Ajax of the Sixties
Vic Buckingham, the forgotten father of Total Football.
Football was good, it wasn’t a rough-tough, got-to-win-things mentality. They were gentlemen. Ajax was an institution.
Buckingham was appointed Ajax coach in 1959, and he was an Englishman unlike any other at the time. While his English fellows in England emphasized physicality and long-ball playing, he prized thought and skill, which when combined formed the technique that lately was the most developed attribute within Dutch players alongside intelligence. A disciplinarian gentleman who thought that football is a serious and the same time elegant game had been impressed when he first looked out at Ajax’s youth setup and their philosophy.
Under his guidance, Ajax went on to win the Dutch championship in 1960, scoring a ton of goals but most crucially playing in such a fun and enjoyable manner that was centered on talent, moves, and combinations that increased their tactical awareness, a key component that Buckingham believed already existed, but he definitely influenced it by informing them about possession and teaching them how to maintain it.
The Englishman preferred playing ‘star football’; possession football to the dangerous strategy of playing long balls (widespread use by English clubs). He believed that his team, and more broadly, Dutch football, had everything going for them; they simply needed to possess the ball, which reduced the risk of giving up goals and increased their chances of winning games.
Most of the time, what pays off is educated skills. If you’ve got the ball, keep it. The other side can’t score.
Vic brought his ideas to Dutch football before being sacked in 1965, following his return to the club after 3 successive 6th-place top-flight finishes at Sheffield Wednesday, because of the team’s proximity to the relegation zone, but more crucially, he provided the game’s first debut to Cruyff when he was just 17 years old. Vic once praised Cruyff as mature, useful, and a kid with immense stamina who struck a chord with him as he was his son.
Ajax hired Rinus Michels, a player who trained under Vic Buckingham and attended the Amsterdam Sports Academy before teaching gymnastics in an Amsterdam school, on January 22, 1965. His primary mission was to save the team from getting relegated, which he succeeded in doing with a record of four victories, one draw, and two defeats, one of which was against Feyenoord when they conceded nine goals. Ajax won the Dutch league the next year and two more times after that!
Michels implemented the Brazilian 4–2–4 system, playing Piet Keizer, Cruyff, Sjaak Swart, and Henk Groot at the front, and mostly lined-up Bennie Muller, and the left-sided Klaas Nuninga in midfield, all introduced to new training methods that, compared to before, they were more inventive, intense, and smartly focused.
Even though Dutch players were technically proficient at the time, they lacked the physical presence to be considered professional. However, that perception changed when Rinus Michels and his team defeated Bill Shankly’s Liverpool 5–1 on December 7, 1966, in Amsterdam during the first leg of the second round of the European Cup, strengthening their presence on the continent.
For the Reds, who had predicted defeating Ajax at home, the encounter was viewed as disastrous. in what was seen as a fantastic opportunity for Michels to establish his team’s supremacy, Ajax traveled to Anfield to draw 2–2.
This may be viewed as their most significant accomplishment in the European arena up until they lost to an experienced AC Milan team in the competition’s final in Madrid, in 1969. This was only the start of an impressive performance in the European Cup by the early 1970s, which I shall discuss in the upcoming essay.
Two tactical innovations were made by the Ajax team during that time period: the attacking modern libero, which was played by Vasovic, one of the best ball-players in Dutch football at the time, and the position-switching, which emphasized the adaptability and fluidity of a champion team that went on to score 122 goals during their 1967–68 League season.
Ajax excelled at swapping positions, making it difficult for their opponent to decide who to mark or follow. Sjaak Swart who played as a winger in that Ajax thought ‘It was coming out, going in, coming out, going in… You make space, you come into space. And if the ball doesn’t come, you leave this place and another player will come into it. This movement flows down the sides of the team and also in the middle. While Total Football encouraged players to think offensively at all times, Michels tended to tighten the side’s defense. He did this by assigning his attackers to provide pressure so the opposition finds it difficult to advance the ball.
At that point in his managerial tenure, Michels had clearly established his beliefs about the type of football he wanted to play and was only willing to go out and sign some quality players who were aligned with his philosophy. Vasovic, the finest football player from the old Yugoslavia who provided experience and a winning attitude, as well as Neeskens, a wonderful asset up front in terms of goals and his off-ball activity that distinguished him as a pressing machine, were essential to their success.
The Dutch are at their best when we can combine the system with individual creativity. Johan Cruyff is the main representative of that. He made this country after the war. I think he was the only one who really understood the sixties.
When the team showed a high level of collectivism, a creative individual and representative of Dutch youth stepped out, making himself a name and a reputation to be considered as the most promising player at the time; Johan Cruyff. A player who developed his own philosophy and created a beloved personal brand went on to have an incredible career, winning three Ballon d’Or in the early 1970s, captaining and guiding Ajax, and leaving his mark in both the Netherlands and Spain.
The end of the sixties was promising for Dutch football. It meant one thing with Cruyff’s brilliance and individualism that was greatly functioning within collectivism set up by their new coach, Rinus Michels, and his impassioned commitment to modernization and progress, Ajax was already in the midst of their own revolution…
Bibliography
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, Book by David Winner.
