Stillness and Speed: My Story (2 page)

N
O ONE IN THE
history of football has had a touch quite as soft, precise, masterful and elegant as Dennis. When he retired in 2006, the
Financial
Times
writer Simon Kuper recalled a dinner he had attended in Amsterdam the previous year with ‘some legends of Dutch football’. Around midnight the conversation turned to an old
question: who was the best Dutch footballer ever? According to Kuper: ‘Dutchmen have been voted European Footballer of the Year seven times, more than any other nationality except Germans.
Yet Jan Mulder, a great centre-forward turned writer, chose a player who had never even threatened to win the award nor, at the time, a Champions League. “Bergkamp. He had the finest
technique.” Guus Hiddink, the great Dutch manager, nodded, and so the matter was settled.’

A few years later, in a Dutch TV interview, Robin van Persie explained what Bergkamp’s example meant to him. Speaking with the writer Henk Spaan, he recalled an afternoon at the Arsenal
training ground when he was a youngster and Dennis was a veteran. Van Persie had finished earlier and was sitting in a Jacuzzi which happened to be by a window. Out on the field he noticed Dennis
doing a complicated exercise involving shooting, and receiving and giving passes at speed. Robin decided to get out of the bath as soon as Dennis made a mistake.

‘That man, he’s just bizarre!’ says Van Persie. ‘He’d been injured and he was on his way back, and he was training with one boy of about fifteen and with another
boy of sixteen or seventeen and with the fitness coach. They were doing some passing and kicking with those mannequins. It was a forty-five-minute session and there wasn’t one pass Dennis
gave that wasn’t perfect. He just didn’t make a single mistake! And he did everything one hundred per cent, to the max, shooting as hard as possible, controlling, playing, direct
passing . . . That was so beautiful! To me it was plainly art. My hands got all wrinkled in the bath but I just stayed there. I sat and watched and I waited, looking for one single mistake. But the
mistake never came. And that was the answer for me.

‘Watching that training session answered so many questions I had. I can pass the ball well, too. I’m a good football player as well. But this man did it so well and with such drive.
He had such total focus. I found myself thinking: “OK, wait a minute, I can play football well enough, but I’ve still got an enormous step to take to get to that level.” And
that’s when I realised, if I want to become really good, then I have to be able to do that, too. From that moment on I started doing every exercise with total commitment. With every simple
passing or kicking practice, I did everything at one hundred per cent, just so I wouldn’t make mistakes. And when I did make a mistake I was angry. Because I wanted to be like
Bergkamp.’

So Dennis’s search for perfection began below his bedroom window on the James Rosskade, where he would kick a ball against a wall. Hour after hour. Day after day. Year after year.

* * *

I’
M TRYING TO
picture you aged about eight, kicking a ball against this wall. What would you be thinking?

Dennis: ‘It’s not thinking. It’s
doing
. And in doing, I find my way. I used the brickwork around the entrance to the building. You see that line of vertical bricks,
like a crossbar? Most of the time I was by myself, just kicking the ball against the wall, seeing how it bounces, how it comes back, just controlling it. I found that so interesting! Trying it
different ways: first one foot, then the other foot, looking for new things: inside of the foot, outside of the foot, laces . . . getting a sort of rhythm going, speeding it up, slowing it down.
Sometimes I’d aim at a certain brick, or at the crossbar. Left foot, right foot, making the ball spin. Again and again. It was just fun. I was enjoying it. It interested me. Maybe other
people wouldn’t bother. Maybe they wouldn’t find it interesting. But I was fascinated. Much later, you could give a pass in a game and you could maybe look back and see: “Oh, wait
a minute, I know where that touch comes from.” But as a kid you’re just kicking a ball against the wall. You’re not thinking of a pass. You’re just enjoying the mechanics of
it, the pleasure of doing it.

‘Later, I’d say: “With every pass, there needs to be a message or a thought behind it.” But that was there from very early, in my body and in my mind. When I was kicking
the ball against the wall I’d be trying to hit a certain brick or trying to control the ball in a certain way. You play around with the possibilities, with bounces, for example. You hit the
wall and the ball comes back with one bounce. Then you say, “Let’s try to do it with two bounces,” so you hit it against the wall a little bit softer, a little bit higher. With
two bounces, it means probably that both bounces are a little bit higher, so you have to control it again, in a different way. You’re always playing around. I wasn’t obsessed. I was
just very intrigued by how the ball moves, how the spin worked, what you could do with spin.

