Totally Extra: Dennis Bergkamp - the footballer’s footballer

0:00The Athletic FC

0:09Totally Extra, where we talk about whatever takes our footballing fancy and today it's one of the fanciest footballers of all Dennis Bergkamp, the non-flying Dutchman a man whose playing star was anything but playing just like his travel arrangements the goals, the touches, the dressing room pranks of the footballer's footballer in this Totally Extra

0:43Listener, thanks for joining us for a Totally Extra with Duncan Alexander. Hi, Duncan. Hi, James. Michael Cox is here with us. Hi, James. And on the big screen, Adrian Clark from Casa Clark. Hi, Adrian. Hello. Hello, everybody. Lovely to see you. Duncan and Mike, you've just done the tactics podcast this week. Yeah, Duncan was hosting. What? For the first time, I think. No, not the first. There's been some extra ones. Maybe this was the first time for the main one. Right. Was that stressful, Duncan? It's so difficult. It's quite, it's fine. What was the tactical topic? It was about goalkeepers hitting the ball long.

1:23Yeah. Yeah. Long balls. Long balls, how players are controlling them, what it means for our league etc. Right. Why goalkeepers don't throw it anymore. You don't really see kind of 40 yards No, hurling it. Yeah, exactly. But it's interesting this kind of stylistic I wouldn't call it a regression it's a re-evolution I suppose or I don't know it's a cyclical thing and it's funny because we're talking about a player today whose arrival was very much a harbinger of the great cultural change within the Premier League and here it is, the Premier League busy kind of reverting back. I don't know. Anyway, yeah, probably you touched on a lot of that with Duncan as the host.

2:07To be honest, we didn't. Maybe you should have hosted James. I should have asked some good questions. It's all right. I look forward to hearing that then, Duncan. Today, we're going to be talking about Dennis Bergkamp. Many thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Bergkamp is probably the topic that drew the most interaction with you, listener. Lots of people writing in stuff about Dennis Bergkamp because he is, I think, a deeply beloved figure. And, of course, we have with us somebody who actually played alongside him, trained alongside him, Adrian Clarke. We'll get on to all of that, Clarke-y, soon enough.

2:39But first of all, this being a totally extra, let's have a little waddle through the almanac. What has this week in football brought us through the years?

2:5329 years ago, 1996 this week of October brought us a football match that has its own Wikipedia page on account of the fact it lasted for three seconds this was Scotland travelling to Tallinn to take on Estonia in a World Cup qualifier they trained at the stadium the day before the game found the temporary floodlights to provide inadequate lighting complained to FIFA and demanded the game be moved to a daytime kickoff. FIFA agreed. The Estonian FA, though, were outraged, not least because they just lost their primetime slot on Estonian TV. So they didn't turn up for the game. The referee blows the whistle.

3:33Scotland kick off at the designated daytime start in front of 1 ,000 travelling fans who rather amusingly sang, there's only one team in Tallinn. And within three seconds, the referee then blew the final whistle, Scotland playing against an empty pitch and it's still finished nil-nil as the joke went. It has kicked off and has now been abandoned. The game has been abandoned on the kickoff. The game has started and been abandoned. Last year, 2024, floodlights were finally installed there in Thailand at the Kadriorg Stadium. Anyway, that was 29 years ago. more recently, 25 years ago, it was this week in football history that Kevin Keegan packed it in, in a toilet cubicle at Wembley Stadium, resigning as England manager after a home defeat to Germany.

4:25I've had a longer run than I could have expected. I mean, after Euro 2000, a lot of managers who are coaches who did a lot better than me fell by the wayside. But nevertheless, as I told the players, I just don't feel I can quite find that little bit of extra that I think you need at this level. to find a winning formula. A manager that German football took from us, you could say, one that German football gave us 10 years ago. Jurgen Klopp became Liverpool manager. So I'm a totally normal guy. I'm the normal one, maybe, if you want this. Yeah. And the rest is, you know, football history. That was a busy old week from the Almanac, wasn't it?

5:05Good, good Almanac action, that. You didn't point out that Scotland didn't get awarded the win in that game. No. It actually had to be replayed. I didn't know that. I think that's fair enough, though, isn't it? Well, not really. Is it not? Well, they didn't turn up. That's surely forwards in the game, I would have said. Right. I mean, they probably turned up at the time when the game was meant to be played that evening. Nah, they knew. They knew. They knew. Do you have a quiz question for us, Duncan? I do, yes. As you mentioned, we're talking about Dennis Bergkamp. Oh, yeah. A Dutchman. The eighth Dutchman, in fact, to score in the Premier League.

5:41I'm just looking for the seven Dutchmen to score before Dennis Bergkamp Before Dennis Bergkamp So before Dennis Bergkamp seven Dutch players scored in the Premier League We've had similar structure questions to this before and this one is much harder but Michael Cox fresh from the Opto Joe quiz triumph When do we answer? The end? Yeah you can have a quick We'll let the listeners think about it and ignore what we're saying for 45 minutes Okay Get mash in those Wikipedia buttons and we'll get back to that one. At the end, that seems really, really difficult. Well, the last one I did was quite easy, so you've got to mix it up, keep people on their toes.

6:23I like that. All right, well, quickly, let's get the Dennis Bergkamp stuff out the way and then we can find out the answer. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network. Yes, listener, today we're off to a faraway land called 1995.

6:43A place of shaggy's bombastic...

6:49Of Toy Story...

6:55Of Take That singing back for good, but then breaking up. Of OJ's lawyer saying... If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. of Oasis and Blur having their race to number one and in June 20th of 1995 of Dennis Bergkamp becoming the most expensive player in British football history that far when a struggling side from North London called Arsenal who were famous mostly for grim 1-0 wins and were fresh from a 12th place finish the season before bought him for£7.5 million from Inter. Adrian Clarke you were a fresh-faced youngster on the training grounds of wherever Arsenal's training ground was at the time London Colney London Colney had you ever seen anything like it?

