Former Ajax Players

[carcajou]

Mido scored twice for Tottenham.

[ajaxusa]

Mido scored twice for Tottenham.

I saw this game. Mido looked good. I predict he will be the toast of White Hart Lane for three weeks, then he'll feel slighted by the way his coach looks at him on the training pitch and it'll all begin to go south. Then, on to Rangers, where he'll score against Celtic and be king of Glasgow. For a week, after which he'll be put off by a reporter's questions and start looking for a new club that appreciates him...

(Sadly, the only taste of Ajax I can get on TV is the variety of former Ajacieden playing in England, Spain, Germany...)

[ajaxusa]

Nice article about Jari Litmanen in HELSINGIN SANOMAT:

Litmanen facing new challenges in Germany

PS: I liked these notes at the end:

Jari Litmanen's début in a Hansa Rostock shirt was a personal triumph, even if the club failed to record its first home win of the season. Hansa came back from 1-0 down to the highly-fancied Schalke and were leading 2-1 until the third minute of stoppage time, when Schalke snatched an equaliser and denied the home fans the three points with almost the last kick of the match. Hansa Rostock had by this stage been reduced to ten men, following the sending-off of their Swedish striker Marcus Allbäck. Litmanen, who played the full 90 minutes and was voted Man of the Match, was given the role of playmaker in the hole behind the strikers, and he reportedly fitted in well, linking up to good effect with Danes Thomas and David Rasmussen on the flanks.

Litmanen will need to go on delivering, however, as the result leaves Hansa Rostock still a couple of points adrift of Freiburg and Bochum at the bottom of the table. Hansa travel next weekend to Kaiserlautern, currently lying 10th in the table. Before then, Litmanen has been picked by coach Antti Muurinen for the Finnish national squad to play in a friendly tournament in Cyprus, with matches on Tuesday against Latvia and on Wednesday against either Austria or the hosts. Finland's next full international is the World Cup qualifier away to the Czech Republic on March 26th.

[ajaxusa]

Not sure if this is the right place for this. We don't have a "Former Coaches" thread... Here's an entertaining article about Marco Van Basten:

Happy Van Basten's laid-back revolution

Quote: "Here is a 40-year-old whose post-playing cv had read "1995-2002 lots of golf" and "2003, coach of Ajax reserves" before, amazingly, he was given the keys to the Oranje last summer." :cheer:

[DanK]

Not sure if this is the right place for this. We don't have a "Former Coaches" thread... Here's an entertaining article about Marco Van Basten:

Happy Van Basten's laid-back revolution

Quote: "Here is a 40-year-old whose post-playing cv had read "1995-2002 lots of golf" and "2003, coach of Ajax reserves" before, amazingly, he was given the keys to the Oranje last summer." :cheer:

van basten was the reason i fell in love with football again. that man was a true footballing genius.

[ajaxusa]

The doubts about Mido are beginning to swirl in London... but no substance to them yet.

MIDO WILL DO ....FOR NOW on SportingLife.com

[LucaS]

All old news. I don't think there are any doubts with Jol or the fans of Tottenham yet. The site isn't that reliable either (?)...Mido never formed a dynamic duo with Ibrahimovic, they seldom played together..

[Kowalczyk]

The great Rinus 'The General' Michels, former player of Ajax and Oranje and the inventor of 'total football' as coach of the same two teams in the early 1970s, has been brought to a hospital in the Belgian town of Aalst today. Michels, 77, had a few minor and not-so-minor heart attacks in recent years. His heart is weak and a bypass operation is necessary. The surgery will take place later this week. The operation is said to be 'risky' at the very least.

We'll see... The good man is getting really old. We're hoping for the best.

K.

[Kowalczyk]

His heart is weak and a bypass operation is necessary. The surgery will take place later this week.

Correction! NOS Teletekst changed their news report. Michels has already been under the knife. The operation was on Friday. The good news: it went well. The doctors are satisfied and Michels recovers well, given the circumstances.

Get well soon, General.

K.

[Kowalczyk]

NOS[ Teletekst changed their news report. Michels has already been under the knife. The operation was on Friday. The good news: it went well. The doctors are satisfied and Michels recovers well, given the circumstances.

Get well soon, General.

Sad news...

Rinus Michels has passed away last night, at age 77.

A football legend has left us. The inventor of 'total football', the architect of the 'Golden Ajax' of the 1970s, is no more. X'C X'C

Rest in peace, General.

