Dirty Dutch were anti-football, said Johan Cruyff

Johan Cruyff last night launched a blistering attack on the dirty Dutch after branding them ‘anti football.’

Dutch master Cruyff said Holland’s rough tactics in the World Cup final wrexked the nation’s reputation as being the inventors of Total Football in the glorious era of the 1970s.

Cruyff said: ‘Thursday they asked me from Holland ‘Can we play like Inter? Can we stop Spain in the same way Mourinho eliminated Barca?”’

‘I said no, no way at all. I said no, not because I hate this style - I said no because I thought that my country wouldn’t dare to and would never renounce their style. I said no because, without having great players like those of the past, the team has its own style.




“I was wrong. Of course I’m not hanging all 11 of them by the same rope, but almost. They didn’t want the ball.

“And regrettably, sadly, they played very dirty. So much so that they should have been down to nine immediately, then they made two (such) ugly and hard tackles that even I felt the damage.

“It hurts me that I was wrong in my disagreement that instead Holland chose an ugly path to aim for the title.

“This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style, yes it served the Dutch to unsettle Spain. If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they ended up losing.

“They were playing anti-football.”

Cruyff also criticised ref Howard Webb, who has been heavily attacked for the way he managed the stormy game.

Webb dished out 14 yellow cards - including two to send off Holland defender John Heitinga - but Cruyff believes he could have been even more stict.

Cruyff added: “When we say, often, that we do not like talking about referees, it is true and, above all, because only refereeing like that last night by the English Howard Webb can create in us a state of such indignation that then yes, it is necessary to comment.

“Because you can referee wrong, make a mistake, but what you can not do is create your own sense of justice and, even worse, invent a very personal application of the rules.

“Not only did he not send off two Dutchmen (including Robben, who deserved the second yellow) but he also looked the other way at times when he should have involved himself.

“A World Cup final deserves great refereeing and, above all, deserves a referee who dares to do everything it means to be a judge.”