7:44No because it was it was one of those transfers that you knew was transformative right from the get-go like the reaction of the players was like no other transfer before really it was like are you serious? Like we're actually getting Dennis Bergkamp. Now I know that he'd had a tough time at Inter Milan but he'd been brilliant for the Netherlands you know in major tournaments. Everybody knew he was one of the world's you know most skilful forwards and Arsenal just didn't have a history of signing players of that ilk. They just didn't and it smashed the transfer record and yeah right from the get go he raised the level Quite simply, he raised the level.

8:29The standard that he set for training in matches with this sort of professionalism was just a higher plane really than anyone else could have mustered before that. So yeah, he changed everything. Before Thierry Henry, before Arsene Wenger even, there was Dennis Bergkamp. And when we think about who Arsenal are now and who they became with Bergkamp, it seems a natural fit. But the Arsenal that he came into, I mentioned the fact they finished 12th the previous season. They were 11 points behind Spurs. You had the manager fired over the bungs. You had players with addiction, alcohol, all sorts of problems.

9:08What kind of environment was it there? Oh, it was a mess. It was a mess. And it probably was an environment that helped a young player like me get one or two opportunities because they just weren't in a great place. I think the dressing room had got a little bit tired of George Graham. You know, he's a very strict manager, brought great success. But the messages had become a bit tired. And I just felt that, you know, because I was in there for a few of those games, sort of part of the squad on the bench. I did make my debut in that poor season, my first game. and yeah it was just wasn't that happy an environment obviously yeah Tony Adams Paul Merson had their sort of personal battles going on it was carnage honestly every other week we seem to have like a meeting at the sort of back of the train the training ground changing rooms there's a little area with some benches and it would be like right a meeting's been called and there would be something major going on, you know, Merce saying he's an alcoholic, Tony Adams saying the similar, George Graham saying, yeah, I'm off.

10:14Stuart Houston, the same, the caretaker manager. So yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was a funny old time. And the team was, was really sort of in, in major decline, but all it needed, because they were still very, very good players. All it needed was a new voice as a gaffer and one or two new faces. And in came David Platt alongside Dennis Bergkamp. And all of a sudden, I think the dressing room thought, oh, hang on a minute, we're taking this seriously. And it reawakened, I think, those senior players' senses. Magnificent. He's not often mentioned in terms of the greatest players ever, Dennis Bergkamp.

10:55It doesn't seem to get into the top 10s for most people, even maybe top 20s. When you think of a player having a transformative effect on a club, maybe short of Maradona and Naples, I'm not sure that another example springs to mind more dramatic than Bergkamp at Arsenal. I'd say probably Cantona at Manchester United. And I think he was seen as Arsenal's Cantona. I mean, Manchester United haven't won the league for a long time before he came in. Cantona, I mean, everything Adrian said about Bergkamp, I think he'd say about Cantona, not just his impact on the playing style, but his impact on training and professionalism.

11:29And of course, this is an era where, you know, you can only have three foreign players in the team. So you've got to choose who you bring in very carefully. And it was obviously later in 95 that the Bosman ruling came in and, you know, out went that approach. But yeah, I mean, he was a fantastic player. And, you know, it's interesting to think about how people are talking about, I don't know, maybe Florian Wurtz now. I mean, Bergkamp got so much stick his first seven, eight games. I think it was seven games before he scored a goal. And he really looked out of place. He didn't look like he would really fit in in England.

12:02And of course, when he did get, he scored a great volley against Southampton to open his account. And was good that season. But the second season was really when we saw the real Bergkamp, I think. Once Fenger had come in. Yeah. And in that title winning or double winning season, he was fantastic. And I think he had a few kind of off seasons, I'd say, Bergkamp. But the three years that Arsenal won the league when he was there, when he was on it, he was just on a different level to everyone else. Yeah, obviously Arsenal went between 98 and 2002. United won the league three years in a row. And he was pretty under par for some of those seasons.

12:34But, I mean, just to put it into context, you've got to remember that when he signed, the Premier League didn't really sign anyone like this. And he'd gone to Inter, which was the sort of classic route for a talented Dutchman, you know, go to Serie A. and it was such a shock to see someone of this stature coming in. I was still at school and I remember people just being like, Dennis Bergkamp playing in England, that's just ridiculous. There's obviously a great book about Dennis Bergkamp. You'd like a more fully fleshed out account of his time, not just at Arsenal but also his origins and the way that he thinks, the way that he sees football, then Stillness and Speed, which he wrote with David Winner, what David Rinner wrote with him is an excellent and very illuminating read.

13:19But in there, he tells the story of when he came across to sign for Arsenal and he says he knew it was a big deal when he read about it on teletext in the hotel, went to page 302. C-fax, we're talking about. C-fax, and there's two big lines saying, Bergkamp joins Arsenal. See, he's the teletext striker, not Roy Essendow, he's a fraud. And then, later that, I think either later that day or certainly on his way back from that trip to sign on in the marble halls of Highbury. The extraordinary story is that he gets lost on the way back to the ferry to get the ferry back to the continent, you know, to go back to Italy.

13:59And he and his wife basically miss the turning of the most well, whatever. They're driving around South London and they stop to get some petrol. So he pulls over at the pump and there's a car in front of him, which means that he stops at the nearest pump. but then the other car immediately leaves. So the next car that comes in sees that there's a car there that's essentially blocked both pumps. The driver gets out, looking pretty upset about this, but then starts shouting, it's Dennis, it's Dennis. And that driver was Ian Wright. Incredible. That is genuinely incredible, yeah. Yeah. So... Can't be true.

