The Greatest Game Ever
From the desk of...
Erik Bielderman, Alexis Menuge and Jaap de Groot
(L'Equipe, France)
May 14, 2005
Translation: Bertrand
Chardon
L'Equipe
magazine asked this question: 'What was the best European game
ever?' Many European journalists voted, and the winner
was...
Ajax Amsterdam - Bayern München 4-0
(Arie Haan 53', 70' - Gerrie Mühren 67' -
Johan Cruyff 89')
Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam
07 March, 1973
Referee: Rudolf Scheurer (Switzerland)
Ajax Amsterdam: Stuy; Suurbier,
Blankenburg, Schilcher, Krol; Haan, Mühren, Neeskens;
Rep, Cruyff, Keizer (coach: Stefan Kovacs).
Bayern München: Maier; Hansen,
Beckenbauer, Schwarzenbeck, Breitner; Zobel, Roth, Hoeness;
Durnberger, Muller, Hoffmann (coach: Udo Lattek).
The TV footage has gotten old. The black and the white now
fade in a uniform grey. Michel Drucker is at the microphone,
assisted by Michel Dhrey. They're on air. The game has
been going on for 5 minutes. Roth, Johan Cruyff's guard dog,
has already been booked by the referee and given a yellow
card.
David Endt, a junior of the Ajax ranks, sticks to the right
sideline where Wim Suurbier, the flying right back of Ajax is
playing. "I had been told by my coach to thouroughly observe
Wim's play, as I used to play as a right back too. I was over
the moon".
Match ticket for
'The Greatest European Game Ever'.
A few minutes earlier, as he was sitting on a school bench
in front of the pros' lockers, he at last had the chance to see
his idol, Gerd Müller: "Bayern were in locker room 53,
Ajax in 52 and we (the 'ball boys' on the side of the
field) were in 51. It was like a final for us. The Germans,
European champions in 1972, were challenging us, the Great
Ajax."
The time machine can start spinning.
It is 8:20 PM on Wednesday March 7th, 1973. The doors
of the Dutch locker room open. The Ajax players are coming out
first. They stare arrogantly toward Bayern
München who are still in their locker room. The
stadium gods are all there.
Except for Barry Hulshoff, the bearded giant, who's injured.
Gerd Müller, in spite of a serious crack in his fibula, is
in the German starting eleven. There are fierce eye challenges
in the corridors. Gerrie Mühren, the Ajax midfielder,
doesn't play that little mind game. Shy as he is, he prefers
looking down to his shoes. "Suurbier was a tough guy, he teased
a lot. I was calm. There used to be some beef between both
teams. A few months earlier we had beaten them 5-0 in a
friendly in Munich, and they didn't exactly enjoy it.
That was probably one of our best games. At 5-0 we decided to
stop. 'It's enough'."
A few years later, in 1978 for Johan Cruyff's 'farewell
game', Ajax would invite Bayern to Amsterdam for a
not-so-friendly friendly. The Germans had their revenge,
clinching a devastating 0-8 victory. "Let's atomize them," said
Müller that night.
Bayern still weren't over that 5-0 of August 1972. Ruud
Krol remembers how the game was over before it
had even started: "As soon as we put on the Ajax jersey we
grew ten centimeters in five seconds, and we were standing
straighter."
"The stadium was like a volcano. Only against
Independiente for the World Cup I'd experienced
that feeling," says Heinz Stuy, Ajax's goalkeeper. "His
nickname was Heinz Kroket because of his tendency to
drop balls like hot kroketten [a kind of Dutch,
deep-fried snack, ed.]," says Gerrie
Mühren, illustrating his story by blowing his
fingertips. Stuy doesn't like to talk about this nickname
and quickly changes the subject: "Since the end of World War II
it has not exactly been a love story between the
Dutch and the Germans. I know what I'm talking about. I was
born in Germany, lived there for seven years and I didn't
speak a word of Dutch, so... My parents were 'half-and-half'.
Besides: I was annoyed because before the game Udo Lattek,
Bayern's coach, had said that I wasn't a good goalkeeper and
that his team would net five! Pfff...."
The first half is really tough. Ajax play in a 7-3
formation, as usual. Suurbier, Blankenburg and Krol defend at
the middle line. The other players chase the ball as deep
as in the German penalty box. "We always played like that,"
explains Johnny Rep, who is now the coach of the local amateur
team on the Dutch island of Texel. The handsome Ajax legend,
who used to be a very young starter for Ajax, now cheerfully
says: "Pressure, pressure. We had to get the ball back as deep
as possible in the opposition's part of the field, before 'the
flower of a German attack could even bloom'."
Sepp Maier, in his black suit, seems to be mourning the
German hopes. The keeper is wobbly. A ball he drops is cleared
off the line by Zobel in the 40th minute. Krol fires
from 20 meters, but his shot ends up on the left post
(43').
"We killed them physically," explains Krol, now an
assistant-coach at Ajax. The few counter-attacks of Bayern
München are lost in the history of football. The Ajax
machine is now running full speed. Jacques Ferran,
reporter for France Football, writes a few days later:
"That amazing Ajax vs Bayern... Robert Budzyndski, one of the
few French technical directors in attendance, confessed to
me that in the car on his way back he constantly had flashbacks
of that game he couldn't forget. The lesson Ajax teached, no
doubt about it, will make it all over the world."
