He would have made us stronger. I think people were very disappointed at the time he did not go. But last night, Archie Gemmill, whose mazy run to score the winning goal for Scotland in their pyrrhic victory over the Dutch at the group stage is the stuff of Scottish folklore, insisted Cruyff's presence would have made little difference in that match at least.
Maybe we would have beaten them instead of We won the game, and that is it. Cruyff enjoyed a glittering footballing career. He was first selected to play for Ajax at the age of 17 and went on to win three European Cups with the Dutch side. He later played for Barcelona before returning as manager, leading the club to the European Cup in He was voted European Footballer of the Year, three times during the s. Graham Hunter, a Barcelona-based football commentator, said: "As a footballer, Cruyff was elegant, visionary and skilled beyond measure.
He ranks third among the best footballers ever, after Pele and Maradona. Cruyff, 60, declined to say if the kidnap attempt was one of the reasons why he decided to leave Barcelona in But his spokesman, Joan Patsi, confirmed Cruyff's comments. But in the radio interview, he said he wanted to put a stop to these rumours, which have surfaced again in a recently published book by another former Barca player, Carles Rexach. In Holland, there is still a lingering belief that if Cruyff had played in the World Cup finals, Holland may have come home with the coveted trophy.
They have never come as close since. Marteen Wijffels, a Dutch football journalist, said: "If he had played we could have won the World Cup. He would have made us stronger. I think people were very disappointed at the time he did not go. But last night, Archie Gemmill, whose mazy run to score the winning goal for Scotland in their victory over the Dutch at the group stage is the stuff of Scottish folklore, insisted Cruyff's presence would have made little difference in that match at least.
Maybe we would have beaten them instead of We won the game, and that is it. Cruyff enjoyed a glittering footballing career. He was first selected to play for Ajax at the age of 17 and went on to win three European Cups with the Dutch side. He later played for Barcelona before returning as manager, leading the club to the European Cup in He was voted European Footballer of the Year, three times during the s.
Graham Hunter, a Barcelona-based football commentator, said: "As a footballer, Cruyff was elegant, visionary and skilled beyond measure. He ranks third among the best footballers ever, after Pele and Maradona. Cruyff 60 declined to say if the kidnap attempt was one of the reasons why he decided to leave Barcelona in Another theory, still prevalent today, is that "he didn't want to visit Argentina in protest against the Videla dictatorship", in the words of one of the former footballer's friends, Jordi Finestres, in reference to Jorge Videla, the country's ruler from to , who was subsequently imprisoned for life for crimes against humanity.
However, Cruyff himself claimed that the motives were not political in an interview with Peruvian newspaper supplement 'Deporte Total'. If it had been for political reasons I would have never played in Spain during the Franco dictatorship", he said. Imagine Souness if Pogba did this! The Dutch squad that subsequently travelled to South America may have been denuded of its best player, but it was still heaving with talent.
The Scots needed to beat the Dutch by a margin of three and that goal by Archie Gemmill just watch Trainspotting put them within touching distance of doing so. That impossible dream lasted for only three minutes, however; Rep scoring next with a yard piledriver to reduce the deficit back to one. Argentina, The Netherlands miss out on World Cup glory for the second tournament in a row, as the hosts end the game in extra-time with a victory WorldCupCountdown pic.
The format of the tournament required the eight qualifiers from the first-round to be placed into two further groups of four, the winners of which would contest the final. The unexpected defeat to the Scots meant that the Netherlands only qualified as runners up, their punishment being a place in the toughest of the two second round groups. That reversal of fortune belatedly sparked the Dutch into life, with their thrashing of Austria reminding the world just why they were one of the pre-tournament favourites.
A thrilling draw with West Germany followed and then came the result that secured their place in the final: a defeat of Italy decided by a long range strike from Arie Haan that remains one of the finest goals ever scored at a World Cup.
Victory, however, came at a price. The Dutch goalkeeper, Piet Schrijvers, was injured as Italy scored their goal, having to be replaced by the thirty-seven-year-old Jan Jongbloed, whose best days were clearly behind him. Jongbloed would be needed again for the final.
0コメント