Rinus Michels confronted a major tournament for the last time at Euro '92. Holland, steered by him, had won the competition four years earlier. He was 64 then and, having undergone heart surgery in the 80s, knew he should sidestep the stress of the finals. Nonetheless, he still led the squad to Sweden that summer.

Johan Cruyff might have taken over from him but he was with Barcelona. Michels therefore decided he himself was the man for the job. Years later he would explain that only a coach bolstered by wealth and previous triumphs could hope to win the respect of Dutch footballers,who are famed for being intractable and egocentric.

This was the explanation of a person with rugged confidence in his status. He could be severe and other people in football generally addressed him as Mr Michels. Yet this austere individual, nicknamed "the Sphinx", will be remembered as the inventor of Total Football, the most intoxicatingly liberated style of play the game has produced.

In reality, there is no contradiction. This approach, in which players were free to swap positions, demanded practice and discussion to prevent it from collapsing into confusion.

The former Ajax forward became the club's coach in 1965 and, before long, players like Cruyff and Johan Neeskens were emerging. Dutch football was only just becoming fully professional and Michels had to ensure a remarkably accelerated development for the best players and for the club.

Total Football, which called for supple minds and flexible performers who understood how to find and use space, was seductive, yet it also reflected the aggression of Michels' personality. The opposition could not settle when the threat was constantly changing as, for instance, the left-back Ruud Krol took up Piet Keizer's role for a spell while the winger dropped deep.

Michels favoured football without compromise and the public were infatuated with his team. Having gone down 3-1 to Benfica in the home leg of their 1969 European Cup quarter-final the side won the return match in Lisbon by the same score and 40,000 Dutchmen then travelled to Paris to watch Ajax come through a play-off.

With more caution in his nature, Michels, as Holland coach, might have had a team that could hold its lead in the 1974 World Cup final instead of sinking to a 2-1 defeat by West Germany. Jubilation was all the greater when, calling on the next generation of Dutch stars that included Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit, he won the 1988 European Championship with the audacious ball-playing centre-back partnership of Ronald Koeman and Frank Rijkaard.

Leader as he was, Michels could never hope to be an unchallenged dictator when Dutch footballers were involved. In his best years, at the start of the 70s, his forcefulness and that of his squad were in harmony. He knew it could not last. That and a lucrative offer from Barcelona, persuaded him to depart when Ajax, in 1971, had won the first of three consecutive European Cups.

Guardian Service