Totally Gold Champions League 94/95: Van Gaal's Ajax go all the way

0:01The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

0:11Hello, listener. It's totally gold time, revisiting five years ago, a time when no football was on, so we all came together to look back on some of the greatest seasons in history. This week, we're dusting off the one where James Horncastle, Julian Laurents and Raphael Honigstein came together to reflect on the third campaign of Champions League football, which was a coming-of-age tale for Louis van Gaal's Ajax.

0:53So far, we've heard how the dastardly Bernard Tapie crooked and connived Marseille's way to the first Champions League title over Milan in 1993. And how the following year, Milan had the last laugh, beating Croix Barcelona 4-0 in Athens, bringing down the curtain on the Dream Team. Now, if you're sitting comfortably, it's time for Chapter 3.

1:21Oh, yeah, the rhythm of the night. So, it's autumn, 1994. Milan had won in Athens, Brazil had won in Pasadena, and Rhythm of the Night was number one all over the world. What was that band's name, though? Anyway, new Champions League season was getting underway, and guess what? They changed the format again, now bringing in a group stage to start the thing off, then introducing quarterfinals and a second leg to the semis. That's more like it. The big story of the group stage were, making an impression on a young James Horncastle, IFK Gothenburg, Swedish champions, in a group featuring Barcelona and Man United, coming out, James, on top.

2:05James Horncastle: Yeah, and kind of picking up where Sweden had left off in the 1994 World Cup as well, where they surprised a lot of people in finishing third. But, I mean, this was the season, I suppose, where Jesper Blomkisk really kind of came onto the scene with performances against United, particularly in the one in Gothenburg and against Barcelona as well in the group because Gothenburg beat both these kind of, I suppose, traditional European elite in their own backyard. And also, you know, just fantastic to see someone like Thomas Ravelli, who was such a big protagonist in that kind of Sweden side of the World Cup in the States.

2:47What have happened to Roger Gustafsson, the coach, after this fantastic run?

2:51Julien Laurens: It's an interesting one because he actually was sacked after the following season and then didn't do anything between 1995 and 2003. And in 2003, he came back to the club just to coach in the academy and then had a few spells with the under-19s in the academy and then was caretaker manager of the first team again only for a couple of months. And then that was it. So that was his season. And the following one, I guess. And then that's pretty much it. Interesting. Sounds very intriguing. I get the sense that this is not the whole story. So if somebody knows what happened in those years, do write in.

3:29We might find time for it. Later on, Akbar Chaudhary also remembering the clash between United and the young Jesper Blomqvist giving the Red Devils the runaround for Gothenburg. United, of course, who'd crashed out of the competition to Galatasaray in the previous season. and this time got their revenge on the team from Istanbul with a 4-0 win at Old Trafford, which included David Beckham's first Champions League goal. Once again, though, they had an early exit, failing to get out of this group, this time thanks to a 4-0 defeat, 4-0 thumping, in fact, by Barcelona at the Camp Nou. As Andy Fleming recalls, in goal that night was Gary Walsh because of the three foreigner rules, and it's fair to say that he had a bit of a struggle against Risto Stoichkov and Hormario.

4:17As he indeed recalls, I had no real idea I was playing until the morning of the game. The night before, Mick Hucknall had joined him with us during shooting practice and he'd actually scored past me. His shot went right through me. It was really embarrassing. Regarding the game, says Gary, the funny thing is, apart from the four goals, I don't think I really had a save to make that night. Well, quite. He apparently had to get the bus back afterwards, the bus back to his car at the airport with loads of Man United fans. But he says, I pulled my hat down. Most of them didn't recognise me. So there you go.

4:51If you don't know me by now. Watching this back. Yeah. Watching this thing back, what strikes you is just how pedestrian and slow United's defence is when they came up against Romario and Stojkoff. They were just basically just constantly trying to get anywhere near the ball without much success. Gary Pallister looks like a player from a different era compared to these guys. And it was crazy to see, I think, at the time that United just couldn't really hold a candle to these sort of teams in Europe. It took them a good few years in the Champions League before they really got going. Easily forgotten now, I think.

5:33Julien Laurens: The game against Gothenburg, the one they lost 3-1 in Sweden. And you had Konczelski as right back as well, which meant that Simon Davis, who I completely forgot actually played for Manchester United before. Starting that game on the left-hand side, imagine having Conte on one side and then Simon Davies on the other side. It's just crazy. It was an average team. All right, well, that was what Man United and Gothenburg were doing. But meanwhile, over in France...

