Van Gaal's organic approach produces Total Football 2.0 with AZ
Leander Schaerlaeckens Monday 16 February 2009 10.51 GMT [Guardian]
Louis van Gaal has lost his religion. And in so doing, he has contrived a new one. By relinquishing his former belief system and marrying it to a more modern approach, Van Gaal has, with AZ, reinvented Total Football. Call it Total Football 2.0, if you will.
Total Football, as it was developed during the late 60s and early 70s, was in need of an update in order to accommodate the pace and skill of modern football, as it had become largely impractical. The system had been efficient in its time because it provided a certain quickness and appreciation for possession that stodgy oppositions lacked. But teams are no longer slow and static and acknowledge the perils of leaving the other team on the ball.
The maniacal pressing and high offside trap that Total Football prescribes – in order to keep the field small when out of possession and as wide as possible when in possession to retain the ball – is unsustainable today. The number of games and the pace at which they're played have become prohibitive in that regard. As it turns out, according to Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics, even the great Ajax of the 70s couldn't really pull it off either. Their team doctor had them on a steady diet of amphetamines, painkillers and muscle-relaxants. Van Gaal's Ajax of the mid-90s managed it only by virtue of having mostly players aged 18-22.
Furthermore, many of the modern players are specialists, unprepared to play every position on their vertical axis, the way the rapid swapping of positions of Total Football demands. It takes a decade or so for teams to learn how to instinctively switch spots. Today, clubs cycle through players so quickly that they haven't the time to master the system, whereas the Ajax teams of the 70s and 90s had been staffed largely from within, growing up together and on the system in the academy. And besides, players know they're more valuable if they play one position well, rather than being passable at two or three.
In Total Football, the individual becomes a cog in the machinery of the greater good. Self-sacrifice is irreconcilable with the modern footballer. Ironically, the blame for that lies with Johan Cruyff, the on-field brain behind Total Football's glory days during the 70s with Ajax and Holland, who became the first football star to cross over into pop culture as an icon of 60s rebellion but also of self-aggrandisement.
At face value, AZ's organically grown new method appears to be the mortal enemy of the Dutch football school because of its reluctant style. But on closer inspection, one finds more similarities than differences.
Built on the foundation of Total Football, AZ's game is to sit back and wait for their opponents to overstretch themselves and then break out. Their skilled, lightning-quick strikers are sufficiently superior to their guards to capitalise on only a handful of chances.
Van Gaal's system allows for more flair, giving the individual more room for improvisation, and is less stringent about formations – he's had his team play in at least four different shapes this year. AZ still apply asphyxiating pressure on their opponents, but they do so largely in their own half, rather than over the whole field. And when they gain possession they try to cross the field in three passes or fewer, usually ending in a through-ball for the strikers to run on to. They attack, in other words, in short and quick bursts and then dedicate themselves to letting the opposition do the work.
On Saturday, the new system withstood its greatest test yet at a reborn PSV – for one half anyway. While hounding PSV when they had the ball, AZ easily gained possession in the first half, resulting in two goals: Gill Swerts was able to head in a Stijn Schaars corner before a classic AZ attack provoked a penalty. After a save by the sure-handed Sergio Romero, Swerts played the ball on to Moussa Dembélé who, after a brief dribble, played a perfect through-ball to Demy de Zeeuw who was tripped up in the box. De Zeeuw missed his penalty but Maarten Martens converted the rebound.
Sitting back backfired in the second half, though, as a sloppier AZ saw a spirited PSV squeeze two goals past them through Danny Koevermans, who was ousted from AZ by Van Gaal two years ago. The 2–2 draw was fair, but ideologically, AZ were plainly superior. And the argument can no longer be made that AZ lead the Eredivisie by default because PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord are having an off-year. For AZ have now gone undefeated for five months and this weekend was their first failure to win in almost three months.
"I'm very disappointed," said Van Gaal afterwards, after warning that he rated PSV more than his own squad before the game. "I was once up 3–0 with Barcelona against Valencia and we lost 4–3 at home. That's possible in football. It was a real match with lots of battle but lots of mistakes too."
"If you go ahead 2–0 at PSV's stadium, you can't give it away," AZ's captain, Stijn Schaars, said. "I really don't even think they got any chances." "When you're behind 2–0 against the soon-to-be champions, you can be satisfied with a point," PSV's Koevermans added.
On Sunday, in an unusually tame classic – which was anything but that – Ajax weren't good but Feyenoord were even worse. A few hungry Ajax players sufficed for a 2–0 victory, even though Ajax hit the post and crossbar four times. While Real Madrid checks its receipt for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar for wording on its returns policy, Ajax sorely lack a finisher like, say, Huntelaar.
"The total decay of Feyenoord, the almost unrecognisable powerhouse of yore … evoked a deep sense of pity," Charles Bromet wrote in De Volkskrant. "Because what on earth were they doing, the confused footballers of caretaker manager [Leon] Vlemmings? There wasn't a single player capable of staying calm when in possession."
In another poor game, Steve McClaren's FC Twente were bailed out by an early red card for last-placed FC Volendam, who had been superior and had brashly gone ahead via a penalty in the sixth minute. Twente eventually laboured to a 2–1 win through a goal by Marko Arnautovic and a penalty by Blaise N'Kufo.
Results: Willem II 0–2 FC Utrecht; ADO 1–0 De Graafschap; NAC 1–0 Roda JC; FC Twente 2–1 FC Volendam; PSV 2–2 AZ; FC Groningen 2–0 Heracles; NEC 1–1 Heerenveen; Sparta 0–0 Vitesse; Ajax 2–0 Feyenoord.
