And when you are done looking at this site for the Scots input on football world-wide, here are two more.
For those who literally want to trace on the ground the local development of Scots and Scottish football in our own and other countries there is the newly available and ever-expanding site of:
The Scots Football Historians' Group
And on Scottish sports history in general but inevitably including fitba', see Andy Mitchell's inestimable:
Peter the Great
- football's quiet revolutionary
Chapter Twenty
As this book was taking shape on the page it was announced that Luis Enrique was to leave Barcelona at the end of the 2016-17 season. Who would replace him was unknown. Jorge Sampaoli was said to be favourite but he is an Argentinean, albeit one who had never played in the top-flight because of an early injury, but who had cut his managerial teeth in Peru and then Chile before taking on Seville in Spain. There can be no question of influence from any British team of the 1950s and 1960s, nor from Ajax in the 1960s or 70s or Barcelona from the 1990s onward. It begged the question how under him McWilliam's influence in any form at the Catalan club might or could continue. However, in the end it has and does not matter. Although Ernesto Valverde was brought in and, whilst he came from Alaves and had never spent any time in Barcelona's youth system, he had at least played twenty-two times for the club from 1988 to 1990, recruited and sold on by Cruyff, at the beginning of this year he was gone replaced by Quique Setien, who had never been near the club, boy or man. McWilliam's Spanish legacy, therefore, can finally be described as no more than nebulous.
Additionally, elsewhere, in Britain there is no club that can be said to continue the McWilliam approach to the game, nothing at Spurs or Arsenal or even Burnley or Charlton. Teams have academies but do they have ethoses, let alone progressive ethoses. Even Ajax appeared for several years no longer to be producing the steady stream of quality it once did. But there there has been perhaps one hope, which given the circumstances at the club at the time and the events there of the last few years was small but seems nevertheless to have sparked something.
Having
been assistant manager under Frank de Boer for four years, in 1016 under new manager, Peter Bosz, Dennis Bergkamp was demoted but fortunately to concentrate on bringing products of the youth system into the First team. He, himself, had begun his playing career as a product of that self-same system and under none other than Johan Cruyff. Now he has the task of perpetuating it at a club that in spite of failing to produce any real players of note had a five team structure from youth to First, an 'A' team and three Youth teams. That is precisely the structure Cruyff had left it with in 1988, similar to the Michels and the Castle eras, more than Reynolds at any time but less than had been the case in the late 1950s and two teams fewer than under Buckingham in 1959-60.
However, it is fact that when Cruyff arrived or re-arrived at Ajax in 1986 he had found a club that had reduced its famed youth commitment to just one team. His response was emphatic. It was increased to two the next year and three the year after that. And there it should have stayed but did not. By 1990 and three coaches later under Leo Beenhaker, never an Ajax player, it was back to one. Louis van Gaal, also never an Ajax First-team player, increased it to two but it was only restored to the Cruyff level in 1997-8 by Morten Olsen. In fact Olsen, who had played most of his football not in Holland but in Belgium, would surpass Cruyff and not only add a fourth youth team but restore the “Young”, the 'B' team again of Castle, Buckingham and Michels. Perhaps the Dane had learn from the criticism he had received five years ealier when managing Brondby, where he had been accused of ignoring the club's amateur, development team.
Morten Olsen would leave Ajax in 1998 after trouble in the dressing-room, incidentally with involving the de Boer brothers, and went on to manage his home country Denmark. However, what he had begun was continued by the next manager, Jan Wouters, who had been signed by Cruyff as a player and under Olsen was Ajax's Youth team manager. Under Wouters the number of Youth teams increased to five and, when he left in 2000 to be assistant manager at Glasgow Rangers, there it stayed for a season under his successor, Co Adriaanse, a non-Ajax man but with Danny Blind, father of Daley and "Cruyffian", in the new position of Youth Coach.
Under Wouters Ajax had finished fifth in the Dutch First Division in 2000. Co Adriaanse finished third but still it was considered not good enough and he was replaced by Ronald Koeman. Koemann had not come through the Ajax Youth system. Nor had he played under Cruyff at Ajax, when there as a player, but he had been signed and also moved on by Cruyff at Barcelona and perhaps had learned. Under Adriaanse the Amsterdam club's number of youth teams had risen to six. Under Koeman it became seven.
