Rinus Michels was the Dutch national team coach in the 1970s, credited with inventing “Total Football,” a concept where all players could switch positions during the game.
Although I was too young to remember the team of Neeskens and Cruyff, their legacy lived on through later Dutch teams, enough for me to grasp the concept of Total Football.
Ruud Gullit was one of the finest players I’ve ever seen. To this day, I’m still unsure whether he was a better defender or midfielder, but he could also play right wing, and I even remember him playing as Marco Van Basten’s strike partner and scoring goals.
West Ham, of course, have had a few versatile players over the years, with Billy Bonds able to switch between midfield and defence.
This brings me to the modern-day version of the Hammers and head coach Julen Lopetegui, who seems to believe he has John Charles, Steven Gerrard, Bonds, and Gullit among his squad of multi-faceted, Total Football players.
Total football reality check
The version of Lopetegui who has arrived in East London has me at a bit of a loss. I was led to believe West Ham hired a pragmatic, structured manager. Nobody warned me that the Spaniard would expect his midfielders to be strikers, his fullbacks to be wingers who can play on both sides, and his central defenders to be playmakers trying to chip and dribble their way through games.
Lopetegui himself seems surprised too. The 58-year-old appears to be in a constant state of bewilderment that the players can’t execute the complex patterns of interchangeable play he clearly envisions.
If the former Real Madrid manager is to survive at the London Stadium, he needs to rekindle that pragmatic style and put some square pegs in square holes as part of a reality check. J-Lo must understand that while Aaron Wan-Bissaka is one of the league’s best one-on-one defenders, he can’t suddenly transform into Vinícius Júnior.
He must realise that Edson Álvarez can’t serve as the last defender against fast players. Call me old-fashioned, but it might also be worth playing that tricky left winger Summerville on the left wing too.
I could go on, but you get the point. Lopetegui is managing West Ham United in 2024, not the Dutch team of 1974. He has a squad of very good players, some of whom excel in specific roles, but they can’t do everything in every position. The sooner he sees the difference between a West Ham player and a Swiss Army Knife, the better.
