Football Culture and on-field performance

'This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.’

Football writer Gary Thacker recounts the line from Don McLean’s 1972 single, Vincent – a tribute to the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh – within a discussion about the Netherlands sides who finished as runners-up in both the 1974 and 1978 World Cups.

Thacker explains how he has used a play on those words – “The World Cup was never meant for one as beautiful as you” – within Beautiful Bridesmaids Dressed in Oranje, his upcoming book about those two ultimately unsuccessful, yet iconic, international teams.

Are Rinus Michels’ ’74 outfit and Ernst Happel’s ’78 vintage – both seen as ultimate examples of the free-flowing Total Football style – more fondly remembered because they weren’t the winners? Quite possibly.

That, admittedly, is difficult to prove or disprove without access to a parallel universe where the team in orange became world champions.

But what we can say is that they aren’t remembered because they were winners.

Therefore, their legend becomes something else. Something to do with who they were and how they played.

They’re almost an embodiment, therefore, of reassurance. Reassurance that there is plenty beyond the winning, drawing or losing part of the footballing experience – and perhaps life in general.

That largely depends on interpretations. Much like any form of art, of course.

Interpretations are often what gives a style context – and, arguably, a sense of identity.

When considering how supporters can almost align themselves with a team’s style, Seb Stafford-Bloor – of Tifo Football and The Athletic – recalls how Stoke City fans “used to really revel in what [Tony] Pulis had created and they used to sing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, that kind of thing.”

There is plenty of pride to be taken in – and fun to be had – with the approach of your own team, or others’.

“I don’t think it’s really about 3-5-2 or 4-3-3, I think it’s about the texture of the side,” he adds.

Stafford-Bloor, who is a Spurs fan, also explains how: “For a lot of fans, especially fans who are a little bit older – I include myself in this – the winning and losing is important, it’s not the only thing. I don’t mind losing – within reason. I like the idea of a journey. I like the idea of – okay, well, we weren’t very good here but there were improvements in this area of the game, in this area of the game, in this area of the game.”

Method of approach will often be high on supporters’ priority lists. FC Barcelona – a club heavily influenced by Johan Cruyff, the leading light of that previously referenced era of Dutch football – have represented one of the clearest examples of that over recent years.

Fans take a great deal of pride in their world-renowned possession-based approach – described as ‘tiki taka’ during Pep Guardiola’s time as manager between 2008 and 2012.

“That style of play is the most important thing in Barcelona right now,” says Josep Aulet Salazar, a Barcelona fan who has grown up in the city.

“Since Johan Cruyff brought it and made the ‘Dream Team’, as they called it, they mainly played like that because of his experience and made the whole of La Masia learn how to play that style, so players could get into the first team and know how to play it because it’s not the same when you get into a new team with a new game style.

“You’ve got to adapt yourself, you’ve got to improve, you’ve got to learn how your teammates perform in every single position. When you are learning that since you are five years old, you arrive to the first team and you already know it because every single left-back does the same thing in every single moment so it's really about that.

“When Pep Guardiola arrived, he even improved it. So, we saw results with that style, we saw that we were having fun. It was the best thing that could happen. So it’s really, really valued.

“For example, with [Quique] Setién, with [Ernesto] Valverde, with all of these, we lost that team style so all Barcelona fans were angry, they were sad. Results weren’t there and, even when results were there, we weren't happy.

“You might win a game but if you're not playing well, if you're not keeping possession, if you're not doing that famous tiki taka style, Barcelona fans are not going to be happy. So, it's really – in my opinion and I think in most opinions of Barcelona fans – the most important thing. More than players, more than money, more than anything.”

The emphasis that Joan Laporta – who was elected as the club’s president in March – placed on increasing the output of La Masia, the club’s famous academy, was another reflection of the value stylistics can hold.

That can also, arguably, be seen in the variety of opinions that surround the development of Total Football.

“The theory of Total Football, the genesis of it, is a massive debate,” says Thacker.

“It’s popularly ascribed to Michels, although some people say it was Vic Buckingham – the English guy who was coaching there before him – or you go back to Karl Rappan and the Austrian Wunderteam in the ‘30s, so many different things.

“But, basically, it was a fluent tactical system and the idea was that you had lots of players who could play in different positions. That’s loosely what it is. Obviously, Feyenoord became the first Dutch team to win the European Cup, as it was in those days, in 1970 and then Ajax took the next three.

“So, it became the dominant paradigm of football in Europe. And, you know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so obviously lots of people took it over.”

One of the most engaging supporter-manager and, indeed, supporter-team relationships of recent years is widely seen to be that at Liverpool, where – prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, at least – Jürgen Klopp, his team and the Anfield crowd grew into an increasingly powerful collective unit. They seem to fit each other like a glove.

Neil Atkinson, CEO of The Anfield Wrap, explains that – while Klopp’s high-intensity tactical philosophy may be very much to the taste of Liverpool supporters – it would be similarly appreciated by so many fanbases. The difference-maker is more the social, spiritual freedom he is offered.

“Rather than the idea of gegenpressing, rather than the idea of that and saying ‘oh well, that’s unique to Liverpool.’ It isn’t. But Klopp getting to be the Jürgen Klopp he wants to be, at this moment in time, is unique to Liverpool,” he says.

“Because, if he’d have gone to a number of other clubs, there would have been the desire to imprint some degree of their corporate outlook onto Jürgen Klopp, rather than allow the room for Klopp to be himself.”

Stafford-Bloor makes a similar observation.

“I think Klopp does a really good job of playing to how the club sees itself, if that makes sense. I think he is an excellent communicator. He behaves in a way that you want if you're a Liverpool fan.”

There is, clearly, so much to be said in relation to the relevance of style – both tactically and spiritually – within football. Then again, though, a lot of it feels almost happily intangible and, indeed, reliant on interpretation.

Which makes it additionally clear that football can be at its best as a two-way street.

The pandemic – and empty grounds – have exacerbated that.

An appreciation, a convergence, from a fanbase or a wider audience is what gives these approaches a more tangible place within the footballing picture.