Stillness and Speed: My Story (6 page)

Finally, Beenhakker was lured back to Spain and Van Gaal got his chance with the first team. Dennis remembers: ‘Everything became more intense. We talked a lot about things like taking
positions, and every game was evaluated in detail afterwards. Louis always had his little notebook with him in which he wrote down all sorts of stuff. He constantly emphasised what was important,
what we needed to learn and practise. He brought structure to the way we worked and gave us clarity. At that point in my career I really liked that.’ The team became more Total, rarely
conceding possession and pressing with ever-greater energy. After the winter break, Ajax began to fly. In a 7-0 win over Twente, Dennis scored a sublime hat-trick and Louis van Gaal was moved to
tears by the beauty of his young team. In the league, a more conventional PSV side built around the singular genius of Romario was outpointing them. But all Europe began to notice Dennis’s
starring role in a series of dominating UEFA Cup performances, not least against Osvaldo Bagnoli’s Genoa. (We shall meet Bagnoli again shortly.)

‘You could really sense there was a new generation emerging. Van Gaal made us even more eager and ambitious. Our game was innovative, attractive to watch and enjoyable to play. If we
slipped up, we didn’t give up. We kept bouncing back because we stuck to his philosophy that the team is more important than any individual player. “If everyone adheres to the
agreements we make as a team, success will inevitably follow,” Louis said time and again. It gave us the stability we needed.’

Van Gaal also encouraged Dennis to think critically and creatively about every aspect of the game. ‘We trained meticulously. Every detail, shooting, passing, everything had to improve. And
everything became more tactical. Where should you run and why? “Think, guys,” Van Gaal would say. “Consider every move you make.” He gave us pointers, but during matches you
had to do it yourself. He constantly hammered home that you had to be aware of everything you were doing. Every action had to have a purpose. I focused on what I was good at: being decisive. I
thought a lot about tactics, about the position of defenders and about finding the opponent’s weak spots. I began to choose more intelligent positions by communicating more with the players
around me. If a midfielder was marking me, I would play as far forward as possible, forcing my man to play between his defenders to make him uncomfortable. And if the player marking me was a
defender, I would drop back to the midfield so he would feel out of place. I really loved approaching football that way, analysing my position like that. I was completely obsessed with being
decisive. I was always watching my opponents, paying attention to details, observing the situation on the pitch. I constantly watched for opportunities to win the ball. All I needed was the
slightest chance and I would rush at it.’

If this is beginning to sound like ‘Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’, it shouldn’t. Football is not the movies. A rift was coming between coach
and star, and their second season would make it manifest. Part of the problem was Van Gaal’s sheer intensity. ‘We were young and keen to learn, but if we’d been together for five
years, I don’t think Van Gaal’s fanatical approach would have worked.’ And Dennis was beginning to assert his independence. ‘We discussed things, but ultimately I did what I
thought best. That might sound presumptuous, but even then I was more developed as a player than Van Gaal was as a manager. I just knew, instinctively, where I needed to be to be decisive.
Let’s say Van Gaal tells me: “Move ten yards back to be in a better defensive position, Dennis.” I’d say: “I’d prefer not to, Coach, because if we win the ball
I’ll have to make up those ten yards at a sprint, and that will cost me that little bit of extra energy I need to be decisive.”’

Dennis was also thinking of his next step. He had started learning Italian via a correspondence course a year earlier and, after the UEFA Cup win, Europe’s top clubs began wooing him
aggressively. Dennis eventually agreed to join Inter. Wim Jonk would go, too. A future issue of conflict was that the deal was signed on a Friday night in The Hague, 36 hours before a crucial
league match at PSV on the Sunday afternoon. Van Gaal was desperate to win the championship, and regarded the Inter business a distraction. The match – on Valentine’s Day – went
badly. In the first 45 minutes, Ajax played brilliantly and Dennis scored one of his greatest goals yet. Seen now, it looks like a prototype of his winning strike against Argentina in the World Cup
six years later. Sprinting at the PSV defence, he perfectly controls a high 50-metre pass from Frank de Boer with his knee (his
knee
!), then chips the goalkeeper from a narrow angle. It
was hardly Dennis’s fault that a minute later a defensive blunder gave PSV a soft equaliser. Even Romario later admitted that the 1-1 half-time score was a ‘bizarre’ reflection of
the balance of play. After the break, however, Ajax tired and PSV, despite having a man sent off, won 2-1. Ajax dropped to fourth in the table and Van Gaal was apoplectic.

