Stillness and Speed: My Story

by Bergkamp, Dennis

  By the early noughties you’re the main goal-scorer, a lot of the movement goes through you . . . yet you are led by Dennis?

  ‘And even more so when you see his eyes. He wants to kill someone – in a good way! That’s Dennis. That’s why I love him. He would come on the field with ten minutes to go and you see him playing so hard. You see his commitment, and his desire and the love of the game that he has. When he came on the field even for one second he would try to do something that would win the game. Really, he was our example. He didn’t need to talk. He was a huge factor in that team. Accepting the fact that you will play less and understanding it, and embracing it, and doing more than that! Doing more than a kid would do?! That was magnificent for me. It was just an honour and a privilege to play with him.’

  * * *

  MANY PEOPLE LOVED the Invincibles but when Bruce Rioch says it’s his football ideal, it seems especially touching.

  Bruce got quite emotional about the Invincibles. He said: ‘That was beauty! It was ballet! Art! They could play the opposition any way they wanted. As a player, do you enjoy playing in that team? As a manager, do you enjoy watching that team play? As a supporter of any team, do you enjoy watching that team play? Of course! Of course!’ What do you reckon?

  Dennis: ‘Well, it’s true. And it’s nice from Bruce. He’s a good guy and has no regrets and doesn’t hold anything against anyone. And he’s right. I saw a quote from myself from that time where I said something like we were rewriting football. I think that’s true, too. What Arsene said about me trying to reach perfection was true for the whole team at that time. We were really close to perfection. Of course, you had some silly games where you can’t kick a ball, but most of the time we were just unbelievable, really close to the way I think football should be played.

  ‘Thierry mentioned that feeling of going onto the pitch knowing you are going to win. Yes, that’s what it was like. You don’t know by how many goals, and you don’t know when you’re going to score, but you know you are going to win. You have to take that from me and from Thierry, but it’s an unbelievable feeling. Like running in the hundred metres and you’re Usain Bolt. That’s something unbelievable for a sportsman. It’s what you try to aim for. Perfection. And that’s what we had in those years. You knew you were the best team in the league and everyone was smiling and everyone was happy and everyone had a contribution to make . . . It was fantastic. You knew exactly where to put the ball. You knew exactly what kind of run the other players would make for you, because you knew what they were thinking. It’s really interesting within a team. At the time you just experience it. But when you look back . . . it was an amazing period. Amazing performances. It’s funny to me how Thierry remembers all the details. I look back and it seems it was a very short time between me arriving at Arsenal and the team starting to have success. In fact, it was about two and a half or three years, but in my mind it was like half a season. Then we had success. Then it slows down a bit. Then you come to that period where it really flows, and you stay at a certain level and set yourself different standards.’

  Can you compare the Invincibles to other teams you played in or saw?

  ‘Everyone talks about the Dutch team in 1998 and 2000, which played really good football. If you look at other teams, then of course you come to that AC Milan team but in my opinion the team that stands out is the Barcelona of Guardiola. When they beat Man United [in the 2009 Champions League final] . . . I mean that was just from a different planet, with all the movement, the one and two touches, and one player, Messi, who just made a difference every single time he was allowed to make a difference . . . That was football that all other teams had to live up to. They set the standard and other teams start brainstorming and thinking what can they do about it.’

  All teams with Dutch roots – or is that just my obsession?

