
While Guardiola is widely considered a deep midfielder, Cruyff often referred to him as a defender. ‘As a player he was tactically perfect but he said he couldn’t defend,’ said Cruyff. ‘I said: “I agree – in a limited way. You’re a bad defender if you have to cover this whole area. But if you have to defend this one small area, then you’re the best. Make sure that there are people to cover the other areas. As long as you do that, you can be a very good defender.” And he did become very good.’ Cruyff sometimes deployed Guardiola as a conventional centre-back; in late 1991 Cruyff even handed him the job of man-marking Real Madrid’s outstanding striker Emilio Butragueño, the reigning Pichichi. Perhaps the most significant example came in a 2–2 UEFA Cup draw away at Bayern Munich in April 1996; the idea of Guardiola, a midfielder, being deployed in defence would prove particularly prescient considering his own use of Javier Mascherano and Javi Martínez when later coaching these two clubs.
Cruyff insisted that Koeman and Guardiola, two players he praised primarily for their passing, were a perfectly functional pairing because of their positional strength and intelligence. ‘As the central defensive duo, they weren’t fast and they weren’t defenders,’ Cruyff admitted. But he believed there were only three passes that Barca needed to worry about: balls over the top would be intercepted by his goalkeeper, the aggressive Busquets; crossfield balls would be dealt with by his speedy full-backs Albert Ferrer and Sergi Barjuán, academy products and converted wingers; balls down the centre, meanwhile, wouldn’t be a problem because Cruyff was confident Koeman and Guardiola communicated well, and were flawless in a positional sense. Sometimes he referred to the duo as both ‘midfielder-defenders’, which summarised the Dutch interpretation of defenders – they aren’t really defenders at all.
Juventus required a penalty shoot-out to confirm their triumph over Ajax in the 1996 Champions League Final, but this nevertheless felt like a turning point in European football, the moment when Dutch dominance gave way to Italian ascendency. Ajax, the previous season’s Champions League winners, found themselves unable to cope with the speed and power of Juve’s forwards, and the Italian side should have killed the game before half-time.
For Ajax, the problem wasn’t simply defeat and the failure to retain their trophy, but the knowledge it was the end of an era. Midway through 1995/96 European football had been shaken by the Bosman ruling, which had two major impacts. First, players could run down their contracts and transfer elsewhere for free. Second, the three-foreigner rule was now illegal, and European clubs could field as many EU nationals as they liked.
No club suffered as much as Ajax. At the end of 1995/96 Edgar Davids, arguably Europe’s most coveted midfielder, left for AC Milan on a free transfer – previously, Ajax would have received a fee and reinvested the proceeds. Meanwhile, the liberalisation of the rules regarding the number of foreign players permitted meant there was now extra overseas demand for Ajax’s other stars, and within three years they found almost their entire Champions League-winning side had departed. Davids, Winston Bogarde, Edwin van der Sar, Michael Reiziger, Nwankwo Kanu and Patrick Kluivert all headed to Serie A, mirroring the shift in power. Bosman had made players, and Europe’s major leagues, considerably more powerful, and Ajax were no longer among Europe’s elite.
1996 also saw Ajax depart their much-loved De Meer Stadion, moving
