Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #7: Netherlands 1988

Back to the international fray and a warm welcome to Magic Spongers for Richard Hall on the Dutch Euro '88 champions

Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Johnny Bosman. Yes, Johnny Bosman. At the beginning of June 1988, these three men were key to Dutch hopes of winning the European Championship in West Germany.

At the beginning of the decade, the celebrated 1970s side had faded away, replaced as is often the way in footballing nations with small populations, with an inferior crop of players. The Dutch game was no longer cutting edge, tactically, evident in the subsequent failure to qualify for the finals of World Cups in Spain or Mexico. Or the 1984 European Championship in France, which was won by a Michel Platini-inspired team that had picked up the mantle of sophisticated, progressive football relinquished by the Netherlands after their World Cup final defeat in Buenos Aires in 1978.

Web Of Deceit

"Am I allowed to go back to Liverpool now?"

Spurs season ticket holder Hugh Lindley makes his debut for Magic Spongers

Official football club websites fascinate me. Getting the ‘official line’ on any controversial story is usually as fascinatingly false as the seemingly implausible scandals pedalled in newspapers are true. On club websites, journalists are routinely derided as liars, stirrers and heathens – before their stories invariably turn out to be true.

Rafa's Cracking Luck

Almost exactly a year ago, before this blog was even so much as a twinkle in its fathers’ eyes, I wrote this article for When Saturday Comes about Rafael Benitez. Assuming you don’t read it – I don’t know, maybe you’re a disillusioned Liverpool fan, maybe you just don’t like Spanish people – the gist of it is this: Benitez is great when he inherits a side. When he starts buying players, things invariably go tits up.

Foot And Mouth

Sometimes, in certain situations, with certain people, you just have to sit back, take your hat off and admire. I caught myself doing exactly that today when I read Jose Mourinho’s comments in the build up to tonight’s Champions League clash at the Nou Camp. He’s at it again. Every word that passes this man’s lips are studied. Here’s a snippet from the professional flame fanner: "It is not a dream for Barca, it is obsession. The obsession is reaching the final in Madrid. It's one thing to follow a dream, it's another to have an obsession. For Barca it is an obsession.” Mourinho knows full well that he throwing cats among pigeons with such a comment. He has made a career out of it. That and being a bloody good manager. And then he reaches for another bag of cats: "The only thing I told my players was that I wanted them to support the work of the referee and if the Barcelona players want to do the same, it will be easy for the referee." Classic Jose. A clear dig at the perceived theatrics of the Barca players designed not only to infuriate them but to sow the slightest seed of doubt in the referee’s mind. And off he goes, pigeons everywhere, knowing his work is done.

Meanwhile, one man uncharacteristically not in English headlines this week has been the maestro, Lionel Messi. Another man whose unique skills deserve to be admired. Whereas Mourinho seeks to dominate proceedings off the pitch, it is the Argentine whom, along with Xavi, is the one most likely to carve open even the most obstinate Inter defence. They will be marked men of course, and in the form of Lucio, Walter Samuel and Esteban Cambiasso, their task may well prove thankless once more. But remembering the build up to the Arsenal game, the one in which Messi left all and sundry with jaws dropped down to their feet, the mercurial one was hardly mentioned. Four goals later and he was being revered as a talent to compare with Maradona. Again, I speak in English terms here. In Spain, they already knew the boy’s worth. But it is a very English phenomenon to only entertain thoughts of a player’s greatness if they pull a big performance out against Premier League opposition.

Back to tonight, and in essence, we see a tête-à-tête between Mourinho and Messi to determine who is to be the most revered come the season’s end. It is Mourinho’s great skill that he consistently manages to be more talked about than his players. This is a product of his vanity but at the same time a product of his canniness to appreciate that with the heat on him, his charges can bask in relative obscurity and therefore operate in a less tense atmosphere. If he wins the European Cup this year with Inter, Mourinho will join such illustrious company as Sir Alex Ferguson, Brian Clough and Arrigo Sacchi, to have won it twice.

Messi, on the other hand, has the perfect platform to prove his greatness credentials against Inter. At 3-1 down, against a side so well-drilled, he will have his work cut out. He will have to create space against a side that doesn’t give any. He will be kicked. His shirt will be pulled. But a Messi-inspired Barca win, taking them back the final, would go a long way to silencing any detractors there may be out there to his claims to greatness. Of course, there are plenty of others who could have a say in tonight’s events, but you just get the feeling that the battle will come down to a straight fight between two of the season’s irresistible forces: one man’s mouth against another’s twinkling feet. Adam Bushby

Inter Industry Stifles Barcelona

So it wasn't goalless after all. Jose Mourinho added another notch to his tactical bedpost with only his third career victory over Barcelona, but his Serie A side did it by applying a bit of traditional Italian resilience to their interpretation of the existing Barcelona blueprint.

The formations were identical. Barca saw Xavi tuck in behind their expected front three and Busquets and Keita used as holding midfielders. Inter lined up as they had at Stamford Bridge, surprisingly so, with Sneijder playing behind Milito while Pandev and Eto'o supported wide. Bold, even at the San Siro and especially by Mourinho's standards.

But it was not principally among these two front fours that the first leg of this semi final was decided. The deployment and mentality of the teams off the ball, as well as their ability to actually defend, held the key.

While Barca's response to losing the ball is to win it back as if their lives depend on it, Inter were quite prepared to soak up pressure. After all, it can take seconds to score a goal. Whether you've spent the previous ten minutes knocking around one-touch passes with gay abandon or kicking Messi and hoofing the ball over the halfway line is probably not a discussion that concerns Mourinho.

Inter's positional discipline won out over Barcelona's free spirits. Off the ball, they didn't panic during Barcelona's 65% of the possession, but were solid, organised and crucially, not afraid to put a foot in where many would be spellbound. On the break, they attacked in numbers, at pace and made a mockery of Barcelona's back four. Or at least two of them.

Having been guilty of some impossibly inept defending in the lead up to Barca's goal, Maicon improved. Meanwhile, having been guilty of getting sucked in towards the ball for Inter's first, Dani Alves was notably absent again as Sneijder nodded the ball across goal for Milito to score the third. With Barca's full-backs so often caught high up the pitch, Sneijder knew that a ball behind Barca's centre-backs would rarely be covered. In the event, most were uncharacteristically overhit, but when the space was exploited, Inter threatened. In the context of the game in general, strong, powerful strikers in advanced wide positions are not opposition that Barca's full backs are used to dealing with, especially with Sneijder enjoying sufficient freedom to roam and gang up on them with his forwards.

Maicon and Zanetti, the former's abberation aside, were committed first to defending, while Barcelona's pair are not defenders. Inter played on this and didn't allow Alves or Maxwell to escape their defensive duties, negating their exuberance going forward, while Mourinho had the luxury of knowing that while Maicon galloped upfield, Zanetti was unlikely to venture far beyond the halfway line. The Argentine even perpetrated that rarest of tricks – a perfectly-timed tackle on Lionel Messi.

This, amid other things going wrong for Barcelona on the night seemed to send Andy Gray into patronising overdrive. Not once was Xavi referred to without the prefix 'little', nor were we spoiled for references to the 'little genius'. With Ibrahimovic also playing like he was 5' 2 and Pedro completing the attacking quartet, size was not on Barca's side. Inter, by contrast, can hardly be described as diminutive, as their defending at times testified. Despite this excellent performance, however, they may have to stand even taller in the Nou Camp. Rob MacDonald