Here is a total football primer, as Lars might tell it. At the time of its development, Holland’s totaalvoetbal stood alone for its onslaught. Before, European soccer had been ruled by the champions of Italian defense: Juventus, Inter Milan, A.C. Milan. Then the Dutch side showed up, everyone on attack. The central idea was to foment an intensely supple flexibility. Basically, in total football, any player could decide to play virtually any role at any time. An attacker could suddenly choose to become a midfielder, or a defender could decide to go on attack. And while they made those transformations, reordering themselves, sprinting into space, a teammate would slide into the player’s prior function to cover his spot.
It was controlled chaos—unpredictable to opponents, thrilling for fans. But it demanded a lot, Lars would explain, for the men at work, with players flying in and out of positions. First of all, everyone on the field needed to be attuned to what everyone else was doing. Also, they needed to be able to play any position at any time, and play it tough. Also, they needed to run and run, just run nonstop.
Basically, it was a version of soccer that seemed, though elegant and clever, ultra aggro. Before total football, players didn’t roam the pitch freely, but here came Cruyff, maestro of them all, suddenly making an opponent’s defense seem full of holes. Total football, reduced to elementals, was about physics, Lars’s father’s specialty: It was about finding and claiming space, essentially creating space; when executed perfectly, it was about making space where previously there was none. Players like Cruyff, Johnny Rep, Ruud Krol—later, they’d say the system was subliminal, almost unconscious, partly because they’d played together so long and knew what each other were thinking, and where, any second, they might run next.
Today, total football is history. It passed away, perhaps, when Holland lost the 1974 World Cup final to West Germany. Or when zonal defense became the norm, when defenders started worrying more about pitch physics than marking a single man. The system did continue somewhat, at least genetically, in Spain, as one strain in the pass-heavy “tiki taka” system, aided by Cruyff’s successful tenure, post-playing career, as a Barça manager in the 1990s. But it’s mostly gone, an innovation out-innovated, and Cruyff is gone too, dead from cancer in 2016.
But none of that matters now. In World Cup history, the Netherlands has reached the final three times but never won—the only major football power not to grasp the trophy. Plus, the Orange failed to qualify in 2018. This squad isn’t a golden generation, but it’s young, talented, and has been playing well. Plus, they’re coached by soccer legend Louis van Gaal, who, like Lars, is a stubborn man with strong opinions. Who, like Lars, despises FIFA’s villainy. Who, in fact, is dying from cancer, and has been known recently to coach his team while wearing a colostomy bag; for the qualifier over Norway, he was in a wheelchair.
Rosecrans Baldwin
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