5:58James Horncastle: I'll be looking for your heart If you take it from a place Even if in your dances Other dances in the desert Por que tu mets mon corps by Celine Dion which Young Jules was doing his slow dancing to that year when he wasn't at the Parc des Princes watching PSG who were champions of France of course and had turned up for the Champions League this season having of course decided not to the previous campaign. Jules, some team you had this time around.

6:31Julien Laurens: Yeah, it was a wonderful team. It really was. And some players at the peak of their, at least of their PSG career, if you think about George Weah and David Ginola, who were playing together up front, they were in a group with Bayern, which was the other top teams really in that group. And they won twice, home and away, with I don't think any debate really on how much they deserve to win those two games. and especially the one in Munich where George Weahs got that iconic goal where 10 minutes from time he got the ball near the touchline and then sort of dribbled past most of the Bayern defence and then had a shot from just outside the box right in the top corner.

7:08Julien Laurens: It was a wonderful goal and it was a team that had a bit of everything. A lot of old school defenders, quite aggressive and not very good on the ball and then you get the ball to the artist and the likes of Valdo and then Rye obviously. even Daniel Bravo plus Ginola and Weah made that team so dangerous, I thought. And the highlights of the season, obviously, in Europe would be the Barcelona games, home and away. But even in the group stages, you could feel something was happening. They had six games, six wins. And there was something there very interesting. And I think we, as fans, started dreaming that maybe it could be a year where they could achieve something good.

7:47Of course, they didn't, as it turned out, beaten 3-0 by Milan in the semifinals. but you had that illusion that you had that. You were in the stands, I think, there with your pair, Tom Pierre.

7:58Julien Laurens: With Montpère, yeah, indeed, for the quarterfinal second leg. It was March 15th. I mean, I will never forget. It was just incredible. It was 1-1 draw in Barcelona in the first leg. And again, we've said many times this was not a great Barcelona side either, to be fair. Baqueros scored straight after the break in the second leg in Paris and the whole Paris-de-Prince went so quiet and then it looked like they were going to knock us out and then Rye scored a header on a corner by Valdo 20 minutes from time and then I think 83rd or 84th minute Guérin, on the end where we were sat as well Guérin with a shot just from the edge of the box scored our second goal, PSG 1-2-1 and the whole place just went ballasted Valdo, c 'est du grand football C 'est du grand, grand football Allez Vincent

8:54Julien Laurens: It was a fantastic win. It really was a team that had so much class when they were playing together. It was wonderful. It's just a shame in a way. I think Milan, of all the four semifinalists, Milan were the worst team for us to face because they were so clinical, they were so good defensively that in those two semifinals, I mean, the first leg in Paris, Gionola, I think, hit the bar and then Beauban scored in the last minute of the game and that killed us and then we lost in Italy 2-0. But Ajax at least were playing football. This Milan side was so clinical, so good defensively that it was not the right fit for us to play against.

9:31Julien Laurens: I think maybe Ajax would have won against us but at least we would have had a better chance because it would have been two teams playing football if you want. Even Bayern would have probably been better than Milan in the semifinal. Well, Ajax of course were playing a lot of football that year and then again sometimes like in the final they weren't. But let's now move on to the team who really were the story of that Champions League campaign, the eventual winners, Ajax of Amsterdam.

10:21James Horncastle: This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Piers, Olly Kay and the very best football writers around. Vangelis, Conquest of Paradise from the movie 1492, number one hit in the Netherlands this season. and I like to think in the Van Gaal household too as he marched around fashioning what would become one of world football's all-time great sides, winners, as we say, of this Champions League campaign. Rafa, where do they stand in the Pantheon of Cruz? Well, they occupy a very unique position because they only had one fantastic year together before the break-up started.

11:05Of course, they made it to the final the second year but by then they were sort of a spent force And they are emblematic of also the change in dynamics in European football with the Bosman rule kicking in soon after, which, of course, hastened that breakup and possibly made it very hard for a future Ajax to go as far, which, of course, made their run to the semifinal last season all the more unforgettable still. But I think there is a certain romantic and nostalgic factor attached to them because we know that they couldn't unfortunately stay together. And this was a very short lived, but very, very sweet spot for them.

11:46Well, the light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long. And they burn so very, very brightly. Of course, what stars they had. We were talking about the PSG lineup, but James Horncastle, an incredible array of 90s legends lining up for Van Gaal in that Ajax team.

12:05James Horncastle: Yeah, legends to be because a lot of them were at the start of their career. And I think that's something that's always been exciting about Ajax is discovering talent along the way to a final. a little bit like last year where all of a sudden you have De Ligt and De Jong become household names within the space of four to six months at least in terms of transcending Holland. I think it was very much the same with this team because I don't think a lot of people knew much about teenager Clarence Seydorf or Edgar Davids or had seen Mark Overmars and the pace that he brought down that left-hand side.

