Holland: The Team That Won Without Winning. Cruyff, Michels, and Total Football as a Cultural Victory

M. Muñoz
Ebook
124
Pages
Tools
Eligible

About this ebook

In 1974, the Netherlands lost a World Cup final it was widely expected to win, and the loss changed almost nothing about how the world remembers that team. Holland: The Team That Won Without Winning tells the story of Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff, and a generation of Ajax and Feyenoord players who turned a small country's football culture into one of the most influential ideas the game has produced: total football, a system built on positional interchange, coordinated pressing, and a shared understanding of space rather than fixed roles. The book follows that idea from Ajax's three consecutive European Cups through the lost finals of 1974 and 1978, and asks why some defeated teams are remembered more vividly than the champions who beat them. It closes by tracing the method's long afterlife, from Euro 1988 through Dennis Bergkamp and a diaspora of Dutch coaches, to its clearest modern heir, Pep Guardiola. Readers interested in tactics, football history, and the culture surrounding the game will find a rigorously researched account of an idea that outlasted its own trophy cabinet.
In 1974, the Netherlands lost a World Cup final it was widely expected to win, and the loss changed almost nothing about how the world remembers that team. Holland: The Team That Won Without Winning tells the story of Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff, and a generation of Ajax and Feyenoord players who...

Discover more

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.