GRAEME SOUNESS RAISES an eyebrow. ”So what is ‘the Ajax way’ then?”
I’m trying to argue that Manchester United might have their hands full ahead of Wednesday night’s Europa League final; that this young Ajax team have been very impressive in the competition so far, embodying the club’s great attacking traditions under coach Peter Bosz, a disciple of the late, legendary Johan Cruyff.
“Y’know…home grown…youth…attacking…er…Cruyff…that sort of thing…”
“The game’s about players,” Graeme says. “Always has been and always will be.”
A few hours later and I can see his point. Ajax have been well beaten, partly due to being crushed by Jose Mourinho’s tactical garbage compactor, and partly because they are actually mostly a bunch of barely post-pubescent boys, and not the spirit of Total Football reborn anew. Players, pure and simple.
Or not, especially as far as managers are concerned.
“I haven’t seen the Ajax that I’m used to, which means good football, high pressing and being dominant,” the defeated Bosz complained.
“High pressing was difficult because Man United only played long balls and didn’t take any risks in the build-up. I think it was a boring game.”
The ‘pimply kids getting their bottoms spanked’ narrative was of no interest to Bosz. He felt that ‘the Ajax way’ – in all its purity and perfection – had been sabotaged by United’s approach to the game.
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And his unspoken charge: What happened to the Manchester Unitedway?
That’s a question a few people have been asking lately, though not many United fans on Wednesday night. In our studio the discussion included admiration for the latest in a long line of Mourinho big game kills, but also the need to point out the unavoidable fact that we’d just been watching, to borrow Jorge Valdano’s immortal phrase, shit on a stick.
George Best is a, erm, slightly different style of player to Marouane Fellaini. PA Archive / PA Images
PA Archive / PA Images / PA Images
United fans, high on the joy of winning a European trophy and relieved at a return to the Champions League, couldn’t have cared less. The end justified the means. So what if the club of Edwards, Best and Cantona now preferred to launch intercontinental ballistic clearances toward to the head of Marouane Fellaini?
Finals are for winning, they argued vehemently on Twitter, and this was one United really needed to win.
Later on Wednesday night, BBC screened a documentary about one of the great final wins. Glasgow 1967: The Lisbon Lions was part social history, part retelling of Celtic’s finest hour.
On one hand it was a reminder of how much about the Lisbon Lions is now historical artefact.
The Dickensian poverty of Glaswegian slum life into which many of them were born; the celebrated fact that the team amounted to, in Hugh McIlvanney’s words, a Glasgow & Disctrict XI; the existence of only grainy ciné footage of the quarter-final win over Vojvodina, compared to today’s multi-camera overkill; and the depressing reality of modern football that Celtic – like Ajax, or any big club from a small league – could never hope to achieve the same feat now.
But on the other hand, much is the same. Inter Milan, Celtic’s opposition in the final, scored early then conceded possession for the remainder of the game, happy to soak up pressure and defend their lead. Sound familiar?
There’s nothing new about how Manchester United played on Wednesday night.
Writing about Arsene Wenger’s distaste for Chelsea’s counterattacking style in The Sunday Times last weekend, Brian Glanville pointed out that Arsenal’s great 1930s team employed the same tactic.
Glanville wrote that Cliff Bastin, one of the stars of that side, told him that the team grew worried when they had too much of the ball.
So what’s wrong with United’s tactics, if they not only won them a trophy, but also fit into a well-established historical reality?
Though they can no longer compete with their own past, Ajax and Celtic still tell a story about themselves that puts them in the centre of it.
To their fans, Celtic will always be the club that overwhelmed the stifling catenaccio of Inter with, as Jock Stein put it, “pure, beautiful, inventive football,” even when their most famous recent win, the 2-1 defeat of Barcelona in 2012, was achieved by stout defence and opportunism at the other end.
Cruyff faces Beckenbauer in a European Cup quarter-final. DPA / PA Images
DPA / PA Images / PA Images
Ajax will always be the club of Total Football, despite the financial realities of modern football meaning they can no longer aspire to dominate Europe like in Cruyff’s era.
The stories that we tell about ourselves are important. They provide identity and meaning. Manchester, the city, fell back on its story in the most difficult circumstances this week. That story was about decency, togetherness, generosity and spirit, and it helped the city deal with the horror of Monday night.
On a more trivial level, the story that football clubs tell about themselves also defines their identity, and United’s is one of the best there is. From the Busby Babes to the Holy Trinity, the Class of ’92 to Ronaldo & Rooney, theirs is a tale of glamour, excitement and glory.
It’s hard to work Stockholm – hurling projectiles at the head of a beanpole Belgian and sitting deep against a team of gangly kids – into that story.