Leander Schaerlaeckens Monday 16 February 2009 10.51 GMT [Guardian]
Louis van Gaal has lost his religion. And in so doing, he has contrived a new one. By relinquishing his former belief system and marrying it to a more modern approach, Van Gaal has, with AZ, reinvented Total Football. Call it Total Football 2.0, if you will.
Total Football, as it was developed during the late 60s and early 70s, was in need of an update in order to accommodate the pace and skill of modern football, as it had become largely impractical. The system had been efficient in its time because it provided a certain quickness and appreciation for possession that stodgy oppositions lacked. But teams are no longer slow and static and acknowledge the perils of leaving the other team on the ball.
The maniacal pressing and high offside trap that Total Football prescribes – in order to keep the field small when out of possession and as wide as possible when in possession to retain the ball – is unsustainable today. The number of games and the pace at which they're played have become prohibitive in that regard. As it turns out, according to Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics, even the great Ajax of the 70s couldn't really pull it off either. Their team doctor had them on a steady diet of amphetamines, painkillers and muscle-relaxants. Van Gaal's Ajax of the mid-90s managed it only by virtue of having mostly players aged 18-22.
Furthermore, many of the modern players are specialists, unprepared to play every position on their vertical axis, the way the rapid swapping of positions of Total Football demands. It takes a decade or so for teams to learn how to instinctively switch spots. Today, clubs cycle through players so quickly that they haven't the time to master the system, whereas the Ajax teams of the 70s and 90s had been staffed largely from within, growing up together and on the system in the academy. And besides, players know they're more valuable if they play one position well, rather than being passable at two or three.
In Total Football, the individual becomes a cog in the machinery of the greater good. Self-sacrifice is irreconcilable with the modern footballer. Ironically, the blame for that lies with Johan Cruyff, the on-field brain behind Total Football's glory days during the 70s with Ajax and Holland, who became the first football star to cross over into pop culture as an icon of 60s rebellion but also of self-aggrandisement.
At face value, AZ's organically grown new method appears to be the mortal enemy of the Dutch football school because of its reluctant style. But on closer inspection, one finds more similarities than differences.
Built on the foundation of Total Football, AZ's game is to sit back and wait for their opponents to overstretch themselves and then break out. Their skilled, lightning-quick strikers are sufficiently superior to their guards to capitalise on only a handful of chances.
Van Gaal's system allows for more flair, giving the individual more room for improvisation, and is less stringent about formations – he's had his team play in at least four different shapes this year. AZ still apply asphyxiating pressure on their opponents, but they do so largely in their own half, rather than over the whole field. And when they gain possession they try to cross the field in three passes or fewer, usually ending in a through-ball for the strikers to run on to. They attack, in other words, in short and quick bursts and then dedicate themselves to letting the opposition do the work.
On Saturday, the new system withstood its greatest test yet at a reborn PSV – for one half anyway. While hounding PSV when they had the ball, AZ easily gained possession in the first half, resulting in two goals: Gill Swerts was able to head in a Stijn Schaars corner before a classic AZ attack provoked a penalty. After a save by the sure-handed Sergio Romero, Swerts played the ball on to Moussa Dembélé who, after a brief dribble, played a perfect through-ball to Demy de Zeeuw who was tripped up in the box. De Zeeuw missed his penalty but Maarten Martens converted the rebound.
Sitting back backfired in the second half, though, as a sloppier AZ saw a spirited PSV squeeze two goals past them through Danny Koevermans, who was ousted from AZ by Van Gaal two years ago. The 2–2 draw was fair, but ideologically, AZ were plainly superior. And the argument can no longer be made that AZ lead the Eredivisie by default because PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord are having an off-year. For AZ have now gone undefeated for five months and this weekend was their first failure to win in almost three months.
"I'm very disappointed," said Van Gaal afterwards, after warning that he rated PSV more than his own squad before the game. "I was once up 3–0 with Barcelona against Valencia and we lost 4–3 at home. That's possible in football. It was a real match with lots of battle but lots of mistakes too."
"If you go ahead 2–0 at PSV's stadium, you can't give it away," AZ's captain, Stijn Schaars, said. "I really don't even think they got any chances." "When you're behind 2–0 against the soon-to-be champions, you can be satisfied with a point," PSV's Koevermans added.
On Sunday, in an unusually tame classic – which was anything but that – Ajax weren't good but Feyenoord were even worse. A few hungry Ajax players sufficed for a 2–0 victory, even though Ajax hit the post and crossbar four times. While Real Madrid checks its receipt for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar for wording on its returns policy, Ajax sorely lack a finisher like, say, Huntelaar.
"The total decay of Feyenoord, the almost unrecognisable powerhouse of yore … evoked a deep sense of pity," Charles Bromet wrote in De Volkskrant. "Because what on earth were they doing, the confused footballers of caretaker manager [Leon] Vlemmings? There wasn't a single player capable of staying calm when in possession."
In another poor game, Steve McClaren's FC Twente were bailed out by an early red card for last-placed FC Volendam, who had been superior and had brashly gone ahead via a penalty in the sixth minute. Twente eventually laboured to a 2–1 win through a goal by Marko Arnautovic and a penalty by Blaise N'Kufo.
Results: Willem II 0–2 FC Utrecht; ADO 1–0 De Graafschap; NAC 1–0 Roda JC; FC Twente 2–1 FC Volendam; PSV 2–2 AZ; FC Groningen 2–0 Heracles; NEC 1–1 Heerenveen; Sparta 0–0 Vitesse; Ajax 2–0 Feyenoord.
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