Ishan Negi

“The defender must first think defensively, but he must also think offensively. For an attacker it is the other way around. Somewhere they meet.”
― David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football

“Gerard van der Lem, Van Gaal’s right-hand man at Ajax and Barcelona, explains: ‘The main principle was possession of the ball. We trained on this endlessly. In some European Cup and Dutch League games we had seventy per cent ball possession. Seventy per cent! You need a lot of technical skills to do that. We almost always had the ball and we were always trying to find solutions. People think our system was rigid, but it was not. It could not be rigid. We could play with three strikers, or with three in midfield, with or without a shadow spits [striker]; whatever you like. The thing was to understand what consequences these formations have for the team. The players must be tactically very skilful and they have to be thinking spatially in advance. When we won the European Cup, everything fitted. Everything fell like a puzzle. Every player knew the qualities of his fellow players. Each player knew how to play a ball to his fellow players. In defence, they knew exactly how to press. They all knew the distances… Yeah, it was like solving a puzzle.”
― David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football

“Catenaccio is like a Titian painting – soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like the thrust of a dagger.”
― David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football

“If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.”
― Rabindranath Tagore