Watch out for the news report on Ajax USA.

K.

[DanK]

Sad news...

Rinus Michels has passed away last night, at age 77.

A football legend has left us. The inventor of 'total football', the architect of the 'Golden Ajax' of the 1970s, is no more. X'C X'C

Rest in peace, General.

Watch out for the news report on Ajax USA.

K.

He will be sadly missed. A true genius and a "Total" Legend of Football in more ways than one.

[ajaxnumberone]

Hic I am so sad. Goodbye Rinus Michels. :nooo: That's too boring ! Menno, pls
give more details in your report, more images, fotos about his death in Amsterdam

[Philippe]

very sad news X'C ; we will never forget Rinus Michels; total football will never die :loveu:

wouldn't it be a decent decision to name the Arena after him ?

[Philippe]

European football mourns Michels
Thursday, 3 March 2005
Dutch coaching legend Rinus Michels, the inventor of 'total football', died this morning at the age of 77 in the City of Aalst hospital in Belgium.

Heart surgery
Michels had been in intensive care following preventive surgery on a cardiac valve. He previously had heart surgery in 1986. Born on 9 February 1928, Michels scored 120 goals in 257 league matches for AFC Ajax between 1946-1958. He won five Netherlands' caps during that time but it was for his achievements as a coach which he will be forever remembered.

European glory
Michels led Ajax to the first of three straight European Champion Clubs' Cups in 1971, and later coached the Netherlands to the 1974 FIFA World Cup final and glory at the 1988 UEFA European Championship. He also claimed a Spanish title with FC Barcelona in 1973/74 and ended his club coaching career with German side Bayer 04 Leverkusen in 1989. He retired after EURO '92.

Order of Merit
Michels' achievements were acknowledged by UEFA in April 2002 when he was presented with the Order of Merit award at the XXVI UEFA Ordinary Congress in Stockholm. The award is designed to honour those who have devoted a large part of their life to football and contributed to the game’s development and history.

[Philippe]

Preparing the Michels way
Thursday, 3 March 2005
The coaching fraternity lost one of its greats today as Rinus Michels died at the age of 77. The Dutchman, who coached AFC Ajax to European Champion Clubs' Cup glory and his country to success in the 1988 UEFA European Championship, previously spoke with uefa.com's Mark Chaplin about preparing for such showpiece fixtures.


Each team has its own way of preparing for a major tournament final. As well as training and working on tactics to counter the opposition, the staff and players will be seeking ways to relax.

First-hand experience
Rinus Michels, the great Dutch coach and UEFA technical expert, has plenty of first-hand experience of tournament finals. In 1974, he took a Netherlands side containing the great Johan Cruyff to the FIFA World Cup final against hosts West Germany in Munich. In 1988, Michels was back in charge of another generation of great Dutch players, leading Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and company to the UEFA European Championship final against the Soviet Union.

Let off steam
Michels was not only renowned for pioneering 'total football' - he was also a strict coach who emphasised the virtues of physical fitness and discipline. Nevertheless, he said that some form of letting off steam has to follow a team's passage into the final.

Four-day period
"There's usually a four-day period to fill between a semi-final and final," he said. "So, first, there has to be an emotional outburst - an emotional cleansing of all the tension." Michels said his teams held lengthy celebrations into the night: "It didn't matter what time they went to sleep."

Family visit
The Dutch way of doing things then came through after the celebrations. Michels explained that before his teams' finals, the families of the players and staff were allowed to visit the training camp. "Everybody could do what they wanted," he said. "It depends upon a country's culture. We in Holland are easy about these things."

Finding a balance
Following the festivities and family open day, training for the final started in earnest. But again, while there was always serious work to do, Michels tried to make sure it was not all hard graft. "The main task of a coach preparing for a final is to create a balance between relaxing and training. We tried to make the training 'joyful', with such things as football tennis, and found leisure activities to do as a group to fill part of the day."

Favourites
Finally, one thing that any coach and set of players must not do, warned Michels, is to relax too much before the final. The Dutchman recalled that in 1974 and 1988, one of his major tasks in the days before the game was to impress on his sides that the job was still not done. It was particularly important on both occasions, because Michels' teams went into each of the finals as favourites.

Emotionally prepared
"What happens is that when a team comes to a semi-final against Brazil [as the Dutch did in 1974] and wins, there is a feeling, a danger, that the ultimate goal has been achieved, and the players are not emotionally prepared for a final," said Michels. "A coach has to take care of that. He has to make clear that the ultimate goal is to win the final. Winning a semi-final only has sense if you prepare for the ultimate goal."