  ‘I don’t think so. Lots of people really love Dutch football. You look at Sacchi’s Milan and Guardiola’s Barcelona. Is it a coincidence? Then you ask the captain of France who his favourite player is and Patrick Vieira says Frank Rijkaard. Thierry Henry says Van Basten. Arsene Wenger: “I love Dutch football.” All those teams that made a difference played in a different way and got the admiration of a lot of people, but they all had roots in Dutch football. At the same time, it’s interesting to see where the Dutch influence ends. At Arsenal, where does the Dutch bit end and the French bit start? At Milan, where does the Dutch bit end and the Italian begin? And Spain . . . For me, there are lots of great teams, but they don’t all rewrite football. Of course, Manchester United was a big team, but what did they do different to what other teams had done before? The Liverpool I remember was the late eighties team of John Barnes. Other Liverpool teams won more trophies, but that John Barnes team played the most fantastic football. They could pass the ball all day long. Other Arsenal teams played some good football and won trophies. But who are the teams that play football that stays in your mind? Then you come to teams like AC Milan and you think: “Wait a minute, they really changed the game.”’

  There’s an argument among Arsenal fans as to which of the two of you was the better. Thierry is very generous and says you were the Master, it was always your team and so on. How did you see it?

  ‘The easy way, of course, would be to say Thierry was the bigger player. We’ve got so much respect for each other that we would say that about each other. But look at the things Thierry achieved at Arsenal. In a short time, he became the main goal-scorer and won trophies. His pace and goal-scoring were unbelievable. And he always had such drive. People talk about my drive, but look at his. In training he made others look silly. I always felt Thierry had a point to prove in every game, in every training session, which was quite similar to me, though I did it in a different way . . .’

  Like you, he came to Arsenal after being insufficiently appreciated in Italy. When he heard Juventus planned to move him to Udinese on loan as part of a deal for another player Thierry told Luciano Moggi [the Juventus general manager later sentenced to jail for corruption]: ‘I am not a piece of meat’ and as he’s leaving the room he turns round and says: ‘And by the way, I’m not playing for the team again, and when I leave I want to go to Arsenal.’ That night he flew to Paris, by coincidence met Arsene on the plane and told him he wanted to come to Arsenal.

  ‘Meeting Arsene on a plane doesn’t sound like me! But, yeah, it was a little similar at the beginning of Thierry’s time at Arsenal. You didn’t really see his potential. Then he scored his first goal against Southampton. And when he changed position and got comfortable in the team and was happy . . . wow! He really made a difference.’

  I remember you saying Patrick Vieira was remarkably like his hero Frank Rijkaard as a player and a person. How would Thierry compare to Marco van Basten?

  ‘Totally different. Thierry had more pace and more skills, more fire, he was more explosive. Marco was more the out-and-out striker who could finish teams, finish games, finish defenders . . . he could finish their careers! He was operating in a certain area of the pitch, whereas Thierry needed more space and could come from all angles. And that’s just talking about football. Their characters are totally different as well. Thierry is really down to earth outside football. Thierry is saying I’m the biggest player at Arsenal, I’m saying the opposite . . . You know at one stage people were comparing me to Van Basten? It’s really not fair to compare because each player is unique, but if you look at the best players over the last thirty years they would both be there near the very top, definitely. The goal-scoring, the finishing . . . at big clubs, at big moments.’

  Thierry described his freezing technique.

  ‘What?’

  Thierry: ‘Most strikers control the ball then finish. The great strikers know how to pause. You control the ball – then you pause – then you finish. Sometimes you saw me finish fast because I had to do it that way. But when I can I take my time, I advance . . . I look at the keeper . . . and then I try to finish. I’m not looking at t
he ball. I know where it is. Actually, there are two ways of doing it. You can finish like Romario. He always waits for the keeper to jump, then finishes while he is jumping. With Romario, you always saw the goalkeeper caught in mid-air. That’s one way. Or you can do what I would do and what Dennis would do. Control it. And when the goalkeeper makes the motion of coming out to you . . . that’s when you pause. And when you pause you look at the goalkeeper. And he freezes. You’ve got to freeze him. It doesn’t have to be too long. But you have to freeze the goalkeeper. Let’s say he wants to rush at you. If you’re looking down at the ball, he’ll rush at you and you won’t even see him. That’s why you have to look at him. So . . . control . . . put your head up . . . and freeze him by looking at him.

