Stillness and Speed: My Story (5 page)

Johan’s admiration for Dennis never dimmed and is particularly strong now they are helping to run Ajax together. ‘Dennis is a guy with a helicopter view. He sees everything and he
keeps things in balance, because he’s in balance himself. You can’t pressurise Dennis Bergkamp. No matter how loudly people around him shout, he always remains calm and thinks. And
because Dennis is able to think broadly, he sees connections. He is a truly decent and amiable man – until he gets angry. Then you see genuine anger, but also intelligence. Then his comments
are incredibly incisive, even hurtful, but always well considered. So when someone like that becomes prominent within an organisation, maybe even the most prominent individual, it makes sense. It
happens automatically.’

Meanwhile, the older he gets, the more Cruyff-like Dennis seems to become. ‘I’m really fond of Johan, even though I certainly don’t always agree with him. But the discussions
are always about details, never about principles. We never disagree about principles.’ Their relationship is pleasant rather than close, but Dennis is not the least bothered by the suggestion
that he has grown to be like his mentor. ‘That’s not a problematic observation,’ he says with a smile. ‘Sometimes I notice we have very similar thoughts. I don’t know
if that’s because Johan influenced me when I was young or if we are just similar in nature.’

Have you ever deliberately tried to imitate Cruyff?

Dennis: ‘Do me a favour, please! Imitating someone else is really not my style. And anyway, Johan would see through that immediately.’

But you don’t like fighting with people as he does?

‘Yeah, I can understand when people say that he is always looking for conflict. That’s probably in his character. Conflict is what he wants, that’s what he needs. And when
things are smooth, he’s always looking for another thing . . . Yeah, he likes it. But I understand him. I know where he is coming from. That’s probably where we’re different. I
prefer things to be smooth.’

3

I
T IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT
and smoke from flares among the tens of thousands of raucous fans hangs over the Leidseplein.
It’s a May night in 1992 and Ajax have just won the UEFA Cup but their star player is absent. Having played wonderfully throughout the tournament, Dennis actually slept through most of
tonight’s final against Torino, laid low by flu and a high fever. On the crowded balcony of the Stadsschouwburg theatre, with his players and the giant silver trophy, bullish and jubilant
young manager Louis van Gaal has something to say. He grabs the microphone and pushes through to the balcony railings. Louis wants to tell the crowd just who they should thank for tonight’s
triumph: ‘ONE MAN!’ he shouts, jabbing at the night sky with his forefinger as if proclaiming the arrival of the Messiah. ‘ONE MAN!’ He is now leaning so far forward he
seems certain to fall into the throng. He pauses for effect. Then he screams out the name: ‘DENNIS B-E-R-G-K-A-M-P!!!!’ The crowd roars. Louis roars. Every child, woman and man in the
ecstatic gathering chants the young star’s name in unison.

Van Gaal would never speak so emotionally in public about Dennis again, but that night the two seemed an unbreakable double act. In just six months in charge of the club, Van Gaal, the intense
former teacher with a face like an Easter Island statue, had turned his collection of prospects into a whirlwind of a team. Ajax had whipped through the UEFA tournament with a delicious variant of
the traditional Ajax game: crisp and creative, quick and daring, and splendidly organised. And Dennis had become the main man.

The UEFA Cup triumph was all the more impressive for coming after a period of astonishing instability. In ancient Rome, AD 69, the so-called Year of Four Emperors, was considered the acme of
political chaos. Between 1989 and 1991 Ajax had nine coaches –
nine!
– in a bewildering series of combinations. ‘I forget the sequence,’ says Dennis, ‘but
there really were a lot of coaches in a short time!’ When Johan Cruyff walked out in January 1988 he was replaced by a triumvirate of Bobby Haarms, Barry Hulshoff and Spitz Kohn. They, in
turn, were ditched for German physiotherapist Kurt Linder (‘the worst coach I ever had!’ Dennis remembers). He lasted just three months before Spitz Kohn (again) and Louis van Gaal (in
a junior capacity) paved the way for Leo Beenhakker, who jumped ship for Real Madrid after a season and a half.

