The high priest of Total Football was clearly ready to excommunicate Nigel de Jong and John Heitinga. But Cruyff’s analysis misses the point: Holland’s approach in Johannesburg would have paid off in spectacular fashion had Arjen Robben not fluffed a chance to give Bert van Marwijk’s side the lead in the eighty-second minute. The beasts would have done what the beauties never could, and taken the World Cup back to the Netherlands. It may not make for good viewing, but ugliness is no barrier to success. To paraphrase Reiner Calmund, the bombastic former sporting director at Bayer Leverkusen,
...more