‘In every sport with a ball, it’s the same thing. If you watch Roger Federer play tennis against a big serve-and-volley player, they’re totally different! So what interests you
the most? Is it the result? Is it winning? Federer could play thirty years more because he just loves the game. He loves the bounce. He loves to make those little tricks. And it’s effective
as well. I recognise that.’

You’re really not a serve-and-volley kind of guy yourself, are you?

‘I really love that Federer way of playing. To have such control that you can trick a goalkeeper, trick the opponent. Like Federer’s drop volleys, the little disguised lob. To be
able to do something like that, yeah . . . to do something that others don’t do or don’t understand or are not capable of doing. That’s my interest; not following, but creating
your own thing.’

So all this comes from yourself? You’re not doing stuff you’ve seen on television.

‘Oh, I’m doing that as well. You see a lot of things on television. Like watching Hoddle. After one World Cup – at least I think it was a World Cup – Marcel and I would
be in the hallway kicking our soft foam ball. Maybe I’d head the ball and it would be a goal and I’d celebrate with my hands in the air shouting like this:
“
Graaa-zi-aaaaaaniiii!”
Yeah! [
Laughs
] I loved that. [It turns out this was the 1982 World Cup, where Dennis and Marcel, who was four years older, took a shine to
Francesco Graziani, mainly on account of his thrillingly Italian name and the exuberant way he celebrated his goal against Cameroon. Graziani had run off, clenched fists raised, leaping and
shouting for joy. Dennis and Marcel copied him at every chance they got, yelling Graziani’s name as the TV commentator had done.]

‘And Maradona. I loved seeing him, too. Of course, later, when I was at Ajax, I’d see Cruyff and Van Basten doing all sorts of things and you wouldn’t exactly copy it, but
you’d sort of file it away and think: “That’s interesting.”’

Did you stand out in your street games? Were you playing in an original way then?

‘No, no. I’d be doing quite normal things. I mean I’m probably better than other kids, but it’s not like I’m there at that age. I’m a bit quicker than the
others. I can control the ball. I can go past someone – light feet, quick feet, that sort of stuff.’

What position did you play?

‘Striker. And I scored plenty of goals because I had a good kick. I often scored free-kicks above the heads of the small goalkeepers. They were too short to reach! And when I was nine or
ten I used to like scoring direct from corners. I mean it wasn’t on a full-sized pitch, but later even on a full-pitch I enjoyed that. And, remember, thirty years ago we played a lot eleven v
eleven on full-sized pitches. It wasn’t like now where the kids play on reduced-size pitches. The idea was: “If you can play proper football, you can play on a proper pitch.”

‘So, yeah, I was quite a conventional player back then. The main thing was my pace. I could go past my defender, or a pass would be played behind the full-back and I could beat him that
way. Quite conventional skills, really. But I was inventive in scoring goals, like lobbing the goalkeeper. I always liked that. Always with a thought, not just hit it but thinking: “What can
I do?” But even with the lobs it wasn’t an invention of mine. I’d seen that on TV. I think Cruyff scored a famous one against Haarlem in his first game back at Ajax, didn’t
he? And Glenn Hoddle did a famous one. We even had a word for it in Dutch:
stiftje
. It’s like a wedge shot in golf with the clubface open . . . and it drops over the goalkeeper. I
got a lot of pleasure from those shots. It’s fun, but it’s also effective. I got upset when people complained about me only doing it “the nice way”. I said, “No,
it’s the
best
way. There’s a lot of space above the goalkeeper.”

‘I was lucky because in my generation, where I lived, there were a lot of boys my age. Out of school, all the time it was: “Come on, let’s play football.” I always had
about five or six boys playing football with me. It’s the classic way of street football, isn’t it? But my brother Marcel didn’t have that because there were only girls at his
age. So for him it was completely different. He had no one his age to play with. So he had to play either with me and my friends or with Ronald, who’s older. So when people ask me: “How
did you become a professional football player?” maybe that’s one of the reasons. Ronald was like me in school as well. If he got nine out of ten, he was never pleased with that.
He’d say, “What did I do wrong? Why didn’t I get a ten?” I was like that. And that’s why I like what Wenger said about being a perfectionist: “He wants to strive
for perfection.” Even if I don’t reach it, I can be happy as long as I’m striving for it. You’re taking small steps all the time, improving, moving on.