On top of all that, before Van Gaal finally took the managerial reins in late 1991, Ton Harmsen, the chairman who had clashed so bitterly with Cruyff, was forced from the club by a combination
of fan outrage and media derision. A few months later he suffered a stroke. Furthermore, the club was not only convulsed by a tax scandal but had been banned from Europe for a year because a
hooligan fan had speared a rival goalkeeper with a metal rod ripped from the F-Side terraces. Meanwhile, the players had suffered enough tactical turbulence to sink a navy. Dennis’s formative
football years involved being bounced around between positions and roles. ‘Yeah, it was quite an interesting period,’ he says equably. ‘But I learned a lot from it, and from all
those coaches. Good or bad, I really just learned a lot.’

Under Cruyff, Dennis had reached the first team, played in a European final and established himself as a right-winger. In a side bristling with players like Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and
Jan Wouters, he more than held his own. Then the simmering feud with Harmsen boiled over and Cruyff departed. Departed, that is, without a word of farewell. Indeed, he and Dennis had no contact for
the next three and a half years. ‘I would have expected a phone call from Johan, a few encouraging words, some reassurance like: “Keep calm, things will work out for the best.”
But maybe he intentionally didn’t call because he thought I needed to manage on my own. And that’s what I did. I never experienced it as a trauma.’ Meanwhile, with its three new
bosses, the team continued in muddled fashion through the 1987-88 season but managed to reach the Cup Winners’ Cup final again, but lost to Mechelen, a Belgian team managed by yet another
former Ajax coach, Aad de Mos. Dennis played in most games, scoring occasionally but more often using his speed on the wing to get past opposition full-backs and deliver precise crosses.

Kurt Linder’s arrival at the beginning of the following season was more problematic, because he was the man chosen by Harmsen to roll back the Cruyff revolution. Cruyff, as always, had
created a team for attack, and fielded bafflingly fluid formations: 4-3-3, 3-4-3, even 3-3-4. Along with other football conservatives in the Netherlands, Harmsen regarded Cruyff as brilliant but
essentially unreliable. What was needed now, the chairman felt sure, was discipline and defensive solidity. Hence his approach to Linder, a German who had coached Ajax briefly in the early
eighties. The two men were skiing buddies and although Linder had retired from football to run a clinic in Switzerland, Harmsen persuaded him to return to bring some order to Amsterdam.

‘Linder was an obvious outsider,’ says Dennis. ‘He didn’t understand the culture of Ajax at all. The young players challenged him and the older ones were tactically
superior to him. As Amsterdammers, we liked to bluff, show off, be cheeky, boast. If you’re a coach, you have two ways to deal with that. Either you can be like that yourself – and do
it better than the players – or be aloof and come down hard when the squad plays up.’ Linder did neither and was soon being openly mocked in training sessions. Nor was he a match for
his sophisticated players, three of whom had just played under the great Rinus Michels and won Euro ’88 with the Dutch national team. From the start, captain Jan Wouters emerged as the
tactical leader. ‘During matches Jan would give detailed instructions. He’d say things like: “You, two yards to the right. You, to the left and you drop back.” If Linder
tried to say something, Jan would get really annoyed and tell him to back off and Linder would just say: “OK, do it your way.” It was extremely embarrassing.’ Even so, Linder
still had enough power to kick Bergkamp out of the team. ‘He played four-four-two without a right-winger, which was my position. So he demoted me, just like that, without a word.’

Actually, Linder used four words. Dispatching both Dennis and the future Barcelona star Richard Witschge to the Youth team, he informed the lower-level coach: ‘Those two are
useless.’ The coach in question was Louis van Gaal. And he saw things differently. Dennis was demoralised, but Van Gaal saw potential. He had a feeling Dennis might be playing in the wrong
position. So, instead of the winger’s number 7, he handed him the number 10 shirt. Dennis’s experimental new position would be in the centre of the team as a second striker working just
behind the centre-forward. Van Gaal encouraged Dennis to think strategically. As his performance in a youth tournament in Volendam demonstrated, the switch electrified him. Dennis was now able to
deploy all the quickness of his brain as well as of his feet. He began to move astutely between the lines, sprayed clever passes, confused opponents with sudden positional manoeuvres and scored
goals. He was crowned the best player of the tournament. Rather more importantly, he had discovered his destiny. Looking back, he sees this as one of the key moments of his career; as important as
being picked for the first time by Cruyff and winning a place three years later in the national team under Rinus Michels.

