Johan Neeskens, one of the architects of “total football” and pillar of the great Dutch team of the 1970s, has died at the age of 73, the Dutch football federation said on Monday.
“With Johan Neeskens, the world of Dutch and international football loses a legend,” said the KNVB in a press release, adding that the midfielder, Johan Cruyff’s most faithful lieutenant in the selection, at Ajax and Barcelona, was died Sunday of an unspecified cause.
He scored 17 goals for the national team, including the one in the 2nd minute of play on a penalty during the 1974 World Cup final, which the “Oranje” lost 2-1 against Germany (the FRG at the time). “No one remembers the seconds, except when we are the seconds,” he says later.
If Neeskens never won the World Cup – he played in another final in 1978 against Argentina, losing this one 3-1 – he made up for it at club level by winning the World Cup with Ajax Amsterdam. champion clubs, the ancestor of the Champions League, three times in a row in 1971, 1972 and 1973. It had 49 caps.
“With his characteristic tackles, his sublime vision of the game and his emblematic penalties (editor’s note: in force), he will forever remain one of the best players that Dutch football has ever produced,” declared the KNVB.
After his playing career, Neeskens turned to coaching, particularly in developing countries.
He was “a citizen of the world and a loving family man, proud of his children and grandchildren and who, until the end, knew how to touch others with his love of football.”
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