14:36This can't be true. No, no, I mean, they both have the same story. It checks out, Adrian. Yeah, that seven games, which a big thing was made of, I guess proportionate to the amount of expectation, the amount of excitement over a Bergkamp signing in the Premier League, but seven games doesn't seem an undue amount. It was also still the era when the press was, you know, we're still not too far on from Graham Taylor being a turnip and Tony Adams being a donkey, etc. So it was very much the standard procedure. or anyone, any slight lack of form, steam in. But among the team there at London Colney, I think Ian Wright's talked about feeling inadequate when he saw Dennis Bergkamp's technique.

15:22How did the rest of the players feel? Yeah, honestly, he really genuinely was that level above. And you've got to remember, these guys were all internationals. They were all top Premier League stars. And he did make everyone look fairly average in training. You know, you do a shooting drill and he just wouldn't really miss. And he was producing. I just remember, obviously, it's a long time ago and things are a little bit hazy. But the one memory I have is of him constantly chipping keepers in training and the rest of the lads just cracking up and saying, stop it, Dennis. It's getting silly now.

16:04You know, it was that kind of environment where he just, every session, he'd just do one or two things that no one else could do. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the players were a little bit in awe of Dennis Bergkamp. And he did this right from the get-go, by the way. He didn't take time to settle in in training. It was just a case of getting used to the Premier League, I guess. But yeah, he hit the ground running and everyone was like, this is unreal. We're going to fly. Seven games in comes the game against Southampton, what turns out to be a 4-2 victory. Bergkamp opens the scoring with a pretty special volley.

16:42And he's raced on past Richard Hall. Right going to the near post. Bergkamp! There it is at long, long last in his seventh Premiership game. And now he's in seventh heaven. And then the second goal is pretty excellent as well as he strides upfield. And then if we talk about Chips being one of his trademarks, then those kind of casual but extremely emphatic strikes were another of the typical Bergkamp goals. Yeah, he had quite a lot of classic Bergkamp goals in completely different styles. I mean, I think of a classic Bergkamp goal as kind of inside left, open up his body and kind of curls it in the top corner.

17:21But then you've also got this incredible catalogue, you know, the highlights of which is the Argentina goal, but also the Leicester goal where he receives the long ball, controls it almost beats a defender and scores I mean he scored that kind of goal three or four times for Ajax as well so yeah there was quite a lot of very elegant and very impressive stuff that you know he's one of those players where he'd score a great goal and you think one it's a great goal but also that's classic him and I don't think there's that many players you would say that about he was also surprisingly quite strong as well like there were a number of goals when he kind of shrugs off defenders and runs in one-on-one and then to the agent's point in training he loved a little dink over the keeper but yeah Michael's right But he could, you know, it's a cliche, but he could score any type of goal.

18:03What I remember, James, is also the lobs. Has there ever been a player that lobbed a keeper as much as Dennis Bergkamp? I mean, you know, Duncan and Cox, you've got great knowledge of all things football. I can't think of a player that lobbed as many keepers. You know, so many times, you know, he'd control the ball on his instep, it'd bounce up and then he'd just lift it gently over the keeper. if you look at the montages on YouTube, it's just full of them. And he just had that touch. It was a silky touch that set him apart. And I think, yeah, throughout all the years of the Premier League, I do struggle to think of a player with a more delicate touch than Bergkamp.

18:45Mr. Lobba Lover, to quote Boombastic, by showing you what we mentioned. Well, that first season, he was second-highest goal scorer, I imagine behind Ian Wright with 11 goals which included a memorable one in the victory over Man United and the goal which got Arsenal back into Europe a 5th place finish which was against Bolton that Man United goal was the first goal I ever saw live really? my first ever game what you mean on television or at the stadium? no no at the stadium oh yeah? a friend of mine good goal as well no? not this one in particular. No, this was... I played the odds there saying it was.

19:29Yeah, most of them were. This one was a kind of toe-poke finish after a bit of a mix-up between Schmeichel and Irwin, I think. But yeah, it's a good player to have as your first goal scorer. Very nice. So the following season, 96-97, is when Arsene Wenger arrives a few weeks in. And is it fair to say, Adrian, that he basically builds the team then around Dennis? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that was the season where in the second half of the season, I sort of disappeared on loan. So I didn't get to see quite as much of it up close and personal. But it signed Anelka at that point, who was another sort of transformative signing really with his speed.

20:10But yeah, I mean, Wenger played a slightly different brand of football, didn't he? I think Bruce Realt gets unfair stick. He did try to get us to play less like George Graham and more in the Wenger style. It was definitely a sort of interim period of becoming more of a football side. But Arsene Wenger took that to a new level. And of course, if you've got a guy up front as one of your two strikers, because of course back then you'd play with two, that was as good with the ball at his feet as Dennis, then you were silly to sort of play direct football back to front too often. So, yeah, it just suited him.

20:49But, of course, Patrick Vieira has emerged at this point as well. He's come in and he clearly raises the level as well at the same time. So it wasn't just Dennis, but he was the one player that just set the tone for what was to come. And I genuinely think that all of those superstar players that followed him in came because they wanted to play with Dennis Bergkamp. Because he was the archetypal player that makes others look better. Definitely. It's interesting the comments of Ian Wright saying that Dennis Bergkamp was the greatest player that Arsenal ever signed, even better than Thierry Henry.

21:30And Henry himself saying that he was the greatest player he ever played with. And when you think of some of the people that Henry played with, that seems a big thing. But we'll come on maybe a little bit later on as to why, for all that approbation from fellow players, he doesn't register as being the absolute top level with a lot of people. I don't know why that would be. So Wenger comes in, 96-97. Ian Wright's still there. There's a fantastic goal against Spurs where basically Wright is doing a bit of juggling. He's doing the bird count work, essentially. and then having bought enough time, he floats one in, which Dennis kills, but also repositions the ball.