12:48James Horncastle: Remember, this was a time when you didn't have as much access to football as we did until recently, where you could see games all around the world all the time. So to see this young team come together, and I mentioned those names in midfield, you think of some of the guys coming off the bench, like Kanu, like Patrick Clivert, not Justin, his son, who's now playing. and just having this kind of thread of youth throughout that team, which was, I think, I don't have the numbers to hand, but as an average age will have been younger than the side that reached the semifinals last year, aside from the inclusion of players like Frank Reitgaard, who's obviously at the end of his career, and Danny Blind.

13:31One name above all, Jules, Yari Littmann.

13:34Julien Laurens: Yes, and the more you watch again that season, especially in the Champions League, I think in the league, he scored something like 26 goals or 27 goals the season before that. And then in that Champions League year, he was just unstoppable. There's some games where he was bossing. He played. Either they played in that 3-4-3 formation with a diamond midfield, which was never seen before. And very much what Van Gaal had worked on with those players. And that back three could sometimes be a back four when Rijkaard would drop a bit deeper. And you had Lippmannen behind Ronald De Boer, who was not a number nine, really.

14:07Julien Laurens: but he was a false number nine way, way before Totti or Messi or whoever then really made that position known for everybody else. And what Ronaldo Bo would do is free all that space for Littmann to run into. And there's a goal he scored against Bayern Munich in the semi-final where it's exactly that format. De Bo then passes the ball through to Littmann and then Littmann just buries the finish. And he's just, I don't know, he was a number 10, but also a number nine and a nine and a half. and he was just so good technically, almost so perfect in every game, whatever the conditions, in terms of weather and stuff like that.

14:42Julien Laurens: It was really, really beautiful to watch and I remember it as a kid watching and now for the show today, when you re-watch it all, it's just incredible the level that he was on and I'm actually surprised if you look at it, he only left Ajax in 99. So he stayed way longer than he should probably have done because at that kind of level, you would have thought that a lot of much bigger clubs would have come to get him like they came to get all the others. Oh, absolutely. In the course of that season and the following Champions League campaign, he scored 15 goals in the competition. Joe de Haas offers in Amsterdam.

15:15Lippmannen is still regarded as the undisputed star of that team. He's the reason there are hundreds of 25-year-olds called Jari in the Netherlands. Weirdly, the foreign press tends to forget about him a bit.

15:27Julien Laurens: Yeah, you're right. And we finished third in the 95 Ballon d 'Or behind Jürgen Klinsmann in second place. I think Klinsmann got 40 points ahead, which I can't comprehend really. And then George Weah finished first. I think there was a lot of other factors for George Weah to win it that year. But Le Mane surely should have either won it or at least finished second ahead of Klinsmann.

15:49James Horncastle: George Weah scored in all but one of the group stage games and ended up finishing Champions League top scorer. The Ballon d 'Or is awarded by, I'm not mistaken here, Jules, France football. He was a player playing in France. And the other thing here is this is the first edition of the Ballon d 'Or where players born outside of Europe were allowed to receive votes. So in some respects, I think in marking that, a player from outside of Europe was going to win it.

16:17Julien Laurens: Yeah, that's why I said to you, if you had listened, that there was other factors.

16:22James Horncastle: I'm just specifying for our listeners. That's what they come for.

16:26Julien Laurens: But just to finish, you know the best thing about this Ajax team as well is that they just didn't lose a single game in the Champions League all season in the group stage. Yeah, they had a run of 52 unbeaten matches. Indeed, Jules, they finished the season as Dutch football's first and today only in Vince, not just in the Champions League, but also in the Eredivisie as well. 27 wins, 7 draws and no losses. 106 goals scored, 28 conceded. Well, they and Milan, who'd been drawn together in the group stage as it happened, with Ajax winning both of those group stage encounters 2-0, were, of course, to end up in the final together.

17:03In the quarterfinals, Ajax had breezed past Alan Boxic's split and Milan had beaten Benfica. Bayern, who'd seen off Gothenburg on away goals in the quarterfinals, then faced Ajax in the semifinals, a game you referenced earlier on, Jules, and one that I think recognises probably that season's greatest performance. Rafa. Yes, it was. came up against the Bayern side that were very, very young. This was the first professional season for the likes of Marcus Babel, Christian Nehrlinger, Sami Kufour and arguably the most important player. The captain, Lota Mateus, had ruptured his Achilles in January so he wasn't there for the knockout stages.

