Word: cruyff
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...country in an exhausting series of round-robin matches for the World Cup, which is held every four years to decide who rules soccer. The play was only fit fully brilliant, and it produced no wonder team, no commanding individual star of the magnitude of Holland's Johan Cruyff and Germany's Franz Beckenbauer in 1974. But when all but two of the national teams had limped off to apply diathermy and beer to their wounds, anyone not given to xenophobic sulking could agree that justice had been done. The teams that had been eliminated, for the most...
Ironies abounded. Holland was respected, even though lacking the attacking power of Striker Johan Cruyff, who, now aged 31 and rich beyond reason, refused to bother with this World Cup. Still, the Dutch team at first was clearly not the "clockwork orange" of the 1974 tournament (orange because of its uniforms and clockwork because everything it tried worked that way until the final against West Germany). It was a Dutch concept of "total football"-no stratagem at all but a blazing and relentless rush of soccer in which every team member played both attack and defense-that had dazzled...
...favorites turned out to be a powerful Dutch team and the Poles, a surprise contender. The Dutch, with soccer's finest player, Johan Cruyff, struggled through some ragged early games, but by last week they were attacking with precision. The Polish team, which upset England in the elimination rounds, arrived in West Germany relatively unknown. Though the Poles do not favor the star system, not even the most solid collective front could hide Grzegorz Lato, a great right forward who leads the team's bruising, tireless attack. Going into last weekend, the Polish team had the best record...
...exposure, though, has helped some individual stars to cash in on international fame. There is no shinier soccer star in Europe than Ajax's high-scoring center forward Johan Cruyff (rhymes more or less with rife), 26, a sinewy young Dutchman with strong, quick legs and fluttering, long hair. His salary as a player-250,000 guilders a year-is among the highest in the sport...
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