Quotes & Sayings About Dutch Football

I'm sure coach Frank Rijkaard will want the Dutch to go on and score a fourth now - although obviously they'll have to score the third one first. — Angus Loughran

The Dutch look like a huge jar of marmalade. — Barry Davies

We'll fight 'em until hell freezes over, then we'll fight 'em on the ice. — Dutch Meyer

This, for the benefit of those with only a sketchy grasp of football tactics, was a
Dutch invention which necessitated flexibility from all the players on the pitch. Defenders were required to attack, attackers to play in mid-field; it was football's version of post-modernism, and the intellectuals loved it. — Nick Hornby

I was on the pom pom team, I was on the cheerleading team, I sang. I played football with the guys 'cause I didn't know how to play double dutch. Anything to get out the house. — Dreezy

When I was in Dutch and Italian football, a lot of people looked at Manchester United, and when they were asked who was the best player, a lot of them said Paul Scholes. Much of what he did looked simple, but actually it was quite hard. Invariably he controlled the ball instantly and passed it straight on, keeping the game moving. He made inch-perfect passes across the pitch; he saw the gaps and could play the ball through them. So it didn't surprise me that so many top-class international footballers recognized his quality. — Edwin Van Der Sar

The ultimate space-measurer in Dutch football is of course, Johan Cruyff. He was only seventeen when he first played at Ajax, yet even then he delivered running commentaries on the use of space to the rest of the team, telling them where to run, where not to run. Players did what the tiny, skinny teenager told them to do because he was right. Cruyff didn't talk about abstract space but about specific, detailed spatial relations on the field. Indeed, the most abiding image of him as a player is not of him scoring or running or tackling. It is of Cruyff pointing. 'No, not there, back a little... forward two metres... four metres more to the left.' He seemed like a conductor directing a symphony orchestra. It was as if Cruyff was helping his colleagues to realize an approximate rendering on the field to match the sublime vision in his mind of how the space ought to be ordered. — David Winner