Opponents then friends: Beckenbauer and Cruyff

Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff’s relationship defined an era of football

- Keir RADNEDGE

World football boasts sharply-defined eras in terms of those great players who mark the game with their genius, their achievements and an idiosyncratic creativity which propels it in new directions. The post-war era of the 1950s and early 1960s points up Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano, Pele through into the 1970s, quickly succeeded by the duopoly of Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer.

Beckenbauer died this past January, Cruyff in 2016. Their names will always be linked not only in delighting a decade, but through innovative football which opened eyes to new visions of how it could be played.

Cruyff, at Ajax and under the initial tutelage of coach Rinus Michels, launched the Total Football revolution. This saw new levels of fitness, technique and tactical intelligence permit an inter-passing, inter-changing manner of performance that stands as a precursor for today's football.

The concept was nothing new. Willy Meisl, in his seminal 1950s book Soccer Revolution (still well worth reading), had predicted progress towards a free-wheeling style which he labelled "The Whirl".

Cruyff and Ajax brought it to life and were rewarded with a European Cup hat-trick between 1971 and 1973 before coach and captain were enticed away to Barcelona.

The demise of that all-conquering Ajax left the stage clear for another pioneer in Beckenbauer and his Bayern Munich.

Cruyff's Ajax and Beckenbauer's Bayern broke the standard tactical mould of players' fixed positions.