Why Spain went down to Netherlands

Dar es Salaam. Nothing surprised soccer fans in the world in the on-going Fifa World Cup in Brazil than the ‘cruel elimination’ of the defending World Cup champions, Spain.

Having witnessed both the Spanish national soccer team and its top-flight soccer clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona FC win the most coveted soccer prizes (the World Cup in South Africa during the 2010 tournament and UEFA) in the world at will, it was difficult for soccer fans to believe that Spain could be walloped by the Netherlands by five goals to one.

Yet a glance at the history of the two countries (the Netherlands and Spain) through the assistance of the Google engine shows that the surprise was misplaced as Spain finally succumbed to the very country that had given her the kind of football the world had, for over a decade, admired.

For over four decades, stretching back from 1970s, Spain was a beneficiary of Netherlands’ total football extended to Spanish clubs by top-flight Dutch coaches and players.

According to the Google engine, Total football as a tactical system was first invented by former Ajax Amsterdam and Netherlands manager, Rinus Michels.

Simply put, total football means all in attack and all in defence, and the tactical system is heavily depended on space and creation as its main concept.

The tactical system however, places heavy demand on body conditioning of the players and the ability of each player to play, effectively, the other player’s position.

The leading exponent of the tactical system and who successfully employed it, as a player (centre forward for the Netherlands senior national soccer team) was Johan Cruyff, considered one of the greatest Dutch players who graced the world.

Cruyff who led the Dutch national soccer team in the 1974 World Cup final in Munich, West Germany, is also credited as the inventor of what has come to be referred to as the Cruyff Turn.

In order to execute the Cruyff Turn, a player would drag the ball behind his planted foot, making a 180 degree turn in the process and accelerate away from the defender.

Having invented the tactical system and employed it successfully while serving as a manager both for Ajax Amsterdam and the Netherlands senior national soccer team, Rinus Michel, left home for Spain where he coached Barcelona FC.

Michel who would, two years later, be recalled home to manage the Dutch national soccer team for the 1974 World Cup held in the West Germany was joined at Barcelona by a rising Dutch centre-forward, Johan Cruyff who turned out for the Spanish club as a player.

A few years later, Cruyff would return to Spain as a coach for Barcelona FC.

Other Dutch coaches who have trained Barcelona include the present Netherlands manager at the on-going World Cup in Brazil, Van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard, who apart from coaching Barcelona FC, had a few years back played for the same Spanish club along with another Dutch player, Ronald Koeman.

During the 1992 UEFA finals, Frank Rijkaard and Ronald Koeman appearing for Barcelona FC as players gave the Spanish club the coveted European Champions Cup through a 40m goal that was driven home by Koeman, who was during the time, one of the best dead ball takers in the game.

Koeman, Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten would, in 1988, along with other Dutch players and while under Rinus Michel as their team manager, give the Netherlands the European Cup after beating the then Soviet Union in the finals held at the Munich Olympic Stadium in a tournament witnessed by the author from the start to the finish as one of the guests of the (Deusche Fussball Bund) German Football Federation.

It would be recalled that during the 2010 Fifa World Cup finals held for the first time on the African soil, in South Africa, Spain lifted the trophy after beating the Netherlands in the finals.

Therefore having beaten the Netherlands in the 2010 World Cup finals in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was not going to be easy, as once pointed out by former Kenyan international and Simba Sports club coach, James Siang’a, for the Spanish national soccer team to beat, once again, the Dutch team.

As already noted, what made things easy for the Dutch national soccer team was the fact that most of its handlers had not only lived and coached Spanish clubs.

But they had also passed on, for over three decades, Dutch football traditions, which included its tactical system, total football.

In a nutshell, the Spanish, Netherlands match that saw the former going down by 1-5 to the latter became a case of sikio halizidi kichwa, the ear cannot be bigger than one’s head.

Simply put, the Spanish team could not repeat their 2010 feat against their teachers.

Back home, the present Taifa Stars’ chief coach is a Dutch, and barely a few months ago, Tanzania had two Dutch coaches, the present one in Taifa Stars and another who coached Young Africans.

In fact, the Young Africans Dutch coach who had stayed with the club for less than two months, helped the Jangwani Street club to break the jinx against Egyptian teams when Young Africans edged out Aly Ahly (National) by one goal to nil. Although the Egyptians would later go on to eliminate Young Africans in the Champions league, but winning the game in their backyard in Dar es Salaam for the first time in many years was a mark of success.

What is the implication of the foregoing? What this means is that if Tanzanian players, especially those in the senior national soccer team are serious and committed, in following the coach’s instructions to the letter, they should be able to play as the Dutch national soccer team.

But the million dollar question is; do our players have what it takes to understand and implement what they are instructed by their Dutch coach?

Another thing which is quite interesting about Dutch football and Johan Cruyff in particular, is the player’s history.

Cruyff is said to have joined Ajax Amsterdam youth system during his 10th birthday.

What this means is that Cruyff who is presently 67 was a product of a soccer academy, a pointer to Tanzanians and in particular clubs and the Tanzania Football Federation that this country cannot join other soccer elites the world over until and unless they embrace, in practice, the philosophy of developing soccer from grass-roots level through the soccer academy system.