22:18Here's Bergkamp. Oh, that brilliant work. And that well and truly wraps it up for Arsenal. Yeah, it kind of controls it, cuts inside and finishes, doesn't it? And again, like Duncan says, it's another one where he's got to be quite strong as well. And I think that's the common thing about him and Cantona as well. Like I say, I almost think of them interchangeably, Man United Arsenal but I mean Cantona was hugely strong as well we talk about his creativity but he was a real big physical force and Bergkamp was he was tall he was actually quite fast he didn't always wasn't playing any role that way he needed to use his speed but he was quite fast and I think sometimes the thing that gets forgotten about him for someone who was always called the Iceman he was quite feisty I mean he got a couple of like red cars were like quite dirty things do you know what I mean he had a bit of a temper but I think he probably needed well, you definitely needed that physicality to thrive in English football to the extent that he did in the mid, late 90s.

23:14Jake asks, in amongst the obvious beauty and grace, I think people tend to forget how much of a fierce competitor, I'm putting air quotes on that, and fighter he was too. Maybe Adrian can attest to that. Yeah, I don't think he clattered me. I can't remember him clattering me. But I think that's one of the reasons he was so accepted in the dressing room as one of the lads, was that he would look after everyone's backs. If he got hacked, which happened a lot, he was one of those players that never forget. And yeah, 10, 20, 30, maybe 60 minutes later, you'd see him do something a little bit snide and get some revenge.

23:52But he'd also back up teammates. If he saw Wrighty get clattered by someone, he'd do something a little bit cynical himself. He definitely had that slightly sort of nasty mean streak as well, which was kind of at odds of his personality off the pitch because he was a really quiet but fun, playful kind of guy. He wasn't, I'm speaking like in the past tense here, but I'm just thinking of him as a young man. He was really quite silly at times. I remember him, one gag that he used to always do because he was one of these straight-faced persons. You know, he'd do something silly and straight-face it, but he used to crawl on all fours behind someone.

24:38If two people were chatting, he'd sneak up behind them on all fours and then basically the person who's chatting to the one with his back to him would just push him over Dennis and he'd just fall over Bergkamp. It was just nonsense, really. But, you know, I suppose we were all young men looking for a bit of a giggle and he definitely liked that. But on the pitch, hard, very hard. Brilliant. Next season was 97-98, which is a pretty special one for Arsenal and for Bergkamp in particular.

25:28writers around.

25:321997-1998 is when Arsenal do the double for the first time under Arsene Wenger. Dennis Bernkamp, very much at the heart of that team, also does the double, picking up both major Player of the Year awards, scoring a number of sumptuous strikes. Also, Duncan, becoming the only player in Premier League history to finish first, second and third in the same goal of the month competition. Yeah, pretty impressive. The winning one was the, Michael mentioned it earlier, the quite Argentina-esque pluck from the sky at Filbert Street rather than Marseille. And Plats in for Bergkamp. And Dennis Bergkamp! What a goal!

26:16What a fabulous goal! Fit to win any game from Dennis Bergkamp. And he has a hat-trick. and Arsenal surely have their three points now. Was that his peak that season at Arsenal? Possibly. I think he was clearly the best player in the league. There's a few seasons in the Premier League where I think just one player almost not wins it single-handedly, but like Salah last season, like Ronaldo in 2008, like Omri probably in the Invincibles year, you've just got one player who just feels unstoppable in that season. And he was a great player in terms of creating goals. I think that's probably the main thing he brought to Arsenal, the supply line for Enelka and Perez and Henry and Jungberg in particular.

27:03But he was also, I mean, earlier in his career at Ajax, he was a prolific goal scorer. He won the top goal scorer award twice in the Netherlands. I think we always think of him as a pure number 10, a pure second striker. A shadow striker, even. Yes, exactly. But he was, I mean, he was a very good goal scorer himself. A scorer with great goals, but earlier in his career, a great goal scorer. This season, he was Arsenal's top scorer in the league and in all competitions. It was a funny season, that, because Wright was out injured for a lot. So they had Anelka up front a little bit. They had Christopher Wray up front a little bit.

27:35So they, I mean, it was a time of, not transition for Arsenal because they won a league, but it wasn't like they had huge strength and depth. And I think there were periods where certainly Arsenal were suffering from injuries. and it was Bergkamp who was not just dictating the game, but he was winning the game. Arsenal won the league with 78 points, which recently you'd struggle to get third with that points total. Those balls plucked from the sky, which you mentioned, another of the Bergkamp trademarks, he'd scored one like that against Tony Adams back in 1993 in a Netherlands-England game, which Adams remembers with chagrin.

28:13But at the end of this season, sorry Duncan, The other thing I think about Bergkamp signing was that there was such an antipathy between England and Holland in the early 90s from all those games. I think a lot of those players were almost seen as sort of unknowable villains before they came. And then like Rude Hullick came and Bergkamp came and everyone just realised they were like nice guys who were really good at football. And I think it really did help sort of internationalise the league in a way that probably wasn't the intention, but definitely happened. Nice. Anyway, those balls plucked from the sky at the end of the 97-98 season.

28:47Michael, you think he's reached his hypothesis. And probably if you wanted to take one moment where all that skill, all that elegance, all that footballing intelligence crystallised into something pretty much perfect, it would be in the World Cup quarterfinal against Argentina. Price is with the ring for Frank De Boer Loor 경ed the ball. He ходKO DENIS BERGKAMW Andитесь Bergkamp knows易 speed We're playing there as a manner of 200 semillas DENIS BERGKAMW Don't spell camp. Don't spell camp.

