Sports丨Johan Neeskens: Second to none

Johan Neeskens, who has died aged 73, was the powerful, but smooth engine of the Ajax and Netherlands teams that created "total football" with Johan Cruyff at their heart.

Neeskens was part of the Ajax team that won three straight European Cups and a key component of the "Clockwork Oranje" Dutch team that reached consecutive World Cup finals in 1974 and 1978, losing both.
  

"He was worth two men in midfield," Ajax teammate Sjaak Swart once told FIFA.com.
  

Neeskens was a relentless runner and tough tackler, but he was also skilful. He finished the 1974 World Cup with five goals, second only to Grzegorz Lato of Poland and top scorer in a Dutch team that also contained Cruyff and the flamboyant Johnny Rep.
  

"I always liked to play with style — and to win," Neeskens said.
  

Johannes Jacobus Neeskens was born in Heemstede, west of Amsterdam, on Sept 15, 1951. He was signed from his home-town club by Ajax coach Rinus Michels in 1970.

Neeskens was right-back when the club beat Greek side Panathinaikos 2-0 for its first European Cup win in 1971. He then switched to central midfield, playing there as Ajax won two more titles in 1972, against Inter Milan, and 1973, against Juventus.
  

The Ajax team led by Cruyff and Neeskens formed the spine of the Dutch side that dazzled on its way to the 1974 World Cup final in West Germany.
  

After just two minutes in Munich, Neeskens set two World Cup final records, scoring the quickest goal as he converted the first penalty, awarded before any West German and most Dutch players had touched the ball.
  

"As a player it is a little bit strange, because sometimes you need the feeling," he later told FIFA.
  

"I'd hardly touched the ball and wasn't even warm. Then you have to make that penalty in front of 80,000 who are against you and, of course, the whole world is watching it.
  

"That was the first time that I was a little bit nervous taking a penalty," he said.  

"When I started running, I was thinking: 'which side am I going to shoot?' It was more or less always in the right side of the goal. At the last step, I thought 'no, I'm going to shoot the other way'. It was not my intention to kick the ball straight through the middle."

But, he also said: "If you're not sure, just hit it as hard as possible. If you don't know where it's going, neither will the keeper."
  

The West Germans fought back, equalizing with the second ever World Cup final penalty, converted by Paul Breitner, and winning with a goal by Gerd Muller.
  

Despite the loss, "that tournament was a dream", Neeskens told FIFA. "I was 22 and a key player."
  

The Dutch had caught the eye, but West Germany took the trophy.
  

"We lost that game, but everybody was talking about our team and our football," Neeskens recalled. "We deserved to win that final."
  

'Kamikaze pilot'
  

Four years later, in Argentina, as Cruyff opted to stay at home, Neeskens was again a key part of the Dutch team that reached the final.  

He was injured early in a group stage loss to Scotland and missed the revenge victory over West Germany. He returned for the last two matches, including the 3-1 extra time defeat, as the Dutch, again, lost the final to the host nation.

By then, Neeskens had followed Cruyff to Catalonia, where Barcelona fans dubbed the midfielder "Johan the Second".
  

In five years at Barca, he won a Copa del Rey and European Cup Winners' Cup, before heading to the United States for five seasons with the star-studded New York Cosmos.
  

Bobby Haarms, Michels' assistant at Ajax, was quoted in Brilliant Orange, a book on Dutch soccer by David Winner, as saying Neeskens was "like a kamikaze pilot".
  

He coached in the Netherlands, Turkiye, Switzerland and South Africa, and spent more than four years as Netherlands assistant coach, first under Guus Hiddink and then Frank Rijkaard.

He was also Rijkaard's assistant at Barcelona and Hiddink's assistant with Australia.