Ernst Happel: quiet Austrian, forefather of the Total Football who conquered Europe
Background:
He was a no nonsense guy. A tremendous football player himself, for Austria and Rapid Wien and Racing Club Paris.
Ernst Happel became the first coach to have won the European Cup (Champions League) with two different clubs: Feyenoord (1969/1970) and Hamburg (1982/1983).
Happel also claimed the league title in four different countries: Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Most of his success can be attributed to his attacking strategy, as well as smothering the rival to pressure the ball.
Philosophy:
Coach Ernst Happel is famous in Holland for his typical quote:
“Kein keloel, fussball spielen!”. Which translates as
“Stop talking, just play football!”.
In Austria, Happel was never seen as a potential top coach. He loathed theory and was never part of the incrowd. But after he won the European Cup with Feyenoord, the Austrian federation invited him for a presentation at some seminar. “The people in the room were silent and hung onto every word. It was just fantastic. His pitch was just incredible!”.
As a coach, he immediately won the respect when at the first training, he placed several empty bottles on the cross bar, and placed balls outside of the box. And he then hit the balls which would all hit a bottle. The Feyenoord squad has just seen that their coach knows how to hit a football.
Having grown up and developed in the thick of Hugo Meisl’s Wunderteam, and with the experience of two World Cups, Happel introduced a tough but fluid style of play at ADO that was previously rare in the Dutch football scene, scrapping formations like the 4-2-4 for a 4-3-3, ironically using it to defeat Ajax.
Total Football. A strategy? An ideology? An over-elaborate myth? Poetry in motion? Football’s perfection? Out-dated? Unnecessarily complicated? A failure? Revolutionary? The pinnacle of football? The game’s biggest influencer?
In its essence, the system removes boundaries and rigidity, encourages expansive, entertaining football, but is dependent on intelligent, well-rounded and highly-skilled players. At its worst, the tactic is vague, impractical and unsuccessful. To those who question its merit, Total Football is romanticised by a generation of football supporters who were still somewhat ignorant of the game’s tactical nuances.
History remembers Michels, Cruyff, Ajax and Total Football have, justifiably, become intertwined in the history of Dutch and world football. They have become revered to such an extent it now seems almost impossible to imagine how any side could have defeated Ajax during this era.
But they were.
While even the greatest sides can lose one-off cup games, Michel’s unstoppable Ajax band were thwarted – twice – over the course of an entire league season in 1969 and 1971.
Not only did Feyenoord overthrow their great rivals, but they also found a consistent way of counteracting Michel’s tactical set-up, and some in Rotterdam even claim to this day that Feyenoord, and manager Ernst Happel, remain largely forgotten about in the annals of Total Football history.
It was, after all, the Austrian who introduced the famous 4-3-3 shape into Dutch football and instructed his midfielders to look for space between the opposition lines of defence and midfield,
while encouraging the team’s attacking midfielder and striker to fluidly interchange position. Happel was also renowned for his belief in players being physically strong and fit, necessities for Total Football to succeed, and it is often overlooked that the Netherlands squad at the 1974 World Cup contained more players from Feyenoord than Ajax.
Tactics:
The 4-3-3 system
Feyenoord played a 4-2-4 system in 1969, with deep striker Ove Kindvall and playmaker Willem van Hanegem as two strikers and two players in midfield. All Happel did was drop Willem back to midfield and add Franz Hasil (Rapid Wien player) to the midfield (with Wim Jansen) and the rest is history.
Rinus Michels copied what Happel did. He used the 3-2-5 still, the traditional offensive football style in Holland, with one central defender, 2 back, two controlling mids and 5 attackers: 2 out and out wingers and two “inner” players and a striker. When Ajax drew 3-3- with Feyenoord in April 1970, Michels decided to go with 4-3-3 as well. His old style was simply too vulnerable against strong teams. A year later, Ajax would win the European Cup as well.
When watching the finals between Celtic and Feyenoord, it is remarkable to see how patient Feyenoord is… Celtic is constantly playing the long ball forward and hopes on some creativity from the four forwards. Feyenoord plays like a collective. Patient build up play with short passing from the back. When Feyenoord played against teams using the 4-2-4, they always had the extra man in midfield and getting a free man using the man-more concept is more an Austrian invention than a typical Dutch one…
While Happel’s preferred system of 4-3-3 was not yet commonplace in the Netherlands and his use of a number 10 was almost unheard of. It proved a constant nuisance for defensive players who faced the dilemma of following their man, losing shape and allowing gaps to appear, or holding their position and allow Hasil and Kindvall to find pockets of space all over the pitch.
