Stillness and Speed: My Story Read Online Free PDF

you’ve got a golden future ahead of you.’
    A few weeks later – after the Dutch winter break – Dennis started a match for the first time and made an even greater impression, ruining Haarlem full-back Luc Nijholt’s day
and even scoring in a 6-0 win. Faced with a more experienced opponent whose main tactic was the sliding tackle, Dennis devised a simple counter-measure. ‘I thought: “A little chip,
that’s the solution.” When Nijholt came at me, I lobbed the ball over him and I’d beaten him. I was free to make the cross. Wingers played a more simple game back then. You
weren’t expected to get in the box and try to shoot. You had to stay wide, feel the chalk of the touchline under your boots. Your job was to stretch their defence, get past your man at speed
and cross the ball.’
    Bergkamp was soon playing regularly, but the toughening up process continued. ‘We used all sorts of sneaky little methods,’ admits Cruyff. ‘For example, we told Dennis [during
free-kicks] to stand in the wall, on the outside, so he’d have to coordinate with the keeper. We wanted to see how he would manage that, and how he’d react to free-kicks. Would he turn
his shoulder in, put his arm in front of his face? Dennis learned quickly. You really didn’t need to work hard to make him tougher or more cunning. And he had a sense of responsibility. He
understood he was playing with other people’s money. At that time income was based on match bonuses and Dennis felt he shared responsibility for the salary of older players, guys with
families to support. He was a well-mannered kid but knew exactly what was expected of him on the pitch. Others took longer to get it. Rijkaard, for example, was a bit slower on the uptake. But
Bergkamp was smart.’
    Dennis was also learning from his team-mates, especially the peerless Van Basten. ‘I paid attention to absolutely everything. I watched how Marco and Frank worked, but also how all the
players and trainers interacted, the dynamics in the dressing room, the players’ attitude to me, the relationship between me and the trainers. I noticed everything. And in the same way that
I’d watch Hoddle on TV, I’d observe Van Basten in training, seeing what I could borrow from him. I liked the way he could accelerate. He’d drag the ball past his opponent with the
outside of his boot and then accelerate, leaving his man for dead. He was very good at that. Marco was a killer, a real goal-scorer, always at the front of the attack, whereas I was more of an
incoming striker. If records had been kept they’d show how often Marco scored from ten yards or less. For me it was from about fifteen yards.
    ‘Marco was more ruthless than I was. At Arsenal, Ian Wright was like that too, but Marco did it all with great elegance. He could find every inch of the goal, and he had that sharpness in
his shot. A short quick flick of the foot –
bang!
I had that as well. And he had a characteristic way of running with his feet a short distance apart which was also like me. Later,
when he had problems with his ankle, his posture sagged a bit whereas I stood straighter. But the way we ran and the way we leaned forward as we sprinted away, were similar. It was a way of running
that enabled us to get away very fast, faster than our opponents. It was something that just came naturally. I didn’t learn to run like that at the athletics club. There they told me:
“You run beautifully, very naturally.”’
    Because he was still a pupil at the St Nicolaas Lyceum (Louis van Gaal’s old school, too, thanks to one of Cruyff’s ‘logical coincidences’), Dennis could train with the
first team only on Saturdays. During the week he worked with the reserve team whose sessions were arranged to fit in with school hours. ‘We weren’t so much training the reserves as
using the reserves to train Dennis,’ Cruyff explains. ‘The trainers knew their job was to work on his shortcomings.’
    Juggling school