Mourinho’s style suited the reality of where United were on Wednesday night, an occasion for needs-must practicality. But deep down United fans will know that it didn’t feel right. The game is about players, but also what you do with them.
United’s story is about winning trophies, yes, but so much more too, and without it they become just another superclub with a particular fondness for Asian noodle sponsorships.
Whatever happened to the Manchester United way?
GRAEME SOUNESS RAISES an eyebrow. ”So what is ‘the Ajax way’ then?”
I’m trying to argue that Manchester United might have their hands full ahead of Wednesday night’s Europa League final; that this young Ajax team have been very impressive in the competition so far, embodying the club’s great attacking traditions under coach Peter Bosz, a disciple of the late, legendary Johan Cruyff.
“Y’know…home grown…youth…attacking…er…Cruyff…that sort of thing…”
“The game’s about players,” Graeme says. “Always has been and always will be.”
A few hours later and I can see his point. Ajax have been well beaten, partly due to being crushed by Jose Mourinho’s tactical garbage compactor, and partly because they are actually mostly a bunch of barely post-pubescent boys, and not the spirit of Total Football reborn anew. Players, pure and simple.
Or not, especially as far as managers are concerned.
“I haven’t seen the Ajax that I’m used to, which means good football, high pressing and being dominant,” the defeated Bosz complained.
“High pressing was difficult because Man United only played long balls and didn’t take any risks in the build-up. I think it was a boring game.”
The ‘pimply kids getting their bottoms spanked’ narrative was of no interest to Bosz. He felt that ‘the Ajax way’ – in all its purity and perfection – had been sabotaged by United’s approach to the game.
And his unspoken charge: What happened to the Manchester United way?
That’s a question a few people have been asking lately, though not many United fans on Wednesday night. In our studio the discussion included admiration for the latest in a long line of Mourinho big game kills, but also the need to point out the unavoidable fact that we’d just been watching, to borrow Jorge Valdano’s immortal phrase, shit on a stick.
United fans, high on the joy of winning a European trophy and relieved at a return to the Champions League, couldn’t have cared less. The end justified the means. So what if the club of Edwards, Best and Cantona now preferred to launch intercontinental ballistic clearances toward to the head of Marouane Fellaini?
Finals are for winning, they argued vehemently on Twitter, and this was one United really needed to win.
Later on Wednesday night, BBC screened a documentary about one of the great final wins. Glasgow 1967: The Lisbon Lions was part social history, part retelling of Celtic’s finest hour.
On one hand it was a reminder of how much about the Lisbon Lions is now historical artefact.
But on the other hand, much is the same. Inter Milan, Celtic’s opposition in the final, scored early then conceded possession for the remainder of the game, happy to soak up pressure and defend their lead. Sound familiar?
There’s nothing new about how Manchester United played on Wednesday night.
Writing about Arsene Wenger’s distaste for Chelsea’s counterattacking style in The Sunday Times last weekend, Brian Glanville pointed out that Arsenal’s great 1930s team employed the same tactic.
Glanville wrote that Cliff Bastin, one of the stars of that side, told him that the team grew worried when they had too much of the ball.
So what’s wrong with United’s tactics, if they not only won them a trophy, but also fit into a well-established historical reality?
Though they can no longer compete with their own past, Ajax and Celtic still tell a story about themselves that puts them in the centre of it.
To their fans, Celtic will always be the club that overwhelmed the stifling catenaccio of Inter with, as Jock Stein put it, “pure, beautiful, inventive football,” even when their most famous recent win, the 2-1 defeat of Barcelona in 2012, was achieved by stout defence and opportunism at the other end.
Ajax will always be the club of Total Football, despite the financial realities of modern football meaning they can no longer aspire to dominate Europe like in Cruyff’s era.
The stories that we tell about ourselves are important. They provide identity and meaning. Manchester, the city, fell back on its story in the most difficult circumstances this week. That story was about decency, togetherness, generosity and spirit, and it helped the city deal with the horror of Monday night.
On a more trivial level, the story that football clubs tell about themselves also defines their identity, and United’s is one of the best there is. From the Busby Babes to the Holy Trinity, the Class of ’92 to Ronaldo & Rooney, theirs is a tale of glamour, excitement and glory.
It’s hard to work Stockholm – hurling projectiles at the head of a beanpole Belgian and sitting deep against a team of gangly kids – into that story.
United’s story is about winning trophies, yes, but so much more too, and without it they become just another superclub with a particular fondness for Asian noodle sponsorships.
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UEFA Europa League Jose Mourinho Opinion Manchester United The United Way tommy martin Tommy Martin Column