Rinus Michels has been voted Greatest European Manager of all time… he transformed football forever
Every time you watch Barcelona, Manchester City or Ajax, you are seeing his influence
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YOU may not know much about Rinus Michels.
But every time you watch Barcelona, Manchester City or Ajax, you are seeing his influence.
Every time you listen to Ruud Gullit, Pep Guardiola or Ronald Koeman, you hear his philosophy.
And any time you see football played the way it is meant to be played, you should be grateful to him.
Michels died, aged 77, in 2005.
Shortly before he had been named by Fifa as the leading coach of the 20th century, a recognition now added to by France Football’s decision to name him the greatest of all time, heading a 50-strong list of the game’s deepest and best thunkers.
And more than a decade after his death, his profound impact on modern football remains as deep as it was when he took over Ajax and transformed the game half a century ago.
Michels did not invent “Total Football”. He had grown up under the Ajax schooling of two Englishmen, Jack Reynolds and Vic Buckingham.
The idea of a tactically versatile system in which each player could move into and cover any position had also been promoted by Harry Potts at Burnley and Hungary’s “Magical Magyars” under Gusztav Sebes.
But it was Michels, utilising and basing his philosophy around the genius of Johan Cruyff, who made it into an artform, a way of playing that transcended the 90 minutes and became a school of footballing thought.
His appointment was a risk. A former striker for the club, who spent 12 years at Ajax before injury cut short his career at the age of 30, he then worked as a PE teacher in a school for the deaf.
But he had learned from his time at a club which believed in pure football, giving him a theory and ideal.
At Ajax, Barcelona and Holland in particular, Michels turned that vision into a reality. Cruyff, of course, was at the heart of it, given licence to wander from his nominal position as centre-forward.
At the time, it seemed a risk. Cruyff was a rookie teeanger, making an impact. His team were not all full-time professionals either. This was Ajax, Holland, in the mid-60s.
But Michels was all things to all men. Part-disciplinarian, part-tactician, part-fitness guru, part-teacher, part-thinker. His demands were complete. Total training, too.
As Michels explained four years before his death: “I needed to change my approach and make it clear to everyone.
“Even though they were semi-professionals, money and spectator numbers were at stake. For that they needed to do certain things and stop others.”
TOTAL FOOTBALL
Total Football was, as the name suggested, a non-stop demand. It required flexibility and intelligence from all the team, on and off the ball.
Filling the spaces and rotating positions in possession, high-risk, hard-press out of possession, even using the goalkeeper as a ball-playing defender.
If you wonder why Guardiola was so determined to dump Joe Hart and find a keeper who could function as an 11th outfield player, seek out clips of Ajax under Michels. It is part of the same line of thinking.
And just like City under Guardiola now, the intensity of training made a difference, too.
Dutch legend Piet Keizer, part of that Ajax side, recalled “the hardest physical preparation I ever had”, including up to FOUR sessions in a day.
He said: “We would start work in the morning and carry on to the evening. He was very strict and there were lots of arguments. The message was clear - those who did not like it would have to leave.”
INSTANT IMPACT
But the impact was instant. Ajax’ first game under Michels saw a 9-3 win over MVV Maastricht.
With their movement becoming automatic, Ajax created space where it did not exist, while being able to close down holes and force errors from the opposition.
Michels’ ethos was simple but effective, about constantly being capable of surprise. He was dubbed “The General”, apt indeed for a man who said: “Football is something like war. Whoever behaves too properly is lost.”
His six years at Ajax brought four Dutch titles, three domestic cups and, in 1971, the European Cup, in a Wembley win over Panathinaikos.
BARCA BOOM
He then moved to Barcelona, landing Cruyff in 1973 - after Ajax had won two more European crowns under Stefan Kovacs - and winning La Liga together. But the call of his country was too strong to resist and for many of a certain vintage the Dutch team of 1974 is the greatest monument to Michels.
Cruyff had quality around him. Johan Neeskens, Ruud Krol, Keizer, Johnny Rep and Wim Jansen among others. But the structure was designed by Michels. Fluid, gorgeous, a joy to watch.
Had the Dutch won that final in Munich, rather than being beaten by West Germany, it might have surpassed the legends of Brazil in Mexico four years earlier.
Michels, though, retained his belief, in further spells back at Ajax and barca and also with his homeland, winning the 1988 European Championships in a Final remembered for Marco Van Basten’s wonder-strike.
By then, the influence was growing, with Cruyff the disciple who was, arguably, to transcend his master, developing the Dream Team and strategies that have become the hallmark of the Nou Camp side ever since.
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Guardiola, part of Cruyff’s team, bought into the same philosophy, refining it - as his own manager had done 20 years before - into a system and approach fit for the modern era.
It is one thing to inspire a team. Altogether another to retain a driving influence long after you have died.
That, though, is Michels’ legacy. An enduring one. Something witnessed in the Champions League last week, at the top of the Premier League table now. Without Michels, football would not be the same.