Brilliant Orange The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer
- ISBN13: 9781590200551
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Brilliant Orange is a book about Dutch soccer that’s not really about Dutch soccer. It’s more about an enigmatic way of thinking peculiar to a people whose landscape is unrelentingly flat, mostly below sea level, and who owe their salvation to a boy who plugged a fractured dike with his little finger. If any one thing, Brilliant Orange is about Dutch space, and a people whose unique conception of it has led to some of the most enduring art, the weirdest architecture… More >>
Brilliant Orange The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer
Soccer fans around the world rejoiced watching Holland’s attractive ‘total football’ drub Italy’s cynical style 3-0 in the 2008 Euro Cup, brilliantly done! But this was a game where a dive, trash talking and physically menacing the opposition’s top players or elbows to the head like what was done to our USA player or Luis Enrique of Spain in the 1994 World Cup or anything else coming out of the Azzurri’s bag of tricks was not going to work. The 11th Commandment per this book is ‘There is no medal better than being acclaimed for your style.’- Johan Cruyff and the book illustrates that ‘decency’ is a tendency that runs deep in Dutch society and not only this but while most other teams are out there to win at any cost, the Dutch are often there to show ‘how good they are’.
Brazil has ‘jogo bonito’, but highly recognized in their orange kits on the field, originators of ‘total football’, Netherlands is really a team that plays an exceptionally flowing beautiful game. The concept of ‘total football’ is in fact, part and parcel with the famed Ajax team and Johann Cruyff, covered in this book.
In regards to a very small issue, I don’t quite agree with a minor statement that the author made about the Dutch in saying that they are the tallest race on earth, really?? I wonder why Lithuania is such a dominant perennial basketball world and European power but Holland is not. Netherlands (or Holland, actually a part of the larger country) plays cricket and yes, even fielded a top-notch baseball team to the baseball world cup so I doubt it would be only because they are not interested in basketball.
One other issue I believe the author isn’t quite correct on, is the extent that Holland blossomed as a football power. True, they improved exponentially as one of the best teams in the world beginning in 1974 with Cruyff and in fact, shaped the football landscape. However, they really were not that bad before this and it was exciting to read about their rivalry with neighboring Belgium (and on that note, Belgium’s national football team deserves a treatise, being on the periphery, they’ve definitely had their successes as well). Again, the successes of Ajax during the war would attest to this but actually, according to the Elo ratings websight, it does seem they hit #1 in the world sometimes in the 1910s and ’20s.
This is a good primer on Dutch soccer, not the final word by any means but it discusses the structure of their game, rivalries and history along with trying to connect the dots to the culture and malaise of the nation itself. After this book, there are a number of other books to read on Dutch soccer for further understanding such as Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe During the Second World War or The Coaching Philosophies of Louis van Gaal and the Ajax Coaches. Ajax has the status of being legendary with the football it developed, total football and its players while lacking the monetary resources the famous rich European clubs have had.
Be on the watch for this book coming out under two different covers, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football this being the other edition, otherwise, I don’t know how the two vary.
All in all, this is partly an artsy take on the topic, a book needs to be written that is more in depth to the subject that is more along the lines that has been done with Spanish and German soccer. The author has another book out on soccer, so it would be interesting to see how the two compare.
Rating: 4 / 5
More than just a book about Dutch football, Brilliant Orange discusses all aspects of Dutch life, culture, and history and how it all relates to the football they play. From the war and the continuing rivalry with the Germans, to the Dutch reclamation of land from the sea and how it inspired the development of Total Football, this is a great read and a fascinating insight into the psyche of a truly unique nation.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book could have been called “beautiful” orange. Winner writes beautifully and also examines why beauty has such a huge part in Dutch football.
A great exploration of the unique Dutch mind. There is great stuff here on the Dutch greats: coach, Rinus Michels and player Johann Cruyff.
Great, great writing…you won’t be able to put it down.
And…you needn’t be Dutch to enjoy it: this book is a must for any football fan
Rating: 5 / 5
Entertaining book. You gotta be a big soccer fan, with some sense of the history of the game to enjoy it, but if you are…
Rating: 4 / 5
Make no mistake, this is a book about Dutch football-however, what makes it of at least passable interest to non-football fans is how Winner ranges into Dutch history, politics, art, architecture, and psychology in his attempt to explain why Dutch football is so different. In that sense, the book is quite a bit more “highbrow” than most. After starting with a brief history of Dutch soccer, Winner plunges full into the Dutch glory days of the late ’60s to late ’70s, when “total football” was king and Johan Cruyff was its master. The book’s central idea is to try and suggest similarities between aspects of Dutch football and aspects of Dutch life, which when looked at together reveal something of the Dutch national character.
For example, one of these linkages is the shared timeframe for the birth of modern Dutch football and the progressive globalist nature of Holland, as exemplified by Amsterdam as we think of it now. Another is the lack of “killer instinct” or “win at all costs” mentalities (as evidenced by the national team’s historical failure to win the big games), in favor or a more aesthetic mentality that values style or beauty over results. A third example is his discussion of the tension between society/team as a whole, and the individual/star. Winner splits his time between history and analysis (often very insightful), and interviews with former players, coaches, and non-football academic specialists and art critics. There are great tidbits here and there, such as a chapter about the Ajax club and why many of its supporters wave Israeli flags, which is intertwined with a capsule history of Dutch collaboration with Nazi occupiers and the Dutch collective memory of the war.
Lots of neat stuff here, but it’s a little hard to get into without having access to video (or at least memories) of some of the pivotal games under discussion, such as the 1974 and 1978 World Cup finals. Winner can explain the “total football” concept as eloquently as possible (which he does), but I think you have to see it to “get” it. And in that sense, the book is a little bit of a failure. Maybe one day it can be reissued with a companion DVD?
Rating: 4 / 5