In his time managing at Ajax Koeman's teams would take two championships and finished second in between. In 2004-2005, however, the club was struggling and in February he resigned to be replaced by one other than Danny Blind. However, he did no better and after just over a season was also moved on in turn to be replaced by Henk ten Cate, again not directly an Ajax man but assistant manager to Frank Rijkaard at Barcelona with its Ajax-inspired Youth policy. Indeed, under ten Cate the number of youth teams at the Dutch club increased first to eight and then, with Frank de Boer now the Youth Manager, to nine . In addition both were joined as Assistant Manager by ex. scout but non-Ajax man, Hennie Spijkerman. It was 2006 and with increasing resources put into Youth development over several years and given a lag of something between four and ten years it might have been expected that First team performances would improve. Perhaps they did. Ten Cate's teams finished second and then third but nevertheless he was on his way, replaced by Marco van Basten, an Ajax man and a Cruyffian though and through. In addition Spijkerman was demoted, Blind returned as Technical Director and Wim Jonk and de Boer both coached the youth teams.
However, Van Basten did no better. Ajax was third in the First Division once more and before the end of the year he too was replaced by a Den Haag- rather than an Ajax-man, Martin Jol, around whom the following year around him the club personnel were again re-jigged with the team structures remaining the same. Danny Blind became Assistant Manager. Dennis Bergkamp came in as a third Youth coach and Spijkerman became Technical Director.
Jol managed to move the club up one place to second and for the following season made changes. Spijkerman became joint Assistant Manager with Blind, four of the nine youth teams were cut and it was precisely at this point that Johan Cruyff, still living in Spain and managing Catalonia at the time, himself stepped right back into centre-stage. In September 2010 in an article in a major Dutch newspaper he pointed out that the club had not won the Dutch Championship since 2004. This was in spite of having Luis Suarez, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld in the team. He said,
“Let me get to the point; this Ajax is even worse than the team before Rinus Michels' arrival in 1965.”
It was a little harsh on Vic Buckingham but otherwise accurate. Furthermore, he said it was due to the poor quality of players, particularly Dutch players, coming through from Ajax's once renowned, youth system. But underlying his observations was a recognition that Ajax as a club would in the future not have the financial ability to compete in the international transfer market, maintaining that it therefore had no choice but to grow its own talent but was doing it poorly. However, what he did not say openly was that there had for some time been and were two factions in the club, one Cruyffian and one not. His faction believed in the McWilliam, Buckingham, Michels and Cruyff advocacy of Youth development, which is hit-and-miss, requires investment and is slow, not least if it is constantly disrupted, and the other did not, preferring to buy in talent, which was also expensive but somehow less hit-and-miss
The article set off a chain of events that would see manager, Martin Jol, replaced in December 2010 by Frank de Boer. Spijkerman and Bergkamp became his two Assistants. Wim Jonk was made Head of the Youth Academy. Ronald de Boer stepped into his brother's shoes as Youth coach and Blind returned as Technical Director. The scene seemed set. Frank de Boer had played under Cruyff. Danny Blind was Cruyffian. As a player he had been recruited to Ajax in 1986 by Cruyff, when he had been manager. And Youth coaches, Bergkamp and Wim Jonk, were also fully Cruyffian. Jonk was an ex-Ajax and Holland player and had begun working at the club as a skills trainer in 2008. As a player he had joined Ajax in 1988, in the holding midfield role, targeted by Cruyff but just as he had left to manage at Barcelona. Thus Jonk had never actually played under Cruyff but was still seen as committed to his ideas.
