Marinus ("
Rinus")
Jacobus Hendricus Michels (9 February 1928 – 3 March 2005) was a
Dutch association football player and
coach. He played his entire career for the club
Ajax Amsterdam, which he later coached, and was a member of the
Netherlands national team both as a player and as manager.
Michels became most notable for his coaching achievements, having won the
European Cup with Ajax and the
Spanish league with
Barcelona, and having had four tenures as coach of the
Netherlands national team, which he led to reach the final match of the
1974 World Cup and to win the
1988 European Championship. He is credited with the invention of a major football tactic known as "
Total Football" in the 1970s, and was named "coach of the century" by
FIFA in
1999.
Playing career
Michels was born in
Amsterdam and grew up at the Olympiaweg, a street near the
Olympic Stadium. He celebrated his ninth birthday on 9 February 1936, when he received a pair of football boots and an
Ajax jersey. Moments later he was playing with his father at a small field near their home. Via
Joop Köhler, a friend of the family who was commissioner at Ajax, Michels was introduced to the club and became a junior member in 1940. When
World War II started,...
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