World Cup History: West Germany gets painted Oranje with Total Football

This FIFA World Cup History feature is part of our build-up to the 2014 edition, which will chart the most special moments from previous tournaments. Today we have a look at the 1974 World Cup.

Brazil’s samba, West Germany’s machine-like fluency and England’s methodology were the few systems that made their mark at World Cups. But 1974 saw the advent of another style — a style which was based on switching positions and spatial awareness, where every player was comfortable in almost every position — Total Football was born and the Dutch won the world’s hearts with it — they just couldn’t win the World Cup.

1974 was an odd tournament — people were somehow unhappy with West Germany’s triumph and there were a lot of controversies surrounding it, including then FIFA President Joao Havelange saying that the tournament was fixed (he also claimed WC 1966 was fixed).

There was also the Haiti doping scandal in the run up, and the tainted player was beaten up by his own teammates in the hotel — the minnows troubled Dino Zoff’s Italy; Poland’s best ever campaign — they beat Brazil for third place; the Soviet Union getting knocked out in the final qualifying round after refusing to play in Chile, where there had been a military coup and thousands of supporters of Marxist president Salvador Allende were executed in the football stadium — Chile kicked off and put the ball into an empty net and were awarded the game.

But in the centre of all this were the ‘Brilliant Oranje’. Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Ruud Krol and Willem van Hanegem took the plaudits as they tested their method on the world stage for the first time. Bayern Munich and Ajaz had already enjoyed success via total football, but no one had imagined it would work so well in West Germany.

As Netherlands eased past their group consisting of Sweden, Bulgaria and Uruguay — the West Germans had to navigate past Chile, Australia and… East Germany. Talk about club derbies — this was the mother of all derbies and Jurgen Sparwasser scored the winning goal for East Germany in the 77th minute to shock the home team.

There was no knockout stage in this tournament — instead, the first two teams in every group went on to form two more groups. The winners of these two groups played the final and the second placed teams would vie for third place.

In this second group stage, the Dutch hammered Argentina 4-0 and sailed past East Germany before beating the Brazilians with style — this Brazil side was far from the one which played free-flowing stylish football. Their tactics were stiff and they were missing the verve of Pele. Still, all credit to Netherlands who were on course to win their first World Cup in sensational style.

But, it was not to happen.

West Germany saw off Yugoslavia, Sweden and Poland to make the final and it was going to be their devastatingly effective tactics against the freewheeling Dutch style. The Dutch took the lead in the first minute. No German player touched the ball before Berti Vogts brought down Cruyff for a penalty, which Neeskens converted. The Germans equalised with a penalty too — as Bernd Hoelzenbein’s mazy run was ended by Wim Jansen for Paul Breitner to score from the spot. The death-blow came when the lethal Gerd Muller collected a low cross, swiveled and shot low into the net.

The Germans had smashed one of the most romantic football teams with ruthless ability — and the Dutch never quite recovered from this. They made the final again in 1978 without Cryuff, but were beaten by Argentina in extra time. Even at the World Cup final in 2010, they fell at the last hurdle. In 2010, it was Spain’s tiki-taka that did them — a style whose roots were set in the Dutch Total Football style.

World Cup 1974

Hosts: West Germany Winners: West Germany (2-1 vs Netherlands) Top-scorer: Grzegorz Lato (Poland) - 7 goals

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