29:41Jack van Gelder there. Legendary comms. We remember the goal, but that match as well was a pretty phenomenal game of football. Michael, you'll no doubt remember it in every detail, not least where you were when you saw it. Do you know what? I actually didn't watch this live. I can't remember what I was doing. But I remember everyone saying this was the best. The Bergkamp score was the best World Cup goal ever. and then I saw it in the highlights. I was like, you know, if you hear about something and then you see it, it's obviously a great goal. Yeah, I didn't have the joy of seeing it live, sadly.

30:13Like maybe it was the Dans in the Champions League final. This was a very good goal. This was a very good goal. It was a tough game between the two sides. Bergkamp had assisted Patrick Kluivert, father of, for the opening goal. then Argentina had equalised Holland had gone down to 10 men Dennis had effectively disappeared from the match then the Argentines pick up a red card as well when Ortega challenges Ed van der Jui I think the... Van der Sar Is it Van der Sar? Yeah It's one of the Vans You're right, Van der Sar Anyway, time is ticking on and it looks like we're heading towards extra time when Frank de Boer sends up a sumptuous diagonal ball.

31:03Just hits it long, doesn't he? He hits it long. Adrian. It's interesting, the statue outside the Emirates is of a bird camp in full flight, ironically enough, given his fear of flying, but an aerial Dennis Bird camp stretching out to control a ball from the heavens. Yeah, and that is absolutely one of his trademarks. You look at so many of the goals that he scored for Ajax, for Arsenal, for the Netherlands. He could pluck it out of the sky. And teams went long to him quite often. Because as Coxie said, he was pretty quick. And he could run in behind. But then he just would watch it come over his head and just pull it out of the sky.

31:46Just ridiculous, really. And that's what made that goal so special. also the one against Leicester City to seal the famous hat trick there. So yeah, it kind of is fitting. Fitting that the statue is of that sort of moment, even though it's quite awkward for a statue. It's not the sort of shape you would ordinarily have. You see a lot of footballing statues. This, I would say, is one of the better ones. And it is, I think, the perfect moment to encapsulate, even if it does seem to be representing Argentina. Duncan, what were you going to... Well, it's better than the Harry Kane statue in the Cristiano Ronaldo one, for sure.

32:21No, I think the goal against Argentina is quite instructive because obviously he takes the ball down with his right foot and then the normal thing to do there would probably be to shoot with your left foot, but he obviously shoots with his right foot. First he cuts it back to send Ajala spinning off towards the corner flag and then he kind of curls it with the outside of his foot. But what I'm saying is if he did have one weakness, it was that he was particularly one-footed. 84 % of his Premier League goals with his right foot. Really? I never thought of it as one-footed. I think in your mind's eye, it's his right foot that's doing all the damage, I think.

32:55Even the little, the sort of three balls in the edge of the box, poking them through. There's a lot of players running from the left-hand side. I think that's why he dovetailed well with Henri, you know, because he could play with his right sort of cutting through the defence. When you look back at it now, Michael, are you any more impressed with that? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's clearly a great goal. And again, similar to the Leicester one, I think the best one like that he scores is actually with Ajax, which is from, it must be about five or six years before, but it's also from a Frank De Boer pass.

33:26So they had a really good, I mean, De Boer played that channel pass so much for Bergkamp. But the one against Ajax, sorry, the one for Ajax against PSV, it ends with a chip as well. So as Adrian says, it's like a combination of the Argentina goal and all the other chips he scored. But yeah, that's something, you know, goes back to the podcast. we did earlier about if you've got a player with that level of touch then you can play a long ball and it's not just scrapping for seconds. You can play a long ball and get someone through on goal and Bergkamp could do that. Aaron says, what is your favourite goal of Bergkamp in any competition international or domestically that he played in?

34:04So a lot of people will say the Argentina one. Adrian, other nominations? I'm going to chuck in the goal at Sunderland at the old Roker Park. so to describe it he does one of those pirouettes he sort of half loses the ball gets it back and does a puts his foot on the ball and does a 360 turn and he opens up his body and he curls it into the far top corner into the stanchion but it's got you know it's just completely unsavable it's a thing of beauty Merson Bergkamp well that's superbly done that is absolutely brilliant Dennis Bergkamp indicates that Arsenal have come out here with a more positive attitude for the second half and he's done it with wonderful quality and then you might remember the celebration where the hand goes over his mouth as if to sort of say goodness me I suppose and all the other lads piling doing doing exactly the same thing that for me was was a moment of pure class it's just not the kind of goal you see every season it's the kind of kind of goal you see every i don't know five or ten seasons i mean how many goals how many goals since then and it happened in i think 1997 yeah how many goals have we seen that have been like that i just i just don't remember very many so yeah so i'd also go northeast and pick the one atst james's park which obviously splits opinion ah right a lot of people would it was voted the best goal in premier league history in 2017 it's very good to to have a goal that's so uh that splits opinion so much that it's you know just mentioned the bird camp goal at newcastle and anyone who knows anything about football wouldn't know exactly what you mean when you say it splits opinion is that because some people don't think that he meant what happened yeah so the ball comes in and he's got his back to to goal defenders closing in and he uses a rare use of his left foot to flick it round um and then so when you say flick it round what's weird about this and it kind of defies description a little bit is he's got his back to goal he flicks it around the left hand side of the defender well the right hand side of the defender but he pirouettes to the okay the left hand side is as you look at the defender but the defender's right side while he himself runs around turns and runs round the other way to meet the ball.

