Having spent the entire selection with the team, the leader did not go to the final stage of the tournament.
The Netherlands national team can rightfully be considered one of the biggest losers of the world championships. They played in the finals three times, but have not won even once – although the chances of the team were very high.
True, everything could have been different if, before the 1978 tournament in Argentina, the European team had not lost its best player. The winner of three golden balls mysteriously refused a trip to Latin America.
The unexpected decision of Johan Cruyff gave rise to a lot of speculation and did not allow his team to become champions.
Flying Dutchman
For football fans, Johan Cruyff needs no further introduction. The name of the great player immediately causes a whole string of associations among the fans: the invention of a new playing style, the birth of total football and the revolution in the thinking of footballers that happened at the turn of the 1960s and 70s.
The fact that the Netherlands made it to the World Cup final for the first time is certainly an important merit of the legendary player. But, at the same time, the dramatic fate of the “orange” is forever associated with his name – to lose in the finals, demonstrating a fantastic game.
In 1974, Johan and his partners tore apart Argentina, East Germany and Brazil in the second group stage with a total goal difference of 8:0. In the final at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, all the experts preferred “orange”, but the hosts of the tournament took over. Gerd Müller, having scored the winning goal, made the Germans two-time world champions.
Johan was recognized as the best player of the tournament, but this upset the legend even more. Cruyff would later say that people loved their all-out football because of the defeat of the Dutch in the final. In the event of a victory, perhaps there would be much less talk.
Unsuccessful Euro
Two years later, the vice-champions of the world came to Yugoslavia for the final stage of Euro 1976 to take their first title in history. At the preliminary stage, they took first place in a difficult group with the Poles and Italians, and confidently outplayed the Belgians in the playoffs. The decisive stage involved a fight between four teams.
However, in the semi-finals, the wards of Rinus Michels sensationally lost in extra time to the future European champions – the Czechoslovak national team. And the dreams of a trophy for Johan Cruyff, who has already become a three-time winner of the Golden Ball, crumbled to smithereens.
In the match for third place, the Dutch outplayed the hosts, but the “flying Dutchman” did not find a place even in the symbolic team of the tournament.
Politics, family or money?
The Netherlands approached the 1978 World Cup with a new coach, Ernst Happel. The legendary Austrian, after whom the stadium would later be named, unexpectedly could not count on the main star of the team.
Cruyff, despite his relative setbacks at Barcelona, was still a symbol of the era and an important player for the Oranges. But it so happened that the 1977/78 season became dramatic for him both at the club and at the national level. The blue garnets lost the championship to Real Madrid, and Johan himself scored only five goals – the weakest result of his entire career in Spain.
After spending the qualifying round with the national team, Johan did not go to Argentina. The community accused the Flying Dutchman of greed, suggesting that the 31-year-old footballer did not agree on his salary with the federation.
Politically interested fans saw Cruyff’s absence as a protest against the junta regime in the Latin American country. In general, in terms of public resonance, the tournament was quite comparable to the current World Cup in Qatar.
But the football player himself gave an answer to the question of his refusal only many years later:
– There are things that are more important than football. My wife and I were tied up and a muzzle was put to my head. The children at that moment were in a Barcelona apartment, – said the ex-football player.
This happened a year before the tournament. The police guarded the Dutchman’s house for four months after this incident, and also accompanied his children to school.
The team without Johan reached the final and again lost to the hosts – this time to the Argentines. And Cruyff himself continued a difficult period in his life: an unexpected decision to retire, financial difficulties and a new football stage in the United States. He never won his World Championship, having played in only one tournament.
On the eve of the World Cup in Qatar, there are no significant losses in the Dutch team, but there are no players of a similar size either. If the Dutch manage to reach the final, it will already be a huge achievement for the team, but experts predict the national team to be eliminated much earlier.
