Dutch anti-football earns no sympathy from legend Cruyff
DUTCH icon Johann Cruyff has torn into the Holland side, insisting they deserved to lose the World Cup final for adopting dirty, vulgar tactics.
Cruyff is the poster boy for the Dutch concept of Total Football, having starred in the 1970s national team that wowed fans with their free-flowing style.
And the former Barcelona coach was therefore distinctly unimpressed by his countrymen ditching tradition and attempting to spoil the final by systematically fouling Spain.
“On Thursday they asked me from Holland ‘Can we play like Inter? Can we stop Spain in the same way Mourinho eliminated Barca?’,” said Cruyff, who now lives in Spain.
“I said no, no way at all. I said no, not because I hate this style – I said no because I
thought that my country wouldn’t dare to and would never renounce their style. I said no
because, without having great players like those of the past, the team has its own style. I
was wrong. Of course I’m not hanging all 11 of them by the same rope, but almost. They didn’t want the ball.”
Holland accrued eight bookings in the 1-0 defeat, with defender John Heitinga getting a red card.
Cruyff added:?“Regrettably, sadly, they played very dirty. So much so that they should have been down to nine immediately, then they made two ugly and hard tackles that even I felt the damage.
“It hurts me that I was wrong in my disagreement that instead Holland chose an ugly path to aim for the title.
“This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style, yes it served the Dutch to unsettle Spain. If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they ended up losing. They were playing anti-football.”