  ‘You know that game, what do you call it? Grandmother’s footsteps? Where you creep up behind the guy but you have to stop when he looks at you? It’s like that with goalkeepers. It’s the same when I dribble past someone. And Robert Pires was the master of doing it. Control the ball, look at the guy . . . and push it! But you know how hard that is? If you let the defender have the momentum to run with you, he will run with you! So you stop. Like Chris Waddle! And go. Stop . . . and go! You know how hard it is to start again when you stop . . . but you’ve got to freeze the goalkeeper or the defender. Freeze him! Dennis understands this. He has it, too. Dennis knows you’ve got to toy with them a bit. He used to love to toy with goalkeepers. For me it’s very important. When you don’t look at the goalkeeper, they can sometimes read where you’re going to put it. But if you break his momentum . . . sometimes the finish doesn’t even have to be that great. Freeze him! It doesn’t matter who the goalkeeper is. It works with everybody. With Dennis, you can see everything he does is what he meant to do. If he needs to touch it three times, he touches it three times. I love it when a striker scores a goal and you can see right from the start that’s what he meant. A lot of Dennis’s goals are like that.’

  Thierry said you froze opponents, too.

  Dennis: ‘That’s fantastic because I had the same feeling and I try to explain it to the players I teach, but . . . I’m going to use that now! We say “stabilise yourself in front of goal, be calm, hesitate for a split second . . . ,” but the way Thierry puts it – freeze the goalkeeper – yeah! I like that.

  Didn’t you ever talk about that sort of thing?

  ‘You don’t. Every day you are on the training pitch and when you’ve finished your career you talk about other players and how they were, and what they’re doing now. Every now and then a player might mention something in an interview but most of the time you are just doing your thing. You’re not going to sit down and tell each other: “This is what I think of you!”’

  Is that just part of a footballer’s code?

  ‘It’s more that football goes so quickly. Everyone is focusing on the next game, or the next training session, so there’s just no time. You’re not going to sit down and commend each other for an hour or so. It’s not done!’

  I guess you do the opposite? Jokes all the time . . .?

  ‘You do that. But a little nod or a little smile is enough to realise what you think of each other. If I gave a great pass from midfield to Freddie or whoever, Thierry would look at me in a split second and I would know that he acknowledged how good the pass was. You don’t really need words: maybe just a nod, or a little smile or just eye contact.’

  Bob Wilson said that in another era Robert Pires would have been the superstar.

  ‘Robert was a big player, a great player and his role suited him fantastically. But I felt the fact that there were other technical, intelligent players around him helped him to reach his full potential. He could really destroy teams with his runs, his passing, his intelligent football and goal-scoring. Yeah, he was a fantastic player.’

  How was it that squad players could play so well – like in that game at Leeds?

  ‘I always feel that any club in the Premier League can make a good first eleven. But it’s all about the numbers 12 to 16, and 12 to 21 in the Champions League. It’s all about how they get pushed in training. If your first eleven is training at the highest level, the squad players will get to a higher level. If someone needs to be replaced, will the team still play at the same high level? It’s always a puzzle for the manager. But I felt in those years guys like Luzhny or Jeffers weren’t first-eleven players, but they could play in the team because every day in training they were forced to play at that high level. That is so important. To achieve that is the main focus for the manager all the time. Arsene said it right. The team is always about five or six main players. Then it depends on your weakest link. If he’s good enough to keep up with the five or six players in your team, well, then you’re happy. But when you’re annoyed or scared that one player will cause the level to drop, then you’ve got a problem. The more players you have who can make a difference, the better chance you have that the other players will get to a higher level.

  ‘But it’s also about what Arsene said about respecting the game. You don’t need one or two big players and all the attention goes on them, because maybe ten or fifteen games a season they will decide the game, but they won’t win you the league. The league will be won by a team that has players who can make the difference but who also respect the lesser players and therefore the lesser players respect them. That is so important.’

