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Johan Cruyff has slammed Netherlands for their approach to the
World
Cup final and said he had never believed the team could adopt
such a "vulgar" style.
• De
Jong admits fortune on tackle
• Brewin:
Spain denied a fitting finale
• Iniesta
pays tribute to Jarque
• Kuyt
blames Webb
• Van
Marwijk unhappy with ref
Cruyff, who featured in Netherlands' first World Cup final in
1974, is seen as the icon of the Dutch 'Total Football' style and
he says he finds it hard to accept the methods adopted against
Spain.
"Thursday they asked me from Netherlands 'Can we play like
Inter? Can we stop Spain in the same way Mourinho eliminated
Barca?" Cruyff wrote in El Periodico. "I said no, no way
at all. I said no, not because I hate this style - I said no
because I thought that my country wouldn't dare to and would never
renounce their style.
"I said no because, without having great players like those of
the past, the team has its own style. I was wrong. Of course I'm
not hanging all 11 of them by the same rope, but almost.
"They didn't want the ball and regrettably, sadly, they played
in a very dirty fashion. So much so that they should have been down
to nine immediately, then they made two such ugly and hard tackles
that even I felt the damage.
"This ugly, vulgar, hard, hardly eye-catching, hardly football
style - yes, it served the Dutch to unsettle Spain. If they got
satisfaction from this then fine, but they ended up losing.
"They were playing anti-football."
Referee Howard Webb has received criticism both for being too
lenient and being too harsh. Having seen Nigel de Jong's chest-high
tackle on Xabi Alonso, though, Cruyff is firmly in the former
camp.
"When we say, often, that we do not like talking about referees,
it is true and, above all, because only refereeing like that last
night by the Englishman Howard Webb can create in us a state of
such indignation that it is necessary to comment.
"You can referee incorrectly, make a mistake, but what you
cannot do is create your own sense of justice and, even worse,
invent a very personal application of the rules.
"Not only did he not send off two Dutchmen (including Robben who
deserved the second yellow) but he also looked the other way at
times when he should have involved himself.
"A World Cup final deserves great refereeing and, above all,
deserves a referee who dares to do everything it means to be a
judge."