However, there were problems, if subliminal for the moment. Firstly, second assistant to the head coach, Hennie Spijkerman,had never played for the club, under Cruyff or anyone else. And secondly Frank de Boer, who had played under Cruyff only at youth level, turned out to be less than fully committed. Nevertheless, the go-ahead was given to develop what became known as the Cruyff Plan. It was written by Cruyff himself, Jonk and Ruben Jongkind. Jongkind was an athletics coach also working as a trainer at the club. Meanwhile briefly a third problem arose. An attempt was made to bring in as General Manager Louis van Gaal, who its has to be reiterated had never made it as a player at the club when Cruyff was there and, although he had successfully managed it in the 1990s, had in the interim shown little interest in Youth development at any of the clubs, where he has worked. Moreover, Cruyff and van Gaal did not get on. Cruyff reacted. The appointment was taken to court and annulled.
The Cruyff plan was presented to the club and in September 2012 was accepted. It had four key objectives.
1. Ajax plays attractive football
2. Ajax only buys players from outside when really needed and produces its own star players.
3. Ajax seeks to have the best Youth Academy in the World.
4. Ajax uses an individual approach to the total-football-player for both Youth and First Team.
And the essence of the youth policy was that,
“the culture of street football must be implemented in the academy.”
with the requirement that youngsters should accordingly learn to play on smaller pitches with emphasis initially on individual skill development. Jongkind was made Head of Talent Development. Wim Jonk had already become Head of the Ajax Academy with Ronald de Boer and Marc Overmars under him, both of whom had played for the club but neither with or under Cruyff.
With this structure in place it was thought that progress could be made. However, there were other moves afoot. As the Plan was being presented so Marc Overmars was made Technical Director and Edwin van der Sar, another who had played for the club but not under Cruyff and had not been through the Youth system, was then brought in as Marketing Director. This was as Dennis Bergkamp was made an Assistant to Frank de Boer, replacing Danny Blind, who had left the club to become Assistant National Manager, although assistent to whm i not quite clear. It meant that was what became known as the Technical Heart of the club, a quintet of the manager, his assistants, the Technical Director and the Head of Youth Development, the place where at decisions on playing -style and therefore coaching were to be made, included two that were clearly Cruyffians, one that was not and and two, who turned out not to be.
As so it remained for three seasons but in the third, 2014-15, additional, second-team coaches, Jap Stam and Andries Uderink, were brought in. Neither had been significantly at Ajax and certainly not with or under Cruyff, the balance was again altered and by 2015 there was mounting tension about the lack, even the blocking of implementation of the Cruyff Plan. A report was commissioned. It found that many decisions were being made outwith the Technical Heart and therefore not in line with said plan. The Technical Heart was in effect being circumvented. Cruyff objected. Matters came to a head. Wim Jonk was dismissed in November 2015, replaced by Said Ouaali, an ex. player but one again who had never worked under Cruyff. Cruyff himself made it clear he wanted to end any association with policies that bore his name but was not being implemented and with him gone at the end of 2015 the club's directors decided to drop the Plan altogether.
Perhaps the dropping of the plan that would have required a minimum of eight years before it could have been expected to have made an impact was made possible by the inability of Cruyff himself physically to oppose the action. He was a sick man, being treated for cancer and six months later was dead. However, he was not the only casualty, if not fatally so. By the end of the season Frank de Boer had been dismissed for failure on the pitch, precisely what Cruyff had complained of five years earlier and had not been improved. With Overmars and van der Sar still in place Peter Bosz became the manager, another, who never played for the club. Effectively, Bergkamp is the only Cruyffian, the only carrier of the McWilliam legacy left standing.
However, neither Wim Jonk nor the Plan had disappeared. He, Johan Cruyff's son, Jordi, Ruben Jongkind and six others formed a company, based in Amsterdam, with the name, Cruyff Football. Of the six principals five are Dutch and had also worked at Ajax in the period between 2011 and 2015. The sixth is Bob Browaeys, a Belgian and very interesting in his background.
Browaeys had in the 1980s and in the early nineties been a goalkeeper with Waregem . He retired as a player in 1997, turning to club coaching and then with the Royal Belgian Football Association. In 1998 the RBFA, concerned with Belgium's failure to qualify for that year's World Cup and after repeated failure to reach the finals of several, previous European and World Cups, decided to act. It produced a plan, with which Browaeys was heavily involved. It was to create in Belgium a system that would bring through young talent no matter where by having all youth football play one formation, 4.3.3, at a number of centres throughout the country.