17:45And ultimately Bayern were just nowhere near the same level both individually and certainly not collectively to live with this Ajax side. they had managed to draw at home in the first leg under Giovanni Trapattoni playing a very dour route one-ish kind of football and in the second second leg when they went behind and they had to chase the game as soon as things opened up Ajax completely took them apart and it could have been easily seven eight or nine goals as well there was just no comparing those two sides Lipman opening the scoring Witsacek, is that how you pronounce that? Marcel Witsacek, yeah Shortly before half-time and then Ajax retaking the lead in the second half with that absolute monster from Finiti George It's over Marse to deliver a decent cross It's into the path of Finiti George who strikes it well What a fabulous goal from Finiti George It was a beautiful move where the ball was being laid off and Bayern with Veve deep no one at the edge of the box and Fnidio George, as he often did, smashed it in from distance.

18:56I think that was sort of his trademark goal. And if you're thinking, you know, Oliver Kahn, he said no chance, you're wrong because it wasn't Oliver Kahn. It was his lookalike, Sven Scheuer in goal, who very much looks like your classic diehard henchman with a long blonde mane, but not very good.

19:16James Horncastle: Like your classic diehard henchman. correct not cut out to last very long he was sent off in the game against Gothenburg in the second leg after 20 minutes but Bayern with with nine men held on and came away with a 2-2 draw and incidentally just to give you a bit more perspective just how kind of average they were really that year they only ever won two games in the entire European campaign that was against Denorma Kiev everything else was draws or defeats. Wow 5-2 defeat on this occasion to Ajax with a brace from Jari Lipman and the other goals we mentioned, Finiti George. Frank de Boer, overmaster.

19:57So on they went to the final, the Ernst Happelstadion in Vienna. Milan, who'd beaten PSG 3-0, as I think I mentioned, Jules, to reach the final for the third year running. It was their fifth final in seven years. Of course, they destroyed Barcelona the year before and they had Borgesi and Costa Curta available this time. Milan hadn't conceded a single goal in the knockouts. And they were very, very solid at the back. I think that they were playing on the break and Ajax were a bit wary of getting caught on the break. And it was your classic kind of underwhelming final where neither side really wants to make a mistake.

20:32James Horncastle: And also Desailly, who'd been magnificent the year before, as we discussed on the last podcast, he was brilliant man-marking, lip-man and out of the game. So essentially taking Ajax's most decisive player out of it, sticking to him but also helping Albertini out in midfield and Panucci had been given a really hard time by Overmars in the group stage games as well Panucci really grew in that game and ended up pinning Overmars back for large stages of it but I think Raph is right that Milan went into this I think less sure of themselves in a final than they had ever been before at least in this kind of Berlusconi era they were mindful of the fact that they hadn't addressed some of the problems of the year before yes they'd won the final 4-0 against Cruyff's Barcelona but that was a team that had scored what 34 goals in 36 games or the other way around they needed to go get a striker in the transfer window they didn't do that and they kind of struggled for goals particularly when Cevichevic who'd struck up quite a good partnership with Marco Simone was injured and ended up not playing in this game.

21:44James Horncastle: But Capello, looking back afterwards, was wondering how his team had lost because they hadn't really conceded any chances to Ajax in the 90 minutes aside from the one that would ultimately decide the game. And even then, he was disappointed because he felt he had so many men behind the ball that they should have defended the chance better. But if the game was underwhelming, the Dutch commentary on Patrick Kluivert's goal certainly wasn't.

22:19Patrick Garvey becoming the youngest player there to score in a European Cup final. He was only 18 years, 327 days old. Jules, Paris Saint-Japan's director of football in action there.

22:31Julien Laurens: Yeah, former director of football who was useless for a year, much better football player than a sporting director. But the funny thing in a way is that he was by far not the best player in that team and he was very young, obviously 18, but so were others, so young. And then we will only remember him and maybe in a way that didn't really serve him to score that goal and win that final because after that, he obviously left very quickly, maybe quicker than he would have done had he not scored that goal. He would have maybe stayed a bit longer, matured a bit more. I'm not sure he was ready to leave when he left, but that goal changed everything so quickly for him and he became the player that we singled out almost in that team when, as we've been explaining, so many others were much better than him in that campaign.

23:15Julien Laurens: Littmann, of course, but even the Dubu brothers, Sidov and David, Overmars, even Fennig de Georges. And yet, it's only the name of Kluiver after that final that sort of stayed up there. And then, I think, had he stayed a bit longer at Ajax, he would have maybe had a different career. He left too early for me because of that goal he scored in that final. Johan Cruyff, that must have really annoyed him watching. he had that long-term rivalry with Van Gaal and to see Van Gaal beat the team that had only the previous year given him Johan Cruyff a lesson must have smarted Carlos says would Ajax winning the Champions League now be the equivalent of Ajax winning it back in 94-95 what's the relative difficulty of the two feats?