36:32So he touches it, but he also puts enough spin on it for it to curl round and meet him on the other side of the defender, after which he then scores a pretty excellent goal. Yeah, I mean, it's the sort of swing ball technique, really, more than football. But he gets there, and fair play to his knee ligaments because he opens his right leg up a lot and then slots it in. But, I mean, whether he meant it or not, it's probably in the top five most iconic Premier League goals, I'd say.

37:06Well it was voted in 2017 the best and there's been a lot of goals scored since then I don't want to sit here and say which one was better but I'd say it's still going to be top three, isn't it? Yeah, I think because it's so unique I think that's what sets it apart and I said it's not something you can even try to replicate because I still don't really understand how he does it Duncan just explained swing ball well there you go swing ball I was watching sorry Adrian I was just going to say I was watching various bits of Bergkamp magic while we were preparing for this show and there were a couple of things that weren't goals but were kind of laugh out loudly good one of which is an assist actually for Freddie Lundberg against Juventus where Lundberg's in the box Bergkamp's there being closely marked by a couple of Juventus defenders and Bergkamp's essentially watching Lundberg thinking, are you going to make a run so I can give you the ball?

38:04And Lundberg takes a good couple of seconds to actually wake up to this. But it's not a problem for Dennis who just calmly moves the ball back and forth and buys himself enough time to eventually then just put this dream of a ball through for Lundberg who duly scores. The other one is against Roma. This is from 2003. I'd forgotten this one. somebody's hoofed the ball way up in the air so it actually falls out it comes from out the top of the screen as you watch the thing you know essentially drop from the skies and Bergkamp just casually hoofs it straight back up again about 20 foot up in the air over the head of Daniele Tomasi who's meant to be marking him and as the ball is making its way up there and coming back down again he does a little 180 turn I'm not sure why but does and then meets the ball with a casual volley as it comes back down again to put through Wiltord, Sylvian Wiltord, who I don't think actually scores, but it is just a ridiculously impudent bit of skill.

39:06Anyway, sorry, Adrian, your favourite bit. No, I was just going back to that Newcastle goal. I think there's nothing to be gained from sort of dragging the ball across his body if he didn't mean it. Like I just, and there was absolutely no hesitation in his run. so when he spins he drags it left he doesn't it doesn't break stride in the way that he skips around the defender which is that makes me feel that he absolutely did did mean it but yeah while we're on the subject of assists I mean he he that was probably what he was even better at than scoring we've kind of covered his goals but he was also he you know he made so many and he could a lot of them were from sort of central midfield weren't they with with those precise perfectly weighted through balls and you know the very few times I got to play with him I can't remember how many would have been you know in the Premier League like five or six times you just know that when you make that run you know that it's going to be perfectly weighted you're not going to have to break stride or if you know if you want it pinged into you it's going to be pinged in he just had a great appreciation I think for for the type of pass that was needed in any moment And yeah, any montage of Bergkamp's assists are well worth watching because he had the passing range of Glenn Hoddle, who was his idol.

40:31You know, he idolised Hoddle growing up. Indeed so. If you were looking at a montage, you could just watch the one game against Leicester in 1999 in which Bergkamp became the first player in history to register four assists in a single Premier League game. It's been matched since, but no one's ever bettered it. He says in, again, his book Stillness and Speed, I always had a picture in my head of how things would look two or three seconds into the future. I could calculate it. There's a tremendous pleasure in doing something that someone else couldn't see. It's interesting Adrian mentions the Hoddle thing because he was a bit of a Tottenham fan growing up.

41:07He's, post the Arsenal move, he's kind of justified this whole, I was just a Glenn Hoddle fan, and I'm sure Hoddle was the one who got him into Tottenham. But certainly there's a couple of interviews from his Ajax days where he's a bit more direct about his affection for Tottenham. Imagine if he joined Spurs, eh? Imagine. Well, Arsenal it was. And 11 seasons there. And although his peak might have been in 97-98, a little bit later on came something that is still unmatched in Premier League history. The 2003-04 season.

41:46You're listening to the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show.

41:592003, 2004 and Thierry Henry is now alongside, or a little bit ahead of, Dennis Bergkamp. Bergkamp's role at this point, has it become less central, Adrian? No, still... I don't mean positionally, but I mean in terms of the importance that he brings to the side. Maybe he was getting a little bit older, wasn't he? That team was just really strong all over, wasn't it? But Vieira and Henry and Perez were probably the stars of the show at that time. And he was quite often sub. But whenever, you know, he had plenty of big contributions during that season. And he's the perfect foil, wasn't he, for Henry?

42:41Because he's so good that defenders had to follow him in to those little pockets in between the lines. And of course, if he drags a defender with him, it leaves the people behind him a little bit more isolated to Henry's pace. So for me, they were sort of tailor-made for each other. And it's no wonder Henry loved playing with Bergkamp because he would create so much space for him and obviously deliver those killer passes as well. He'd retired from the Netherlands in 2000 after the disappointment of the semi-final exit in the Euros to Italy and eventually retires from the game relatively early 2005-2006 was his last season His last game, well, it wasn't his last game but he was on the bench for the Champions League final and you wonder if Arsenal hadn't have been down to 10 men whether he would have got 10 minutes at least in that one but it's a shame that he didn't bow out with the Champions League winner's medal Indeed, his final official game was 15 minutes or so at the end of Dennis Bergkamp Day, which was April 15, 2006.

43:46One of the final games at Highbury, a few months before the Bulldozers moved in, when he comes on in the 74th minute and, of course, scores. He then makes one more appearance for Arsenal after the Champions League final, which was the first game at the Emirates when they had a testimonial for him against Ajax. and outside the Emirates, as I say, is now that glorious statue. So a lot of questions that people have sent in. If Bergkamp was in the current team, where would he play? That's from Sean. David asking, is Bergkamp the best number 10 in Premier League history? What do you think about those?