Browaeys is clear that his thinking was and is heavily influenced by what he calls the Ajax approach. He does not recognise that what Ajax does is very similar to that first formulated by Peter McWilliam but that is not a matter of ignorance but, as with many others, a lack of knowledge of the historical background. In fact what was being proposed for Belgium was certainly an adaption of what had been done at Ajax under Cruyff, and before him by Michels and Buckingham but just as much a reinvention of McWilliam's Tottenham and Northfleet but not in club form but nationally. It could not be delivered through a single club, a Belgian Ajax, but would by Belgian Football Association appointed coaches with a fixed ethos at a series of footballing TopSchools. Eight were built between 1999 and 2002 at locations throughout the country. They were to supplement existing club-based academies, the most notable of which were Anderlecht, Genk and Liege but also included Beerschot, all of which accepted the same ethos and to all of which, schools and clubs alike, multiple Northfleets, local, talented youngsters could easily travel.
It was therefore not La Masia replicated. The young players were not taken away from home. The closest it got to the Barcelona system was the construction between 2000 and 2005 of a national centre at Turbuze near Brussels. Nor was it the approach adopted at much the same time by Iceland, with, using the same attitude to easy accessibility, the building of sports centres across a largely rural country, but doing it independently of many of the existing football clubs, considered too small for a major role. In fact it was a specifically Belgian solution in a small, inter-connected country with concentrated populations, an urban solution for a largely urban country.
The Belgian Football Association plan of 1998 is credited with the production of what is called the Golden Generation of Belgian footballing talent, twenty-eight players born over an eleven year period from 1985 to 1995. The claim is only partially true. Five of the group, Chadli, Dufour, Fellaini, Lombaerts and Mertens were already in league youth systems before or in 1998, each at different clubs. In addition the following year there were four more and in 2000 an additional two. One was Vermaelen, who, aged fourteen, was not in Belgium at all. He was at Ajax. The other was Kompany, who was already at Anderlecht. It meant seven of the twenty-eight, a quarter, did not really pass through the newly introduced system at all. The flow from it into the junior, national teams really only started in 2003, first began slowly to feed into the national team from 2006 and gathered pace from 2010.
However, there is perhaps a problem with the Belgium system, in fact two problems. The first is that it is no means certain that the system will continue to produce talent at the same level. The average has been between two and three a year. From the 1996 vintage there was only one. The jury is out. The second is that, in spite of the undoubted talent that has emerged in all parts of the field from goalkeeper, via defence and midfield to the forwards the national team has won nothing and so far sill shows no sign of being any more than a collection of talented individuals, perhaps unable to play together. In the 2016 European Championship Belgium was knocked out in the quarter-finals. At the 2014 World Cup it had been the same. Yet the jury might be out but is also considering. For the 2018 World Cup it still looks promising. Belgium heads its group, having not lost. For the final the products of its country's system will be between twenty-three and twenty-nine years old, so in their primes. In addition the Belgian under-17s team, coached by Browaeys has just done well in its World Championship. There may be a more flattering verdict to come in the next decade.
Furthermore, whilst looking dead on the vine the Cruyff Plan has proved not to be. Out of the seemingly rotting lion has emerged unexpected honey. Almost its seemed out of nowhere a very young Ajax side won its way through to the semi-final of the 2019 Champions' League. In doing so it had defeated Juventus and Real Madrid in previous rounds and only lost having been ahead on away goals, the last scored in the 96th minute, at the penultimate hurdle. And in the team were teenagers playing for club perhaps for a decade so owing their development perhaps in part to the Cruyff Plan, albeit that is was theoretical, but more practically to what had happened particularly after Martin Jol's dismissal in 2010 and the role of Wim Jonk passing on, if once more unknowingly, first as a trainer from 2008 to 2011 at the Ajax Youth Academy and from 2011 to 2015 as its Head. what he might think of as a Michels and Cruyff philosophy but is actually a legacy of a quiet, footballing revolutionary, the McWilliam legacy.