Rinus Michels - Football's Own Plato

Our society is rooted by some top of the line philosphers. The ideas they planted and the views they proposed are the very spectacles through which we see today's world. The football world is no different. Some philosophical figures have formed football as it is today. Today we have s look back at a visionary of this type.

1970 to 1979. After this period Brazil's Pele's legendary team was coming to it's demise. Hellenio Herrera's Inter, on the other hand, is nearing the end of his career. The one's who invented the famous Catenaccio. The dominance of Central Europe in football diminished and the dominance of Western Europe began.

It was around this time in the 70's that a certain man who was insane enough to start playing a different kind of football in Amsterdam of the Netherlands. With him are 15-20 very sour looking type football players. It seemed like that they are not given proper food from Ajax football club, but if you watch their game and how they play, it would seem like they have been playing football and football only for the whole time. The certain man gave the system he used, a nickname, "Total Football". And that man's name was Marinas Jacobs Hendricks Michels. And with the passing of time, that name became 'Rinus Michels'. This Rinus Michels is the father figure of three football teams. Now naturally the question arises, what is this thing? What is this total football anyway? That person had a theory. In today's world, Joshua Kimmich, Joao Cancelo, Frenkie de Jong, or Sergi Roberto are all called football all rounders. Rinus Michels's theory was that everyone on his team should be an all rounder. I'm a defensive midfielder, I'm not just going to do my own job, it should be possible for me to fit in a few more places with me, I have to be that kind of a player. This is the theory of Total Football. To put it bluntly, 'Total Football' was like this, everyone should be able to handle the defense when needed and everyone should be able to attack when needed.

Moving on to the tactical analysis of Rinus Michels's Total Football, The Ajax of the '70s or the Netherlands would have taken the field in a 4-3-3 formation on paper. During the attacking buildup, when one fullback would advance through his flank, another fullback would form a 'back three' by staying deep below. The central defensive midfielder and the central midfielder both went up. When the fullback was pressing high up the pitch, the two wingers would shift to two places. One would play as a second striker to support the main striker, the other would cut in and enter the opponent's box. Straightforwardly, in the system of Rinus, the positions of the 6 players up front would change constantly one after the other, one on this side and the other on that side. This would have been a danger for the opponent when the positions of 6 people were moving one after the other. As it is very hard to mark so many players and track their whereabouts. [1/2]