44:26Well, I actually think he'd be quite suited to playing as a lone forward, really. I think our expectations, in the modern era, I mean, I think our expectations of players, that mould of change, it used to be about Drogba, it used to be you have to be a big physical force battling two centre-backs on your own. But if you look at someone like Roberto Firmino or Guy Havitz has tried to do the role for Arsenal, as I say, Ajax, he was a pretty prolific goal scorer. And I think he could, you know, very adequately blend the qualities of a number nine, number 10. In terms of the best number 10, he's obviously in the conversation.

44:59He had more longevity than Cantona. I'd say Cantona was, well, he won more league titles. He did transform Manchester United and I think just dominated the league when he was there. Obviously, some good players in recent years who maybe wouldn't always have played that kind of role. But yeah, certainly up there. Certainly up there. But given how much he did, winning the double twice, going unbeaten the whole season with Thierry Henry, scoring the Premier League's greatest ever goal, introducing Ian Wright to pyjamas, which Ian had never encountered before sharing a room, apparently, with Denis for Arsenal.

45:35And given the fact that, as I mentioned back at the start, Ian calls him the best Arsenal signing ever ahead of Thierry Henry, and Henry himself says he was the greatest that he played alongside. Why are they just being polite? Or why is it that they think that and he's not listed among the very greatest to ever do it? I mean, I think players tend to judge fellow players on talent and skill. And I don't think that always translates into kind of consistent performance and doing it at the highest level. I mean, he scored some goals at major tournaments, the Argentino one, obviously. But I never think he was the best player at a tournament.

46:13And I think sometimes there was a bit of a question about him in big games. He was top scorer in Euro 92. I can't remember it that clearly, but maybe he would have had a claim to that. Yeah, I think him and Van Basten would, yeah, both had a good tournament in that tournament. And I mean, he was, to be fair, he was in the Ballon d 'Or. I think he finished third and second at the start of his career. The other thing I'd say about Bergkamp is for all that this was a player who completely revolutionised Arsenal, made them more continental, etc. I don't think he didn't have a great record in the Champions League.

46:45And I think the Champions League became the place where really you judge the best players in the world. Right. Was that in any way affected by the fact that he wouldn't fly? Of course, there were games he couldn't play away from home. But I also think, I mean, if you listen to Bergkamp himself, he says he thrived in the Premier League because basically the Premier League was quite tactically naive. They always played with two lines. They didn't man-mark. And I think when Arsenal played European opposition and there was more congested midfield zones and he had someone marking him, I think he struggled to exert the same level of influence.

47:18So I think, I mean, as I alluded to, if you make a 10-minute show reel of every player, he looks like the best player in history. I think if you were to go through every Arsenal game and mark everyone out of 10, I'm not, personally, I'm not sure he was a more consistent, better performer than Robert Perez, for example, who I think was probably not quite as talented, but just guaranteed you goals and assists and that kind of thing and always came up with the goods. And I think Bergkamp did have more off-seasons than I think is obvious in the kind of judging players retrospectively on YouTube era.

47:50And he never hit that sort of spell Henri had in 2004 where for like four or five months, he was playing football at a level I'd never seen before. And you'd tune into Arsenal games just because, you know, it was so exciting to see football being played like this. And yes, Bergkamp was involved in that, but as Michael says, it really was like Henri and Perez that were the drivers of that. If he wasn't the greatest then, Adrian, what were the things that were best about him? His intelligence, his elegance, his first touch? His technique. Technique. He was the footballer's footballer. His stats weren't as good as many, many Premier League players in terms of goals and assists and minutes per goal or assist.

48:34They weren't outrageously good at all, which is maybe why he isn't considered in the vein that you're talking about. But I just think he was the sort of player that if he was on your team, you'd appreciate or if you were playing against him, you would appreciate just because of his technique. It was pretty flawless really in terms of that touch and the decision making and the little bits of guile where there didn't seem to be a hole and he'd just manipulate the ball very quickly to move it and then he'd flick it between the two defenders for the runner. He just did things that your average footballer wouldn't really even contemplate doing.

49:15But I do agree with Coxsey on that in terms of the show reel would look like he's the greatest Premier League player of all time for sure. But yeah, he wasn't brilliant every week. And to me, even though he's the best that I ever played with, I do think Henri is the best Premier League player I don't even think it's close OK Well we should point out here I'm obliged to that Ashley Young assisted John Carew more than Dennis Bergkamp assisted Thierry Henry Do with that knowledge what you will Well we'll do next week's Totally Extra on Ashley Young which wouldn't be a bad shout actually He's had a really fascinating career Yeah In many ways About Bergkamp he would say and it's clear from our conversation that his career is littered with goals that you cannot imagine anybody else scoring, which is, I think, the mark of a great one.

50:09Some of the other questions that people have written in about Dennis Bergkamp, Sam says, did his fear of flying lead him to miss many European matches? I mean, he famously would drive right across the continent to get to games on occasion. He would, weirdly. He didn't particularly like getting the train long distances either. There was certainly a game where there was debate about whether he could go and someone pointed out the train was pretty quick and he was like, no, I'd rather drive. It was, yeah, quite interesting. I mean, obviously it depended on where they were. I mean, for a few years, it felt like when Arsenal got their Champions League group, you were almost mainly looking like, you know, if they get Anderlecht or Twente or someone like that, he's sorted.

50:47If you've got Shakhtar Dornetsk, then Karnu's going to have to do a job here. But yeah, I mean, it did affect it. It did affect it. And I think it was, I mean, it was such an unusual thing. Again, to go back to what we said earlier, this was English football in the 1990s. And the idea that a player would be, you know, just say, sorry, I don't like flying. You know, I've got a fear of it. It was, I mean, it was treated as if it was basically a psychological weakness on his part. And I think that was probably related to the fact that when he first came and struggled, people were like, well, maybe he's not tough enough for this league.