The Off-side Trap:
Maybe to clear this up first: Happel didn’t invent Total Football as a mathematical formula. He was a man of the pitch, not a theory guy. He would create solutions based on the players he had at his disposal. With him, it was an organic process. Former Ajax back (and part of the Feyenoord squad when they won the Cup in 1970) Theo van Duivenbode: “Michels was great in developing a tactical plan at the start of a game and he’d try to hold on to it. Happel was different. Happel was capable of seeing where things didn’t work in a match and he’d tweak it while we were playing. I think Happel read the games way better than Michels.”
The Off-side trap, a mechanism that would impress the world in 1974 when the Dutch successfully used it at the World Cup 1974 was something Happel came up with in 1949 (!). He was the main man in the Rapid Wien team, one of the best teams in Europe. Rapid went to play in Brazil vs Vasco da Gama and was played off the pitch, trailing 3-0 in a short spell. After the break, the Vasco manager told his players to take it easy. The end result: 5-0.
The 22 year old Ernst Happel couldn’t sleep and decided to analyse the game that night with his coach Pesser and technical director Franz Binder. Pesser: “We were humiliated. We had never had this before. We spent hours jotting on pieces of paper and analysing what they did. Their coach Flavio Costa was an innovator, who laid the foundation for Brazil’s flowing tactical style of play. That morning we decided to abandon the Austrian school. We needed something new. And one new thing we introduced was Ernst Happel as central defender, the playmaker from the back.”
Pressing:
“If you mark man-to-man, you’re sending out eleven donkeys.” – Ernst Happel
Again, a lesson learned in a country far far away gave Happel the necessary insights. Rapiud Wien is the first team post World War 2 to travel to the USSR. The teams there played a collective style of football. In Western Europe and the UK, teams relied on the dribbles of the individual, but Russian teams worked on playing pressing football as a collective. Viktor Maslov (not the dog guy), who was the mentor of one Valeri Lobanovski, was an innovator. He was the one stating that one had to take time and space away from the opponent. In those days, it was normal to allow defenders some space so they can move forward dozens of yards. Willem van Hanegem: “I can’t remember any time where Ajax put us under pressure. It was Happel who was innovative in Holland with this concept, using fast, hardworking players on the wings. They were the first defenders. We had Henk Wery at Feyenoord and he used Rene van de Kerkhof in the 1978 Dutch team. He created the ideal circumstances this way, for a team that could grasp the opponent and never let them go.”
Again, Michels took notice and decided to let more static players like Henk Groot and Bennie Muller go for marathon men like Johan Neeskens and Nico Rijnders. Ajax never played that aggressive, actually, it was once Michels had players like Jansen, Van Hanegem and Neeskens in one midfield (World Cup 1974) when he started using the aggressive press. The label Total Football was given to Michels’ team, but it was Happel who led the way.
Again, a lesson learned in a country far far away gave Happel the necessary insights. Rapiud Wien is the first team post World War 2 to travel to the USSR. The teams there played a collective style of football. In Western Europe and the UK, teams relied on the dribbles of the individual, but Russian teams worked on playing pressing football as a collective. Viktor Maslov (not the dog guy), who was the mentor of one Valeri Lobanovski, was an innovator. He was the one stating that one had to take time and space away from the opponent. In those days, it was normal to allow defenders some space so they can move forward dozens of yards. Willem van Hanegem: “I can’t remember any time where Ajax put us under pressure. It was Happel who was innovative in Holland with this concept, using fast, hardworking players on the wings. They were the first defenders. We had Henk Wery at Feyenoord and he used Rene van de Kerkhof in the 1978 Dutch team. He created the ideal circumstances this way, for a team that could grasp the opponent and never let them go.”
Again, Michels took notice and decided to let more static players like Henk Groot and Bennie Muller go for marathon men like Johan Neeskens and Nico Rijnders. Ajax never played that aggressive, actually, it was once Michels had players like Jansen, Van Hanegem and Neeskens in one midfield (World Cup 1974) when he started using the aggressive press. The label Total Football was given to Michels’ team, but it was Happel who led the way.
