Years ago, Italian newspapers reported a ”computer tournament” attempting to determine the greatest soccer team of all time. The tournament was silly, but entertaining.
The winner of the tournament was a Netherlands team from the 1970’s.
I’m not sure whether it was the Netherlands national team or a local team from the Netherlands.
It occurred to me that the Netherlands have never won a World Cup. It would seem unlikely that the best team ever had not won a World Cup, unless the team was local and not eligible for n a World Cup.
What’s the story?
Dutch football was famous in the 1970s for inventing a style of play called ‘total football’ - initially it was pioneered by the club side Ajax, and then taken up by the national team, notably at the 1974 World Cup. I don’t recall the details of the style of play (it was free-flowing and involved players swapping positions in mid-flow, I think).
It also coincided with some star players, such as Johan Cruyff.
It’s true they never won the World Cup, but are one of the teams credited with epitomising ‘the beautiful game’ in the style of play. Whether that makes them the best team, or whether we just have a romantic memory of that period, is up for grabs.
That Dutch national team finished second twice in a row in the World Cup, losing both times to the host nation (West Germany in 1974, and Argentina in 1978). The 1978 loss was VERY contentious; the consensus these days is that the Argentines got some pretty dodgy calls in their favor, probably because of almost open pressure from the Argentine military government. At least three of the Dutch superstars from that team refused to even go to the finals that year in protest of the fact that it was being played in Argentina (including, IIRC, Cruyff).
The best argument that can be made AGAINST the assertion that the Total Football team of the Dutch was the best comes not from the World Cup results, but rather from the European Championship results. The European Championship is considered the World Cup “light”, because, except for the absence of Argentina and Brazil, all the teams normally considered favorites to win the Cup are participants. But in 1976, the Dutch went out in the semi-finals to the eventual winners from Czechoslovakia (they did win the third-place game over the host Yugoslavs), and in 1980, they bombed out in group play, IIRC (at that point, they already were missing several of the mainstays from the mid-'70s).
I would have to agree that, results of a computer tournament aside, the actual fact is that, as attractive as their game was, they never managed to prove they were actually better than Die Mannschaft (the German team) at the time, let alone better than the amazing Seleção (the Brazilian team) of the late-'50s and early-'60s (the Pelé years).
Eh, possibly the best NFL team ever didn’t win the Superbowl. The Netherlands was arguable the best team in both the '74 and '78 World Cup. Hungary was certainly the best team in the '54 World Cup and probably the most dominant national team of all time.
I suppose they could have also been talking about Ajax, that won the European cup in '71-'73
I think that If you run the 1970’s again in a parallel universe, Holland dominate 9 times out of 10. We just happen to be living in the one universe where they didn’t. That’s football for you.
Still, I feel confident, without even looking, if you google “best ever world 11” you’ll find teams with all sorts of combinations and remarkable omissions but one player who’ll be in there almost without fail and probably one of the first three on the list will be Johan Cruyff. He was that good, and that influential. Players like Messi, Maradona, Best, Pele et al are singular geniuses but I don’t think football was fundamentally changed because of them. It was different with Cruyff (and, I suspect, Maldini had a similar effect)
Holland weren’t even the best team of that era. We don’t need a computer to tell us that when we have the results to prove it.
West Germany were semi finalists in 1970, won in 72, won in 74, and were runners up in 76. One of the most complete teams of all time, with no real weak links and world class players all over. Their performance in the 72 Euro final was as good and as ‘total football’ as anything Holland produced. They weren’t even at their best in 74 and still won against Holland at their peak.
Nor were Holland even the best team never to win the World Cup, which was clearly Hungary who had proved it for years before the tournament and against Germany earlier in the tournament itself.
Cruyff was ridiculous. Sadly the filming equipment of the time wasn’t worthy of his genius, but look at the grainy footage and watch someone thirty to forty years ahead of his time.
Yeah, I feel that way about the 1988 Bengals too.
My vote goes to the 1970 WC winning Santos team.
That’s a lovely montage. What strikes me most is the contrast between the powerful and controlled running at speed and the often delicate nature of the finishing. Also, though not a goal,thisis simply ridiculous.
There were only a handful of Santos players in the squad in 1970 and only 3 in the final team.
For me it’ll be a toss-up between the Hungarian side in the 50’s and Real Madrid from '55 - '60, who won five consecutive European cups.
But they had Pele in his prime, the greatest player ever.
Yeah, I’d love to see that at full speed to see just how fast he’s actually running at that point. Just outrageous skill to do that at all, let alone whilst running.
The issue with Cruyff is - how can I put this? - he almost seemed more interested in playing a ‘beautiful game’ than actually winning. Now, we all love spectacular, elegant, dazzling play, but the primary aim in sport is to win. I’m not sure that Cruyff did everything possible to win for his side. Maradona, Pele and others also had the same skills as Cruyff and could do the same tricks, but these were always sub-ordinate to the primary aim - winning the game (and yes, Maradona did go a bit beyond the rules at times, which was terrible and he deserves damning for that). No doubt Cruyff was incredibly graceful to watch - probably more than any other player.
I saw an article from a few months ago where Cruyff points out that the Netherlands team of 1974 is better remembered than the actual winners - West Germany. True. But he then says something like ‘We are best-remembered, so we were the true winners’. I wonder what his teammates thought of that.
He didn’t separate the art and the sport and was convinced that success came from the beauty. One quote of his…
The style of game he sought to play, though attractive, was purely practical. Cruyff was no show-pony. The montage linked to was probably difficult to put together because the fancy stuff he did and remarkable goals were relatively rare compared to other players. Sure, he could do it, and when he did there were few better but his greatest influence was in the shape and style of the game. He made other players better and there has probable been no better on-field tactician and certainly none that has been so influential on the game both as a player and a manager.
When Spain ruled the roost in the late 2000’s, when you see Barcelona demolishing the opposition, when you see Germany spanking Brazil 7-1 you are seeing Cruyff.