So you had quite an old-fashioned childhood, really? No video games, not many cars about. You were like the generation of ’74 who grew up playing football on empty streets after the
war.

‘Yeah, in those days when you had a holiday, you didn’t go abroad. You stayed [at home] and played. I think my generation was the last that had that. Later, it was a different kind
of street football which took place in the “courts”, like a basketball court with a high fence around it. The Surinamese guys had those; there were competitions between courts in
different neighbourhoods around Amsterdam and that’s how they learned.’

And how was it when you got to Ajax?

‘Very different from now. It’s one of the things we talk about as coaches. At that time, we had the strict shouting coaches who’d take you through an exercise you had to try to
copy. Almost like a military thing. I had one trainer called Bormann. He was a nice guy, but he had a real military air about him. That was for two years. Then we had Dirk de Groot, who was really
strict; there’d be a lot of shouting and you’d be a little bit scared, like “Oh no, I’m going to get
him
”. [
Laughs
] But he was a lovely guy as well.
And in the A Juniors we had Cor van der Hart, with his hoarse voice. Also a nice guy, but very strict. And sometimes we had Tonny Bruins Slot [Cruyff’s assistant]. So the discussion we have
now is “So how did you become a good player then?” If you look at the coaches we have now, they’re so different. They all have their badges, and they are all very sympathetic and
know exactly how to play football and what kind of exercises you should do, and for how many minutes, and the distances between the goals, and where the cones should be where you’re playing
positional games. And they know not to play too long – one and a half hours maximum. They all know exactly how
everything
should be done. Maybe that’s the problem. We never had
that sort of attention, so we were more self-taught. Even with all the shouting, you just created your own thing.

‘Sometimes we even played pickup games like we were on the street. You know: sixteen guys, and the two captains play
poting
, which is like scissors, paper, stone but with the
feet, and whoever wins that gets first pick. So one captain picks the best player, then the other one makes his pick, and so on. This is really true! This is how we made teams! And then we’d
play a game. This is thirty years ago. We’re in the Ajax Youth, but it’s like the street. And one of the coaches is supervising, but more like a referee. “This is a goal,
that’s a foul . . .” Not at all like now. Nowadays the coach stops the game and says: “Hey, guy, if you’ve got the ball here, where do you have to be now?” and shows
the player everything. For us it was much more like it was in Cruyff’s time. It was really quite free for you to teach yourself. There’s no shouting or military guys any more, but
it’s more strict in the football sense. Everyone is a head coach, everyone is a manager, everyone has their badges, and everything is done by the book. Is it too much? Probably. Everything is
done for the kids now. They’re picked up from school by mini-vans. The food is there, the teaching is there. Everything. “OK, guys, we’re going to do the warm-up. Do two laps now.
OK, now you’re going to do this, now you’re going to do that . . .” How can they develop themselves if everything is done for them? We’ve got players in the first team now
who’ve come through the Youth and are used to playing a certain style and doing certain things. And as soon as it’s a little bit different it’s: “Oh no! I don’t know
what to do!” You see them looking at the bench to find out what they should do.

‘It’s really a problem. You can see the difference with Luis Suarez when he was here [at Ajax]. Of course, maybe you wouldn’t agree with the things he did, but he was always
trying to create something, always thinking: “How can I get the best out of this situation? Do I have to pull the shirt of the defender to get in front of him? Do I get out of position to
control the ball?” His mind is always busy thinking. And sometimes he steps on someone’s foot or he uses his hand. Silly things. But the idea in his head is not bad. And he’s very
creative. So that’s one of the things we try to do with the training now in the Youth – give players the chance to develop themselves into creative, special, unique individuals. We
can’t copy what we had in the past. Somehow we have to find a different way, so the players who come into the first team are creative again, can think for themselves, can make a difference,
basically. Be special. Be unique. That’s what we want. You can’t be unique if you do the same thing as the ten other players. You have to find that uniqueness in yourself.’