Twenty-four hours later, the Inter deal was made public, as Dennis and Wim attended a press conference in Gouda. They then immediately returned to work. In their mind the entire business had
been done to avoid harming Ajax. They posed for one publicity picture in Inter shirts, then said they would give no interviews to the Italian media until after the season; the players’only
concern was to finish on a high note, by winning trophies. Dennis and Wim’s agent, Rob Jansen, joked that while his boys would be millionaires Ajax would become multi-millionaires (Inter paid
about ten million guilders for Jonk and 30 million for Bergkamp – the largest amounts ever paid for Dutch players).

In the last four months of the season, Ajax were maddening, one week crushing eventual champions Feyenoord 5-0, the next dropping points to minnows like MVV Maastricht. In the UEFA Cup, two
mistakes by goalkeeper Stanley Menzo cost Ajax a tie against Auxerre and Van Gaal revealed his ruthless side: Menzo was dropped and permanently replaced by youngster Edwin van der Sar. In another
match, winger Bryan Roy failed to follow Van Gaal’s instructions to the letter – and was promptly shipped off to Foggia. As the chances of glory receded, Van Gaal appeared to take out
his frustrations on Bergkamp and Jonk, blaming them for the PSV defeat. Even now, this rankles. Dennis: ‘His criticism of me and Wim was unjustified. I did everything I could that season to
win the title with Ajax. I was totally committed to that. While Rob Jansen was negotiating with Inter, there was only one thing on my mind: the match against PSV. I wanted to win it. Yes, I had to
go to The Hague on the Friday night to confirm the agreement, but I had everything under control. I took it easy on the Saturday and went to bed early. I more than made up for one late night. Van
Gaal insinuated that my attitude changed after I signed for Inter. It’s just not true. Every match I wanted to perform better than the previous one. I always had that same drive, to be the
best player on the field, to win. That didn’t change. Louis really should have known better.’

At the beginning of May, Ajax lost 1-0 to little Willem II, ending their title hopes. Twenty minutes into the second half, Van Gaal replaced his star striker with mediocre defender Johnny
Hansen. As he walked off, Dennis looked daggers at Louis and jerked his head as if to say: ‘What the hell are you doing?’ A TV microphone caught Van Gaal’s non-answer:
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’ When tomorrow came, Van Gaal claimed the substitution was tactical ‘because Bergkamp wasn’t in the game. Or rather, he wasn’t in the
game
again
. Dennis is a sophisticated talent, but at the moment he seems to be blocked.’ Dennis reflects now: ‘It was obvious what he was doing. It was my last Ajax season and
I’d hit my ceiling in Holland. I needed to go but somehow I felt he needed to keep me in my place, to say: “You’re nothing special, you’re just one of the team.” In
that game, it was really a silly decision. I was top scorer in Holland. There was almost half an hour to go. We could have saved that game. But he wanted to make a statement.

‘Towards the end, I had the feeling that Ajax resented the fact that I was leaving. That puzzled and disappointed me. Before the [1992-93] winter break I’d already announced –
well in advance – that this would be my last season. I gave Ajax plenty of time to prepare for my departure and the club earned a huge amount of money from my sale. What more could they have
asked for? It’s normal procedure at Ajax for a home-grown player who has performed well for a while in the first team to be sold off for a lot of money.’

* * *

I
T SEEMS STRANGE
that your football relationship with Van Gaal can be so productive – yet there’s tension. And even though your football
relationship with Leo Beenhakker was much less creative, you still like and get on well with him.

Dennis: ‘I couldn’t get angry at Beenhakker. I still can’t. Leo is a great guy, with his clever comments and his ability to manage a group. He has great rapport with star
players, but he’s also friendly with the reserves. He’s more suited than anyone else to a team that includes big names. He’s a real people manager. That’s the main
difference between him and Louis. Leo has a lot of wisdom and he knows how to manipulate the media, too. I enjoyed working with him, even though we didn’t agree about me being number ten.
Damn, that was my position! But I enjoyed training every day. Leo always had something nice to say and I admired the way he could correct or encourage players by taking them aside and just saying a
few words.’

