There's only two things I hate in this world.

People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. That's right - THE DUTCH! These guys have some of the best footballers in history - Johan Cruyuff, Johnny Rep, Marco Van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Marc Overmars and Edwin Van Der Sar - to only name a few ... and can't win the big prize (aka World Cup). How is this possible?! They've also had some of the greatest club teams and coaches in history, why has it yet to translate onto the biggest stage? Is it arrogance, insecurity or maybe even self destruction? Well, I won't spoil it for you, but David Winner does a pretty good job of explaining this in his all-encompassing history Dutch football in Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer.

I've laid it out in a couple previous reviews that I did not grow up with football. I can look back and wish I had, but alas, I am left with youtube clips and ideally good books to fill my gaps (errr canyons) in history. I really only know what might be called a basic history of Dutch football, that being their rivalry with Germany, World Cup losses, a Euro win, Ajax of the 70s, 90s and the likes of PSV and Feyenoord. But I never knew WHAT made Dutch football what it is/was. This is what Winner sets out to explain, and does an impressive job in doing so.

Brilliant Orange isn't just a straight up history of the game in Holland but seeks the reasons why, specifically, tactics like Total Football formed and players like Johan Cryuff or Van Basten blossomed. Winner's research is able to find it through history, geography, art and culture. In terms of history and geography, it is probably not a surprise that the idea of space is what drove the development of Dutch football in the late '60s and into the 70s. With so little territory, the dutch are obsessed with the notion of space and how to maximize it, or better, use it most efficiently. This general idea, which Winner explores much deeper, was most famously used on the pitch by manager Rinus Michels for the famous Ajax squad from 1965-1971. This team scored an absurd amount of goals over this period and in 1971 capped off the development of Total Football by winning their first of three European Cups against Panathinikos.


Early on much of the focus is on Ajax, and rightfully so, as most of Holland's greatest players ever came from this era and club. It transitions smoothly away from this and what might seem like dry subject matters of art, architecture and politics. Winner begins to focus primarily on the history of other clubs but mostly the story of the National team and their inability to win the World Cup despite having easily some of the best players, coaches and systems in the world. Hell, they have the right to what some say is the greatest move in football history:



To say Brilliant Orange is the complete history of Dutch football would be an understatement. It goes so much deeper than just naming names and recounting glorious matches. It truly does explain the "neurotic genius" of Dutch soccer and makes you wonder if they could ever get it together and win it all on the biggest stage. I've been lucky enough to read almost all of my football book in stages, where the likes of How Soccer Explains the World, or Soccer Against the Enemy have general chapters devoted to different footballing nations, it is good to get into something that takes you much further than the 1988 European Cup or 1970 World Cup.


After much thought a good summary could be this



orrrrr this, which for myself, and I'm sure others, is why I really wish I had an extra 15-20 years on my life to have seen this time in footballing history to appreciate (although I do) this exert that sums up that Ajax team of the 70s:

Barry Hulshoff later realised he was part of something extra-ordinary. After his playing career was over, he worked as a coach in Greece. On one occasion he found himself in a tiny, remote mountain village. 'An old man was standing in front of me. He took my hands and held them and he cried. It went on for four or five minutes. I was very embarrassed, I just didn't know what was going on. Later my translator explained it. He said there was no television in the village, so this old man used to walk for two hours to reach another village to watch Ajax games on television ... the man has loved Ajax and now, in front of him, he saw one of the players he used to watch. He couldn't understand it and he became very emotional.