Happel's first impressions
Friday 5 October 2007
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Ernst Happel lifts the European Cup (©Getty Images)
Ernst Happel's life is one of the most remarkable odysseys in European football. An outstanding defender for Rapid Vienna and Austria, he won trophies as a coach with Den Haag, Feyenoord, Club Brugge KV, Hamburger SV and FC Swarovski Tirol. As Netherlands manager, he might have won the 1978 FIFA World Cup had Cruyff been available, and he was the first coach to win the European Champions Clubs' Cup with two clubs: Feyenoord (in 1970, when he was 44) and Hamburg (in 1983).
'The Grumbler'
Happel liked to analyse games in detail but was a man of few words to his players. Before the 1978 World Cup final, his team talk was to the point: "Gentlemen, three points." His reticence and sullen appearance earned him the nickname the Grumbler, but it was probably best he didn't say too much. His old team-mate Max Merkel said of him: "Happel speaks five languages, usually at the same time."
Discipline
Far from baffling opponents with total football, his Feyenoord side frustrated the opposition by taking possession football to strange, tiring extremes, using disciplined zonal marking and a stifling use of the offside trap. Thirty years before Mourinho talked of his players resting in possession, Happel drilled Feyenoord to keep the ball at all costs, changing direction, moving the ball rapidly and generally forcing opponents to play the chasing game.
Powerful midfield
Happel didn't have the wealth of talent at his disposal that Rinus Michels enjoyed at AFC Ajax, but his side were powerful in midfield. He was helped by the intuitive brilliance of goalscoring sweeper Rinus Israel, the gifted arrogant Dutchman Wim van Hanegem, Austrian midfielder Franz Hasil and shy young Wim Jansen. In attack, Happel relied on the speed of Coen Moulijn on the left, Henry Wery on the right and the consistency of Swedish international Ove Kindvall to find the net. Theo van Duivenbode, who played for Michels and Happel, said: "Happel was a superb dissector of the game. He saw things so quickly he could make changes from the bench after only a few minutes of play."
Van Hanegem winner
The toughest test Feyenoord faced on their run to the 1970 final was their second-round tie against reigning champions AC Milan. Happel switched Feyenoord to 4-4-2 in the San Siro, squeezing Gianni Rivera's space, and lost only 1-0. Within five minutes of the kick-off at De Kuip, Jansen had wiped out that advantage with a swirling shot that looked to be going wide until it hit the post and bounced in. Van Hanegem's goal eight minutes from time dethroned the champions.
'Keep cool'
In the final, Celtic got complacent after going 1-0 up and paid for it. Israel headed the equaliser two minutes later, and minutes from the end of extra-time an error by skipper Billy McNeill allowed Kindvall to score the winner. Happel had told his men, "Keep cool, play at an easy pace and take the sting out of them." They did just that to become the first Dutch side to win the European Cup. Unfortunately, it's an achievement overshadowed by Ajax's glorious three triumphs from 1971 to 1973, but the yellowed, lovingly framed newspaper front pages commemorating that unexpected victory on 8 May 1970 are still pinned up on the walls of bars all over Rotterdam.
This is an abridged version of an article that appears in the latest edition of Champions magazine. To subscribe to Champions, please click here.
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