23:58James Horncastle: I think it's become harder now because the game is so stratified in an economic sense and as Rafa said earlier This was a pre-Bosman rule time where you could keep players for longer and build around them. And, you know, this Ajax team wasn't broken up completely immediately. But I tend to think that this was still a continuation on the teams that we've seen in the 70s, then the ones in the 80s, which produced Bergkamp, which produced Marco van Basten, and were able to achieve some success with them and still be considered relevant or more relevant than they have been of late prior to the run to the semifinals that they had last year.

24:42James Horncastle: And then again, produced this team, which went to back-to-back finals. So I think it's become more difficult now, particularly as elite European clubs from the top five leagues are recruiting younger and younger. sometimes not even waiting for players to have 5, 10, 15 league games in a competition like the Eredivisie or competitions in Brazil and such like. So I think it's much more difficult now, James. On a related note, perhaps, Fetzi asking, how come this team didn't have the same impact for Holland, for the national side, as, say, Pep's Barcelona had on Spain? I think the accepted wisdom is that when it came to the national team, there were just all these big players and they found it very, very difficult to agree on things.

25:34They were very outspoken about who should play and who shouldn't play, about the tactics. For some reason, they went into these tournaments always as one of the favourites and found different ways of getting knocked out. And that is, I guess, the tragedy of that generation. But of course, they always have the Ajax success and later individual successes for different clubs, of course, to find solace in.

25:56James Horncastle: You couldn't escape the kind of infighting between Dutch players because you look back at the first two games in the group stage when Ruud Hullit was playing for Milan and he was immediately kind of booed, whistled by local fans and was kind of targeted in the media because in 94 he'd refused to go to the World Cup in the States. there was kind of fallout from that and then of course when you look at 96 the European Championships when you know as Rafa was saying they had this incredible generation of players and again infighting just ended up what we now would say is francing themselves you know sort of during or prior to a major tournament and just self-sabotage really stopping them from from achieving what their potential could have set them up for.

26:47Julien Laurens: And let's not forget as well that this is a very, very young Ajax team with all those young Dutch players who could not have gone to the national team and have a direct impact, like maybe some of the Spaniards had when Pep was there at Barcelona, who were not that young, or not as young, maybe. and also this Ajax team have been playing together some of those players for 5-6 years since they were 10-11-12 and you don't get that sort of same communion in a national team when you have to play with players from Foyano or from other clubs that you've never played with before so it's hard I think to translate it into the national team side and what you could have offered to the national team at that age and considering that you've been playing so well at club level because you knew each other so well and not all those players could go straight into the Dutch team either.

27:38Jari Lippmann and I bumped into in Manchester last year at a classic football shirts event. And just as a kind of example of the iniquity of the way he's remembered among the kind of the 90s football greats, he was actually a substitute for the panel that night. They had various players there, Ruud Hullit, I think Juan Mata was along as well. But Jari Lippmann had been booked to basically be there in case somebody else dropped out, then he'd be allowed to come on the panel. Jari Lutmanen, incredible. We should also talk about Louis van Gaal, who has gone on to do all sorts of other things since.

28:12Rafa, if you look back at his career, which has contained so many extraordinary moments, I don't know if you'd like to pick out a favourite, and also, was this his finest hour as a manager? I think that was probably his finest moment with Ajax because Barcelona was not an unequivocal success. I think certainly in the latter stages where he kept bringing more and more Dutchmen and the rewards were limited. Bayern, I think he will be remembered as somebody who laid the foundations for the success in the 2013 Champions League under Joep Hayekes and being a good enough club to track Pep Guardiola.

28:53So I think they will remember him fondly. And of course, with the Dutch, he had this great run at the World Cup in Brazil where they were one of the most exciting teams to watch. But I guess a more eye-catching moment in a different sense, James, was the day when he dropped his trousers at the Bayern team meeting to make the point that he either had very big balls and those were needed by his players, or there's a different version of this story going around. According to Luca Toni, who told the story that Van Gaal was saying, does your football turn me on? The answer is no. And he showed them that in a very literal way.

29:41I don't know which one of the two versions I like better, but there is no doubt that this happened. We're just not entirely sure about the motivations behind it. Many thanks there to James, Jules, Rafa and producer Charlie, of course. And we'll be back with a current day Totally Football Show on Thursday. Bye for now.

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