To the relief of everyone – including Linder himself – his reign lasted just three months. He was replaced by Kohn and Van Gaal. Notionally, the latter was the junior partner but in
practice he called most of the shots, and Dennis was central to his ambitious plans. Dennis was sensational in his evolving role as free man behind a centre-forward and two wingers. He set a new
national record by scoring in ten consecutive matches, and so original was his new position there wasn’t even a name for it. Eventually, the press came up with
schaduwspits
. Shadow
striker. Dennis had found the role of his life. ‘I suddenly felt completely free in my game. I could use my two-footedness and show I could score goals. Everything I had learned playing for
the juniors and what the fans didn’t yet know about me, could manifest itself in that position. Being the number ten gave me that wonderful tension again. It was new, it was exciting. I
didn’t hesitate for a moment, wondering where I should run to. It was all automatic. Suddenly, something amazing happened to me.’

Ajax only narrowly missed out on the league title. The new board now handed Leo Beenhakker the job and Dennis came down to earth with a bump. Bizarre as it seems in retrospect, Beenhakker was
not convinced by Dennis and thought three other candidates might be better in the number 10 slot: Wim Jonk, Ron Willems and Ronald de Boer. Dennis found himself offered other roles, none of which
suited him so well: centre-forward, left-winger, deeper-lying central-midfielder, substitute. ‘I was demoted and I really struggled with that because I felt I’d earned my place. I had
more or less created my own position in the team: the “Bergkamp position”. Then along comes a different manager with other ideas and he wants to show everyone that there’s another
way of doing things, namely his way. Managers want to enforce their style because they think in terms of power. Kohn and Van Gaal approached me together during a training session and said:
“If anyone asks you who put you in the number ten position, then you know what to say, right? That was us, we did that.” That made me wonder: “What’s all this about?”
Managers want to impress because they crave recognition. That’s especially true of Van Gaal and it was already the case back then.’

Beenhakker was amiable, but Dennis’s plight was in some ways worse than it had been under Linder. ‘At least I could understand why Linder dropped me. If you’re playing
four-four-two and you think Bergkamp is purely a right-winger, then Bergkamp has to go. But for Beenhakker the issue was my football skills. He just didn’t think I was good enough.’
Beenhakker denies this and says he was just trying to win the league, which he duly did. But he thought too little of Dennis, then aged 20, to take him to the World Cup in Italy. (In fact, Dennis
had a lucky escape: the Dutch stars had wanted Cruyff as coach. In Italy, instead of concentrating on football, they spent most of their time fighting with each other, with Beenhakker and with the
Dutch FA. Holland, who should have won the tournament, came home without winning a match.)

Meanwhile, Dennis spent the summer more productively. On his return to Ajax, Beenhakker was astonished: ‘I was confronted with a completely transformed Bergkamp. Dennis was self-confident.
He had a defiant attitude, as if he was saying: “Come on then, I’ll show you what I’m made of.” It sometimes happens to young players that they suddenly grow a lot in just a
few weeks. During that summer he changed himself from a youngster into a man. It had nothing to do with me.’

Dennis doesn’t remember the period in detail. ‘He said that? If he noticed, then it must have been something. I was hurt the season before. If the coach is not happy, if he’s
not playing you, you think: “OK it has to be different now.” Something would have happened with me at some point. I think I worked a bit harder, did some running, got into a different
mindset, got into an extra gear. I’m sure that must have happened. But when I look back now through my career, and at other players as well, sometimes you just find a certain balance within
yourself, or your body or your life or something like that.’

Whatever triggered the change, there was now no doubt: Dennis was the best number 10. And he began to develop a remarkable understanding with team-mates. These relationships foreshadowed later
ones with Ian Wright, Nicolas Anelka, Patrick Kluivert and Thierry Henry. Dennis’s movement and the almost unearthly precision of his finishing began to mesh with Wim Jonk’s genius for
long, defence-opening passes. Spectacular goals began to flow. Scarcely less productive was the partnership with Swedish centre-forward Stefan Pettersson whose selfless running made space for
Dennis’s rapier thrusts from deep. Dennis and his colleagues were developing most of this by themselves and Beenhakker was mesmerised. As he said at the time: ‘The timing of
Bergkamp’s sprints, his ability to score, all the time quickly turning in limited space . . . it’s all equally amazing.’ Even so, he thought Dennis was still too modest. ‘He
doesn’t manifest himself enough in the group. As a person he’s the ideal son-in-law, slightly reticent, very well-mannered. These are wonderful traits – but not necessarily for a
professional footballer. It’s like he needs to develop two personalities: Bergkamp off the pitch and Bergkamp on the pitch. These two will have to converge.’