The Total Football style of play made Holland arguably the greatest soccer team of the 1970s. It's a style epitomized by the Dutch team captain and star player Johan Cruyff. According to the International Football Hall of Fame, "If Holland were the team that gave the world Total Football, then Johan Cruyff was THE Total Footballer." In short, Total Football describes a style of play where any player can play any position. In the Dutch team, all of the players had equal levels of technical ability and physical skill, although it's fair to say that equaling Cruyff's phenomenal skill was a tall order. He was a player who seemed to effortlessly score goals from everywhere and anywhere on the pitch. So, with such undeniable technical and physical ability making them a force to be reckoned with, why were Holland unable to win the World Cup in 1974?
I read an opinion piece once in which the writer said, "while the Dutch quarreled, the German's played." There's your answer right there. Physically, Holland possessed an almost innate sense of timing and their combined skills as a team meant they generally kept possession of the ball too! However, their superior ball skills also allowed overconfidence to develop and the team displaying a degree of arrogance on the pitch. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but and it's a big but!They knew they were good and that manifested itself into believing they knew best. When situations occurred that led to 'discussions' with officials, the Dutch players did not cope well with decisions going against them. It takes mental skills to remain focused in high pressure situations, especially when things are not going your way, and it seems that mental skill was the only thing the Dutch team lacked. It's my opinion that Holland lost the 1974 World Cup final because as a team, they were unable to remain focused on what really mattered, and to disregard the rest.
At half-time, the West German team were a goal ahead of Holland. Was that the psychological blow that stopped the technically untouchable Dutch squad in their tracks? If you know you're superior, what happens when you're a goal down to a team you perceive as inferior? With mental skills training, you learn coping strategies for every situation; you learn how to remain focused and, crucially, how to remain positive. You can't change what has already happened but you can influence what happens next. In the second-half of the 1974 World Cup final, what would have happened if Holland's mental skills had matched their physical abilities?
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