Threat
Michels made his point again in gentle, but firm fashion 14 years later. "After the 1988 semi-final [in which the Netherlands beat Germany], during the celebration, I was given a gold watch [by the team], and I was very emotional about that - I told them soon afterwards that I would give it back if we lost the final!"

This is an abridged version of an article which first appeared on uefa.com in 2002. Hear Rinus Michels talking about his 1974 and 1988 experiences by clicking the appropriate link on the top right-hand side of this page

[Mag]

such a bad news, such a great man had left us.......i feel extremely sorry...
Rinus Michels will be missed forever!

[muffin_]

I wake up, check football news and see this... What a shame. Rest in peace is all I can say, it will come to us all some day.

[Zitgaar]

What a sad news...........
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[Kowalczyk]

News report on Ajax USA... X'C

http://www.ajax-usa.com/news/2004-2005/ ... at-77.html

K.

[Over Pasanens Head]

Very sad news - a great manager and person.

I thank him for all the great memories he has given me.

RIP

[Manneken Pis]

A massive loss for world football.

RIP

[sonicdream]

Michels' contribution to Dutch football will never be forgotten.

A true legend.

Rest in peace -

:sad:

[Kowalczyk]

Rinus Michels was not only a 'Member of Honour' of AFC Ajax, but also a commissioner of AZ. The two clubs are currently talking about a stylish way to commemorate Mr Michels on Sunday, prior to the game between Ajax and AZ. Both teams will wear mourning bands and there will be a minute of silence - for starters.

It will be impressive.

K.

[SPL]

A great man who gave the footballing world Total Football and thanks to him made Ajax a world class great football club.

Thank you .

[ajaxusa]

A nice article with quotes from the New York Times:

The Legacy of Rinus Michels
By JACK BELL

Published: March 8, 2005


erhaps it was fitting that Ajax's first match after the death last week of Rinus Michels, its famous and accomplished coach, was postponed in Amsterdam on Sunday.

Ruud Krol, the team's new coach and one of Michels's former players with Ajax and with the Dutch national team, was to lead a minute of silence before the game against AZ Alkmaar, but it was called off because of a snowstorm.

Michels, 77, had a long history of heart problems and died Feb. 18 from complications of a heart valve operation. He joined Ajax as a player in 1946 (and scored five goals in his first game), became the coach in 1965 and took Ajax to the European Cup title in 1971.

"Michels was for me one of the first guys who was talking not just about individual great players, but the team; for him, everyone was the same," Wim Rijsbergen said in a telephone interview from his home in Leiden, the Netherlands. Rijsbergen played every minute of every game for the Dutch when they went to the final of the 1974 World Cup, before losing to host West Germany, 2-1. They each came to the United States in the late 1970's, Rijsbergen with the Cosmos and Michels as the coach of the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League.

In 1974, the Netherlands outscored the opposition by 15-3, using Michels's Total Football, a roiling style anchored by highly skilled players like Krol, Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Johnny Rep, Wim Jansen and Piet Keizer. Michels took the next generation of Dutch players to the nation's only major international title, the European Championship in 1988, with players like Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard.

"He changed football," Rijsbergen said. "We were the Naranja Mechanica, Clockwork Orange. He changed the mentality. We were not just guys moving forward and backward. We played with a lot of pressure on the other team, with a lot of risk in the back. The defenders went forward, the forwards came back. We played football. He even used the goalkeeper, Jan Jongbloed, as a libero, playing outside the area."

FIFA named Michels the greatest coach of the 20th century primarily because the style of his Ajax and Dutch teams, and later of his Barcelona team, helped change a game that had grown cautious and defensive. There had been a golden period from the 1930's to the 1950's when entertaining teams like Austria (coached by Hugo Meisl), Hungary (Magical Magyars with Ferenc Puskas) and Real Madrid (with Alfredo Di Stefano) laid the groundwork for Michels's innovations.

"He was a guy who told people that football is war; he created very aggressive teams," Rijsbergen said. "That's why they called him the General. But on the other side, he was always willing to close an eye if we had some crazy times, too. Sometimes you have to give something to get something.

"Sometimes it looked like we had no tactics. Sometimes it looked like we had an extra man on the field. Sometimes we looked disorganized. But the greatest thing about Michels is that he always gave the players the credit and he never criticized his players outside the locker room. For me, he was the best coach."