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1974’s heroes drift slowely away…

January 29th, 2009 | By: Jan | 18 Comments »

The group of players that mesmerized the world in 1974 was a bunch of hardheaded weirdo’s. And that hasn’t changed in the last 35 years. The generation ‘74 seems to drift slowely away, but the manner in which is still unfathomable. One sneaks away through a hole in the fence, the other reports for a crisis management job at Ajax only to leave like a thief in the night after two weeks…

Willem van Hanegem lost his job and his reputation at FC Utrecht, sneaking out through a hole in the fence, Johan Cruyff apparently broke with Ajax and his surrogate son Marco van Basten, last week it was icon no. 3 to disappear. Wim Jansen. Rumors say he was Gertjan Verbeek’s assistant at Feyenoord. And there are tv-images and witness reports that claim Jansen did show himself on the trainings pitch every now and then. He left exactly how he came: in silence.

Within Wim Jansen, there lives an intriguing man. 65 caps for Oranje, coaching experience all over the world. But he never ever felt the need to communicate with the media and indirectly with the fans.
We’ll never know what he did at Feyenoord, what his vision is, how the current meltdown has happened in Rotterdam, how Verbeek could have been saved for Feyenoord, what his contribution was…we’ll never know…

Wim Jansen…silent…

The silence of Wim Jansen was richly compensated in the 1974 squad by a number of rich characters, some of which still active in the football world.

It seems that bohemian Ruud Krol – one of the first to wear shoes without socks! – is still on a world tour. He played for Napoli in Italy and Vancouver, Canada after his Ajax period and coached in France, Belgium, Holland (Ajax), Switzerland, Egypte and now he’s in South Africa. Krol coaches the Orlando Pirates and climbed to the third spot last weekend.

Ruud Krol, elegant as ever…

But there are some who took weirder routes. Arie Haan worked at top class teams (Feyenoord, Anderlecht, VFB Stuttgart) until he found his career moving on to countries like Greece, Cyprus, Austria, China, Iran and Cameroon. He’s currently the team manager of Albania, of all nations. Former team mate Wim Suurbier, another nomad who had quite a career in the USA, is his assistant. Theo de Jong, sub in the 1974 finals, was Haan’s assistant in Albania, but he decided to come back to the Netherlands and become a scout for Willem II.

The other sub, Rene van der Kerkhof, is active as professional speaker and runs several companies with his brother Willy (who owns restaurants, golf resorts, wine importerships and a gift business). Goalie Jan Jongbloed coaches the B-juniors at Vitesse, Johan Neeskens manages Nederland B and John Rep…he never made it beyond amateur football clubs as a coach and since he quit at Pancratius, no one has seen the Golden Cock (as his was called, for always being on the right spot to score a simple sitter).

Young Johnny

Old John

Wim Rijsbergen was team manager of Trinidad and Tobago but is currently unemployed. Rob Rensenbrink is the only player who really quit the football world when he stopped playing. The wealthy investor wanted to focus on his family and fishing. The only thing he does, every four years when there’s an WC on, is come out of his hiding place to explain in front of the cameras that he would have liked to have scored in the 1978 finals instead of hitting the post…

Johan Cruyff is the only one who can call himself a successful top coach, at Barcelona and Ajax. He won European titles with both clubs. But, that book is closed. Van Hanegem had strong periods and successes with Feyenoord and in Saudi Arabie, but he suffered some damages with his Utrecht stumblings. Arie Haan will undoubtedly become the team manager of Frech Guyana or Sierra Leone one day, if Ruud Krol doesn’t beat him to it, that is.

Slowely but surely, this unique football generation will slip away.

Unfathomable as players, unfathomable in their lives beyond…

Tags: 1974, Cruyff, Group C, Haan, Jansen, Jongbloed, Krol, Oranje, Rep, Rijsbergen, Van Hanegem

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Comments

By finnster01 | January 29th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Legends all of them.

Except Joengbloed. Lost us the title.

By Felipe | January 29th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

I agree with Finn. Sort of curious that, JC apart, none of them had huge success in their coaching careers. But that’s life. I read some Dutchies can’t put up even with JC…

@Finn: BTW, do you know that, when he travelled to Germany, Jongbloed was so sure he wouldn’t play that he brought his fishing stuff, to make it as a past-time? But Rinus thought he would suit the system better than Schrijvers, so…

By finnster01 | January 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

@Felipe, yes I read about the fishing thing. I think actually Jan posted something about that but could be wrong. Either way, he didn’t score many points from me by his performance. Rightfully or wrongfully so. Didn’t help that Sepp Maier had the best day of his career in the other end either.

@Carlos and Ferenc: Looks like I will have to cancel my evil plans of joining you lads in Singa on the 18th of Feb. Can’t get a week off work and also have to coordinate with the girlfriend which further complicates matters. Anyway, can’t believe the cheap flights now though. I can get a return for 540 USD to Singapore from New York on Japan Air arriving on 18th and coming back a week later…incredible!!

By Brian | January 29th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

I can forgive Jongbloed for the saves he made in the 78 World Cup against Italy, when Holland were 1-0 down. Kept them in the game long enough for Brandts and Haan to sucke rpunch the Italians

Posted from United Kingdom

By Caleb | January 29th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

@Finnster – wow, those prices are unbelievable! I wish I could get prices as cheap as that!

Posted from Canada

By Carlos | January 29th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

@Finn – We shall think of you whilst eating Chili Crab and toasting you during our wine sessions buddy
Just read that Maguire has rejected the Irish Call up. He says he wants to see if he can make Oranje – If not he’ll be a Greenie !!