Key roles and positions:
The Austrian perfected his defence, able to use a libero in Iron Rinus like Michels attempted in a 4-2-4 with Velibor Vasović during the previous seasons. More importantly, he was able to find the balance in midfield, which is ultimately where the EC final was won as Celtic couldn’t cope with the extra man in the middle. That man was Franz Hasil who he brought in his first season at Feyenord.
The Austrian was one of the first to operate the then-revolutionary central attacking midfielder position in a 4-3-3 and his movement between the lines caused confusion across the Celtic team. Throughout the duration of his two seasons at Feyenoord, Hasil played an influential role in attack, thriving under Happel who was once quoted as saying he would rather win 5-4 than 1-0.
The ball playing CB (aka Libero):
Rinus Israël was Feyenoord’s cool head at the back in Rotterdam. With the audacity to wear thick-rimmed hipster glasses for Feyenoord’s 1970 photo-call, he too was highly distinctive. He was also highly successful. He was the man that took the ball out of defence but also solid defender that is responsible(alongside more of a rugged stopper) to finish one season with only 22 goals conceded.
The holder and DM position:
Wim Jansen, a strong and powerful defensive midfielder who protected his defence with devastating ferocity, was also technically adept at moving the ball. His role was crucial at the time and he did not only provide defensive stability but he also participated actively in the build up and spraying passes from deep and linking the midfield and defence.
The B2B:
Van Hanegem was the the greatest of Happel’s midfield apostles. He enjoyed a father-son relationship with the coach, and he would go earn 52 Dutch caps during his career, including one from the 1974 World Cup final. Still considered one of the all-time greatest Dutch players, he earned the nickname
De Kromme for his running style and ability to curl the ball with the outside of his boot. Van Hanegem was a fantastic passer, a hard worker and strong tackler too. It is no wonder that Van Hanegem – who possessed great vision on the pitch despite only having 70 percent of his sight – remarked: “That man saw everything.”
The key between AM/CF interchanging positions:
Hasil and Kindvall proved impossible for Celtic defenders to mark and Wery and Moulijn’s direct dribbling caused problems all evening for the opposition defenders. Off the ball too, Happel had ensured his side were well drilled and Celtic talisman Jimmy Johnstone was given no space or time on all the ball by van Duivenbode, while Moulijn worked doubly hard to ensure the opposition full-back, David Haye, could not supply Johnstone.
Yet, while Hasil and Kindvall’s interchangeable positions proved crucial to Feyenoord’s success, it was the individuals’ commitment and talent that saw them perfect the roles. Kindvall, as a small and nippy striker was unconventional in the early ‘70s, proved to be an unrelenting goal machine in Rotterdam, netting a remarkable 129 goals in 144 Eredivisie games during his time with the club.
The left winger:
The left winger could float past opposition defenders and was renowned for his ability to feign a pass and cut back inside. Moulijn played for Feyenoord between 1955-1972 and today there is a statue to honour the great man outside De Kuip. He sadly passed away in 2011 and his funeral parade began at the stadium before slowly snaking past thousands of mourners who lined the streets of Rotterdam to pay their respects.
The winger had to not only work on the ball, but off it too. Moulijn was tasked with harassing Celtic full-back David Hay every time he got the ball and ensuring that the Scots’ biggest threat, Jimmy Johnstone, was isolated from the passage of play to use the EC final against Celtic as example..
Right winger:
Wery, offered some excellent wingplay and he also participated of the pressing as a team. Generally the flanks were well covered by Happel's players and represented the first line of defence.
Problems and shortcomings:
Ironically, it was Feyenoord’s irresistible attacking football that eventually proved their undoing. Sides, fearing a potential onslaught, dropped deeper against the champions and without space to exploit they often struggled to break down the opposition, especially away from home, and Feyenoord beat just two of the top nine on their travels that year. The team also suffered disappointment in the Dutch Cup and faced a shock elimination in the second round by Groningen, who were ultimately relegated from the Eredivisie.
Happel always found a way to create a top team with the players he had at his disposal. Hasil once said that what made the Austrian unique was that he played the best he had in each position but also managed to get the best out of them. He often didn't have superstars in the team and had to be innovative in his approach especially against teams that played in deeper defensive lines. He did lack some great players in key positions to take the team to the next level - inside midfielders that can unlock tight defences with great passing and also top class full backs that can further stretch the pitch and offer some essential wingplay.