Van Gaal was all smiles when, after the final league match of the 1992-93 season, fans at De Meer gave Dennis and Wim an emotional send-off with a fireworks display. A few days later, though,
when Dennis played his last-ever competitive game for Ajax, he revealed his feelings. Scoring in the Dutch Cup final against little Heerenveen, he celebrated with an atypical snarl and clenched
fist – gestures that spoke of his anger and frustration.

And that, between the two men, was that. The match turned out to be the last time Dennis would ever play for Louis. Their paths as player and coach never crossed again. By the time Van Gaal
became national coach in 2000, Bergkamp had retired from
oranje
. More recently, the two men were on opposite sides during the civil war at Ajax that followed the coup of 2011. Dennis was
Cruyff’s closest ally, while Louis was the candidate of the anti-Cruyffists. Van Gaal is now national coach once more. When asked for an interview for this book he declined via his press
officer, who said that everything Louis wanted to say about Dennis was in his 2009 book
Van Gaal: Biography and Vision
. There he mentions Dennis only to disparage him, claiming that Ajax
were only able to win the Dutch title and the Champions League because Bergkamp left: ‘It’s not nice to say so, but [Jari] Litmanen as number 10 was an improvement on Bergkamp. Thanks
to him the team became more balanced.’

It’s an odd and ungenerous remark. Bergkamp and Litmanen were very different players, operating in different roles at a different time and with different colleagues. In any case, Van Gaal
has elsewhere acknowledged that it was the return of Frank Rijkaard, first in midfield, later in central defence, which truly stabilised his side that went on to become European Champions in
1995.

* * *

I
S THERE BAD
blood between you and Van Gaal?

Dennis: ‘It’s OK between us. It would be too strong to say that I don’t get along with Louis. Looking back, I’d say I had him as a coach at just the right time. If
I’d stayed another season, things would have become difficult. It would have been a war, actually. But it’s not a big problem.’

You basically respect him?

‘Of course.’

Your difficulties weren’t like the ones you had at Inter with Ottavio Bianchi?

‘Oh no! It was nothing anywhere near that. And you have to remember, Louis has always wanted fantastic football. Ajax football. He would never admit it, but the football he wants is like
the football Cruyff wants, and Wenger . . . It’s just their methods are different. Cruyff’s coaching is based on what he was like as a player: adventurous, spectacular, attacking. Johan
relies on instinct and skills, he doesn’t analyse much. Van Gaal is more didactic. He gives his players assignments which they have to carry out in order for the system to work. And the
system is sacred. Wenger is somewhere in between. His nickname is “The Professor”. He’s good at tactics, but he’s even better at creating balance in his team. Wenger
doesn’t think in terms of systems. He thinks in terms of players, intelligent players, and he allows them to determine the system on the pitch. And, like Cruyff, he loves technical players,
guys who can play instinctively.’

As Van Gaal showed in the mid-nineties at Ajax and a decade later at AZ Alkmaar, his forte is working with young players who still have everything to prove and with teams who still have
everything to win. It’s tougher for him when his players are less obedient. At Barcelona he clashed with Rivaldo. At Bayern he fell out with with Luca Toni and Franck Ribéry. And, five
years after winning the 1995 Champions League with his young Ajax disciples, the same players were no longer willing to follow his orders blindly in the Dutch national team. Their experience with
bigger clubs abroad had made them more independent.

Dennis: ‘For Van Gaal all players are equal. For him there’s no such thing as big names, because everyone serves the team and the system –
his system
. By contrast,
Cruyff relied on exceptional players, on individualists, because they were the ones who could decide a match. He stimulated his great players and challenged them, even by creating conflict if
necessary. Johan himself was the greatest player of all and the other players served him, but that would be unthinkable in a team led by Van Gaal. Even for the greatest players, the team has to
take precedence. But imagine you have ten mediocre painters and you also have Rembrandt. Are you going to tell Rembrandt he’s really no better than the others? Or are you going to make him
feel special and let him
be
special, so he can create his most beautiful works of art? Wenger is different again. He keeps his distance and goes out of his way to avoid creating conflicts.
His calmness, seriousness, professionalism and intelligence all rub off on the group. That’s how he makes sure everyone behaves professionally and the big players are team players. At the
same time, he lets them do their own thing, which gives them the freedom to be great.’ And, of course, the Rembrandt of Dutch football was Johan Cruyff.