At half-time calm is restored. A bit too much calm perhaps
in the German locker room. "At 0-0 we were way too confident.
We thought that nothing could happen. We should have been more
careful given the passion of the crowd and of the opposite
team."
In locker room 52 Stefan Kovacs busy smoking a
cigarette, was quiet. Stuy: "Anyway, he knew that this team
didn't need any advice. Cruyff and Keizer just did the
job. Kovacs was just surfing on Rinus Michels' legacy."
Consequently the coach speaks only few words: "Pressure,
pressure! Everything will be O.K."
"We weren't worried," says Mühren.
Cruyff confirms: "That game will remain one of the best
ever by Ajax. We were at the top of our glory and we were
transcended by the support of a whole nation, the
whole European football community. Our style was admired
by everybody. And even if that Bayern team had guts and talent
we knew that we would keep up with them without a problem.
Everybody wanted us to go through. That is why that
victory was so important."
A few minutes after the beginning of the second half, Arie
Haan pounces on a ball dropped by Maier, after a Schilcher
shot: 1-0 to Ajax (53'). Maier is dismayed. Gerrie
Mühren has a good feeling. "Sepp was nervous. The Germans
were afraid. We could read that in their eyes."
The massacre could begin. At the microphone, Michel Drucker
says: "67th minute. 7th corner from the right side of
the German goal for Ajax. Maier drops the ball. Throw in on the
opposite side. Rep throws the ball into the pack. Bad clearance
from Breitner.... Ooohhh, Mühren! Amazing volley from 25
meters! I believe Maier has never been beaten by such a goal!
Show this one at the world's football schools!"
In the production van the NOS director is apalled. He was
sure that the throw in wasn't dangerous, so he decided to
change the camera angle and missed the volley. You could
only guess what the strike had looked like from the camera
angle from behind Stuy's goal, 80 meters away. "That goal has
become a cult thing because it remained invisible
- or almost, anyway."
Mühren would have deserved a place in
European football history: "I scored one of the most beautiful
and important goals in the history of Ajax - and nobody
saw it."
Mühren is one of the people that history has forgotten.
Too shy. Always sacrificing himself in the game without the
ball to open space for the stars, Cruyff and Neeskens. But
Mühren, a monster of technique, likes to talk about
himself differently: "During the grand opening of Stuy's
restaurant, Le Provence, in December 1973 I had bet
him that I could make the ball cross the street and pass
through the open window of the entrance. A journalist who was
skeptical was standing in the window. Bang, bull's
eye! He had to be taken to the hospital for surgery."
Sepp Maier, recalls being alone in his hotel room in the
center of Amsterdam, just after an eerie dinner "where everyone
swore revenge in the return leg." His room has a view of a dark
canal, the silence of the night and the sleep that never comes.
"It was a nightmare. Never in my life had I lost in such
in dreadful way. I felt so sick about it, I ended up
getting out of bed, gathering all my football stuff
and throwing it into the canal."
That story never made it to the Dutch players at
the time. Ruud Krol is astounded when he hears about it. "It's
incredible, but that's a good one! It's one of
the best I ever heard, actually. Imagine that: Sepp
throwing his stuff into a canal at night. Football is
unique and wonderful sometimes... The guy who found his
belongings in the water must have been pleased."
Game programme of Ajax vs
Bayern München, 1973.
The game, after Mühren's goal, is like a capital
execution: two clinical headers by Haan and Cruyff - and
the head of Bayern München rolls on the floor. Stuy could
appreciate it at the other end: "They were looking down.
Desperate. That day, even a classy player like Beckenbauer
started kicking opponents out of frustration."
It's over. Swiss referee Rudolf Scheurer brings
Bayern's tragedy to an end. David Endt rushes to the
locker room. "I heard an explosion of joy in the Ajax room. I
was behind the door and I heard the guys laughing. Suurbier
with his big voice. And with my other eye I was looking at Gerd
Müller."
Der Bomber has not forgotten: "We were down after
that spanking. But to me it was even worse when Cruyff
decided to skip the return leg two weeks
later, because the job was already done. I was really
shocked by that arrogance."
Another Bayern player, Franz Roth, was disillioned: "Never
since have I lost like that. It is the worst defeat of my
career. I had to mark Johan Cruyff, so can you
imagine how down I was after the game?"
The night is definitely black. On the way back to Germany
the bus of the German team cuts through the night and
the Dutch fog. David Endt goes back home. By bike. Heinz
Stuy is as usual one the last players to leave the locker room:
"The youngsters were going on a pub crawl in the city, but
Paula, my wife, was waiting for me. So I went back home. With a
headful of dreams."
Just like David Endt.
*
* *
* *
Epilogue... Bayern won 2-1 in Munich, but Ajax went
through. They then eliminated Real Madrid (2-1
and 1-0) in the semis, and then Juventus in the final
(1-0). It was their third European Cup triumph in a row. Bayern
München would the win the following three.
Belgrade, 30 May 1973: Johan
Cruyff lifts Ajax's third European Cup in a
row, after having swapped jerseys with a player of losers
Juventus.
Source: L'Equipe / Translated for Ajax USA by
Bertrand Chardon
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