  In retrospect it seems even stranger than it did at the time that you never won the Champions League. People blame playing home games at Wembley in the first two years.

  ‘Some of our defenders hated Wembley, because it was a bigger pitch so they had to defend more space. But as a striker you’ve got more space so I always really enjoyed it, and I liked the atmosphere with seventy thousand people for every game. But as a team I felt we weren’t really ready. If we’d have played there a few years we would have destroyed teams. I mean, can you imagine what Thierry, with his pace, or Freddie, or Robert would have done at Wembley?’

  Thierry blamed the fixture pile-up for what happened in 2004. You had to play Liverpool in the league, Man United in the FA Cup semi and the two Champions League legs against Chelsea . . . all in eight days. Your legs were bound to go at some point and it happened in the second half of the second leg against Chelsea. He says the FA should have moved the Man U game.

  ‘That season we thought: “OK, now we are ready to win the Champions League.” I felt we had a great team then and if we could have got through that quarter-final we would have gone all the way. But we had it so many times: you come to a certain period when you have one or two weeks with a quarter-final of this, a semi-final of that and a key game in the league. And you have to use your biggest players. If those players are tired from earlier in the season, or from international duty, you know you’ll struggle. It’s no excuse . . . at that level it happens.’

  There’s a bit of a debate about how significant your absence in some Champions League matches might have been. Sol, Patrick and Thierry all stressed that they respected your non-flying, but thought Arsenal could have won the competition if you’d played in every game.

  ‘Well, you never know, but I don’t believe in a one-man team.’

  You were a big part of that team.

  ‘Yes, but in the beginning, when I was at my peak, I went by car to some games, like Fiorentina and Barcelona. You just never know. Still. I’m not convinced if I would have made a difference away from home in difficult games. I mean, that would be putting Thierry Henry down, for example. In his peak time. He did rather well at Real Madrid and Inter – the five-one. I played in the home game when we lost.’

  So you play and Arsenel lose 0-3. You miss the game and Arsenel win 5-1?

  ‘Yeah! So you just never know. I really can’t tell.’

  But you look sad.

  ‘Well, that’s the sad thing about football. If you miss games. I’ve said it many times. You can miss games through injury and you can miss games through suspension. It’s a sad thing. On the other hand, I was com
ing towards an age when it was very difficult to play three games a week at the highest pace. The club was OK with that. I was OK with it. I could play the weekend, take the week off then play the following weekend.’

  That was the pattern from about 2002 onwards?

  ‘I would think so.’

  You played most of the second Double season?

  ‘I think so. Only when I was thirty-two or thirty-three . . . then it starts going down a bit. I start . . . not exactly picking my games but . . .’

  You’re not the first name on the team sheet any more?

  ‘It was the first time that it happened. Usually Kanu would play in my position, but I don’t really have it clear in my memory. Kanu or Wiltord, those sorts of players . . . But it also went parallel with my going from being a striker and goal-scorer to being an “assistant”. That was already happening with Ian Wright, of course, and with Nicolas Anelka: sometimes I would just remain back a bit and they would be the goal-scorer. I always played like that. I don’t think I was ever top scorer in England and towards the end of my career my position changed a bit more and it suited me. My pace wasn’t really important in that role, though sometimes I showed it and people were surprised. I scored from the halfway line at Leicester. I think it was a sprint with Matty Upson and I flipped it over the goalkeeper. “Look at his pace!” But I wasn’t usually in that position. It looked like my pace had dropped, but it was because I was playing in a different way rather than because I was getting older. Well, it was both.’

  By the 2005 Cup final your pace seemed to have gone . . . that game where Thierry was injured so you were on your own up front. It was a strange game with Arsenal defending most of the match and winning on penalties . . .

  ‘It was a very weird game. But I still had my pace for sure. But in short bursts rather than all through the game. Thierry was so quick he made me look slow. But my pace of controlling the ball, passing and so on . . . that was always faster than my running.’