Posted from Singapore

By sonneveld | January 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

how about we all try to guess the starting line-up vs Tunisia.
My Guess

——Stekelenburg

marcellis-mathijsen-oijer-gio

—–van bommel-de jong

-van persie-sneijder-robben

——–huntelaar

By sonneveld | January 29th, 2009 at 8:24 pm

switch mathijsen and oijer

By Carlos | January 29th, 2009 at 10:24 pm

Sonneveld – Agree with your line up, but what is interesting is what will the second half bring ? Now there is something a little more difficult.

I would only change Robben with Kuyt for starters as I am sure BvM has an agreement to only play some big stars 45 min.

Kuyt to run them ragged – Robben to finish them off !

Posted from Singapore

By Mario | January 30th, 2009 at 12:04 am

Carlos:

I think Robben has to be starter now since he is playing excellent with Madrid.

By ferenc | January 30th, 2009 at 12:20 am

Carlos and Finn (and everybody): greetings from bali (ubud). sad that Finn cannot be in singapore between the 15th and 18th february. Carlos: i wil contact you,but don’t know how it works (i will stay at fragrance selagie hotel,little india). Jan,could you help me,please?
i still follow the blog and nice to read this article about the 74 heroes. interesting that only johan cruijff had a great career as a coach. i always enjoy when see him in the vip at barca’s games (this season almost every games).
Sonneveld: your defence looks to old. ooijer and gioo will be 36 next year… we definitely need to replace them by younger guys. agree with the kuijt-robben plan. the others are all right,except the always shaky matthijsen. i would definitely put boulah in the starting eleven,and – if he improves at atletico – heitinga as well. marcelis is a great perspective. and i wouldn’t forget one of my fav dutch players,emmanuelson. hope that vdv will find a correct club and leave this player-cemetery called real madrid. i have a major doubt about huntelaar as wll,and the problem is that we cannot see anyone who could play as a central striker. this is a bad sign – i remember when we had kluivert,rvn,van hoijdonk,hasselbaink an obviously denis bergkamp at the same time… time has changed…

Posted from Australia

By Jan | January 30th, 2009 at 1:03 am

Yo Ferenc, I’m more than happy to help. But…with what exactly??

I think Van Marwijk should start playing around with the team. Do some experiments.

Rest Gio, Ooijer, Mathijsen en give Marcellis, Schaars, Urby and others a shot. You don’t want to injure Robben or Van Persie so leave them in peace. Play Bommel as libero, De Jong and Schaars as holders, let Vaart do the creative bits and allow Hunter some playing time.

But, that’s why I write about it and Bert is actually in charge

By finnster01 | January 30th, 2009 at 3:20 am

De Jong had a great debut for Man City in their win and the press gave him very high marks

By finnster01 | January 30th, 2009 at 3:38 am

@Caleb and others: Off topic: Try cheapflights.com. It is an excellent service that searches all the other major ticket services (in the US anyway, expedia, orbitz, priceline etc.). They come up with some incredible offers. The only problem can be finding the right dates, but if you can be flexible and look ahead a bit, you can get some very sweet deals indeed. I mean 540-600 USD return New York to Singapore for a week in Feb on Japan Airlines is as cheap as I have ever seen it.

By Carlos | January 30th, 2009 at 5:48 am

Jan – can you give Ferenc my email address so he can contact me.
Cheers Mate !

Posted from Singapore

By Caleb | January 30th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

@Finn – Yeah, I have a site like that which I use to search for flights (sidestep.com). The prices seem to be about the same between the two sites. Guess it’s just cheaper to fly from New York than from Winnipeg, even if Winnipeg is actually closer.

Posted from Canada

By Bob | January 30th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

The 1974 team was my all time favorite Netherlands team. They were an unbelievably talented group of young men, way ahead of their time in many respects. The World Cup team even left behind some of the best talent in the Netherlands and still dominated the tournament. The remnant ‘78 team was also quite remarkable and came close to winning it all. These athletes were special, for their time, and I do not think the Dutch have yet to put together a team quite a gifted as that team. As Johan Cruijff says often, even when they lost in the finals, what everybody remembers from that tournament are the Dutch. So, who really won after all?

The truth then becomes revealed as their lives continued, that it would be very difficult to match the levels of achievement they reached in their youth. They were, collectively, the best of their day even though they lost two world cups. With the exception of Cruijff (when is he not THE exception?), none of them have been the BEST at what they have attempted, thus the disappointment– for them and for us. If an athlete can no longer play the sport, and has no other particular skills or interests, what does he do–he tries to coach. As we have said many times, great athletes very often do not make good coaches, and for a variety of reasons. Coaching is completely different from playing. Coaching requires a different set of mental and physical attributes, generally not associated with athletic prowess. So, the lack of success by so many of these great players is not surprising, only sad. Those that walked away from the sport as a profession were the luckiest–again, not Cruijff. As to Johan, he was and is a genius, so his coaching success came as no surprise.
However, I do honor these men, for the joy they gave us, for their skill and grace and competitive excellence. Are they fading away? Not in my mind and heart–Never!

Posted from United States

By Jan | January 30th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

I agree with this… The 1974 squad was unique to world football.

The thing with people like Krol, Van Hanegem and many other is also that they don’t care about “working at AC Milan, Man United or Real Madrid”. I think they enjoy to work as coaches in football. Someone like Krol (who was a King in Napels) could have done better but he always refused to be mediocre or play the political kiss-ass game. He was an adventurer. He had it in his playing style and he took it a step further in his post playing career. He became a dress man, he collected art and antique, lived the high life in Paris, was part of the scene there and decided to work with un-developed players in Egypt and many other places. And he was happy.

When he did his stint at Ajax with Ronald Koeman, he couldn’t be himself anymore and I don’t think he was happy there.

Van Hanegem has that too. These lads can’t be put in boxes or work in cubicles like many “bread” coaches do…

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