51:21Maybe he hasn't got it. Because he'd already stopped flying by the time he came to, that was, I think, 1994 when he was at the World Cup. that he gets back from the World Cup and it's really just brought him to the realisation that he can't do it anymore. And he says it wasn't... There's a lot of people talk about specific incidents with Netherlands in the USA, that tournament. But he, I mean, certainly in the book, he describes Inter's propensity to get these propeller, short-range propeller planes to Games' CDR matches that never really get above the clouds. So you're right in the middle of the turbulence all the way and you're cramped in there and he's a big guy and the whole thing's incredibly claustrophobic.

51:59And yeah, he just gradually realizes he just doesn't want to do it anymore. Plenty of people asking why he did so badly at Inter. I mean, he had a great UEFA Cup campaign as they won that particular competition. But it's a, I guess you could do another podcast on what Inter were trying to do at that time. But very, very briefly, the most influential team in recent Italian football history were Milan, Inter's neighbors, who'd put together an incredible run of results and incredible sequence of dominance. They'd gone through that 58 games unbeaten, which puts Arsenal's invincibles in perspective, with three Dutchmen.

52:38And Inter, who were always trying to catch up with their neighbours, thought that if we get in a couple of Dutch players, I'm slightly doing shorthand on their thinking here, but if we get in a couple of these Ajax lads who've been doing so well with them, so Wim Junk, who puts the ball through for Dennis Bergkamp, as used to happen a lot in that Ajax team, and then Bergkamp to do the finishing, then off we go. But Ajax is not the same as Inter, and certainly the football that Ajax played was a world away from what Inter were doing, because while Milan were a very forward-looking outfit, Inter most certainly weren't, although they did make attempts, I guess, by bringing those into change.

53:15So it was a pretty miserable time for him, very much a fish out of water. Quite a Jimmy Greaves-style career, isn't it? That sort of young superstar goes to Milan, the city, doesn't do real well, comes back and becomes a legend in North London. There you go. There you go. So it didn't work out at Inter, but that's just, that was what his journey needed to bring him to Arsenal, I suppose, where the magic happened. It's quite a nice thing. Earlier this year, the Football Writers Association have an annual tribute night to usually a former player. and I mean, sometimes it's someone like Pele who's just seen it all before and, you know, it's another award he's getting.

53:55And I think it was Yaya Toure a couple of years ago. It was like, yeah, good player. But Bergkamp, it was just a different vibe. There were so many ex-players there who really basically wanted to play tribute. I think I was on a table with Adrian, actually. And it was just... Were you there as well? Well, sorry, I remember talking to Adrian about playing a lot of Bergkamp. So that's what I remember. But it was really, like, it was really class. And there was so many people. I mean, the FIFA Secretary General, Mattis Grafstrom, I think his name is, came along just because he wanted to get a photo with Bergkamp.

54:29And it was just like, it was a slightly different vibe. It was really, and he's such a, he's a very humble and quiet figure, you know. So it was, it was very nice. I really enjoyed that. There's an aura around him. A little bit, yeah. A little bit. And clearly he was genuinely slightly uncomfortable with the attention. but it was good there was some really nice Ian Wright gave a really nice speech about him very heartfelt speech about him and yeah it was very good yeah not that I'd ever disbelieve Adrian Clarke about anything but like the reaction from all those players backed up exactly what Adrian said that you know he really was the the footballer's footballer well who better to judge than the players themselves talking to players themselves Duncan the quiz answer yeah yeah so the seven Dutchmen that scored in the Premier League before Dennis Bergkamp's first goal, which his was in September 95.

55:22Okay, so seven Dutch players, I'm buying myself time here, had played and scored. Rude Hullet? Rude Hullet, yes. Okay. A week before Bergkamp. A week before. I'm really struggling here. I'm going to guess what is one Ken Monkow. Yes. that's just the only Dutch player from the early years I can think of I can't think of Dutch players before Bergkamp I would say one of them's reasonably big name the rest are absolute specialist choices so it's not did Glenn Helder score before Bergkamp Glenn Helder scored after Bergkamp right so we've only got two of seven so far let's know how you're getting on was Reggie Blinker in the Premier League before Bergkamp he again he succeeded Glenn Helder there was many right Brian Roy Brian Roy oh Brian Roy What a shout.

56:16Fodges, Brian Roy. And honestly, the other three. Well, I've got four. Do you just want to tell us? Okay, the first one. Or do you want to give us a hint? First one, defender for Manchester City in the first few weeks of the first Premier League season. Michel Vonk. Okay, I do remember that name. Then it was Ken Moncow, which we got. Okay. Then it was a Swindon player. this is an absolutely specialist choice as well I don't know Luke Neiholt okay they're sort of names you go oh yeah vaguely remember then Brian Roy which I didn't go and then West Ham player in 94 not boogers nope but Jerome Burra yes and then the final one shortly before what a month August September 95 was Hullet scoring Bergkamp scoring but before them a Bolton player scored De Freitas yeah Fabian De Freitas Fabian De Freitas nice there we go what a 7 that's extraordinary and extraordinarily difficult maybe a little bit too tricky that one we got a lot excellent Duncan thank you so much for today Michael thanks to you as well Adrian lovely to have you on and look forward to speaking to you all again soon that was totally extra we've got another one next week which I think is going to be on Icelandic biscuit era West Ham your Kia Gerabchins your Mascheranos, your Tevises your Cubs and your Pardews Hayden Mullins Indeed, all of that examined in Forensic Diesel and Totally Extra next time around for now from all of us here it's goodbye

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