It’s Arsenal vs Newcastle, at St. James’ Park. Pires picks up the ball and advances into Newcastle’s half. Dennis Bergkamp, now a Premier League veteran bordering on the age of 30, heads towards the edge of the area, guarded closely by Nikolas Dabizas.
Pires drives the ball towards the Dutchman, who suddenly turns towards the ball and waits, and prompts, akin to a rat snapping at cheese, Dabizas to sprint forward. Just as the Greek reaches his man, the ball arrives at the feet of Bergkamp. This scenario is typical within a football game. A striker with his back to goal receives the ball, yet is shadowed closely by a central defender. Players will usually pass the ball on, or attempt to turn sharply at beat their man with sheer acceleration. Bergkamp possessed little pace, so the latter seemed unlikely, although somehow, in the final, precious moments between the ball reaching the cushion of his feet, and Dabizas placing a hand on his back, Bergkamp conceived a move few players in the history of football are capable of performing, or even considering.
Bergkamp kisses the ball with the instep of his left foot, sending the ball spinning to the left of the advancing Dabizas, yet Bergkamp himself turns sharply to the defender’s right. The picture is simply awesome, Dabizas is caught completely unaware, there is a look of bewilderment on his face; why has he turned the other way? You can quite literally read the words from his expression. As the ball bounces, a realisation of failure strikes Dabizas, who attempts to grapple with his opponent and hall him down. The ball spins towards the run of Bergkamp, who dismisses Taylor’ challenge with ridiculous ease, and places the ball with ultimate class, first time into the bottom corner. Shay Given never stood a chance.
The most stunning aspect of the goal, was that Bergkamp seemed to have it all planned. The way he surged towards the Newcastle penalty area with arm aloft, suggested he had already sensed an oppurtunity, and when he received the ball, there was no delay whatsoever in him touching the ball and turning the other way. It was as if he knew exactly what he was doing, before he had even reached the ball.
He always epitomised cool; schooled in Ajax, Bergkamp is a graduate of what is arguably the world’s greatest ever youth system. A youth system which has produced the likes of Johan Cruyff, Edgar Davids and Wesley Sneidjer, a system which promotes the values of supreme technical ability and tactical reading of the game. Bergkamp clearly assimilated all of these values, and, as many Dutch players do, had a knack of making the extremely tasking appear as natural and as simple as breathing.
However, Bergkamp’s career by no means started in excellent fashion. He was transferred to Inter Milan in 1993, yet failed to adapt to Italian football and was widely ridiculed in Italy for his poor performances and inability to finish, thus it was little surprised that many eyebrows were raised when Arsene Wenger paid £7 million for Bergkamp’s services at the start of the 1995/96 season. Bergkamp started slowly, taking six games to score his first goal, yet slowly but surely, Wenger was proven right, and not marginally. Bergkamp struck up an excellent partnership with Ian Wright, provided the skilful, ingenious cohesive between midfield and attack Wenger’s short-passing game necessitated, while scoring plenty of goals in the process.
Thierry Henry arrived, and Bergkamp helped form arguably the most lethal attacking partnership of the decade, with Henry the man to lead the attack, yet unconventionally. The Frenchman would often pull wide and look to dart round and behind an attack, while also playing within pockets of space just in front of the opposition defence, instead of constantly playing on the last shoulder. Bergkamp was the man to ensure Henry received the ball when he found these spaces, to guarantee his partner’s runs in-behind from wide did not go to waste, and boy did he ensure it.
Bergkamp’s ability to spot a pass was simply unrivalled, and this, supplemented with the very technical skills engrained into him at Ajax, was the key to Arsenal’s attacks. Bergkamp could receive the ball, draw a centre back towards him, yet before his opponent could reach him, turn and slide Henry through on goal, all in one movement. He could also produce the extraordinary to unlock a game; one recalls his superb touch-and-volley versus Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, and his excellent hattrick against Leicester.
Now retired, Bergkamp’s legacy lives on. A story has been told of a night in a Dutch hotel three years ago, in which Dutch journalists gathered for a healthy round of discussion. A heated debate ensued regarding the most technically-able Dutch player ever. Names such as Cruyff were predictably banded about, yet Jan Mulder, a player-turned-journalist then announced, almost abruptly; ‘Dennis Bergkamp – he had the finest technique’, and with that, as Guus Hiddink nodded in agreement, the argument was closed.
Dutch players have claimed the Ballon d’Or seven times, and many have achieved huge silverware in Europe. Bergkamp has never won a Champions League, and has never truly been considered for the award, and this perhaps, is the greatest injustice of his career; had Wenger elected to bring him on, he may have provided Arsenal with a much needed spark in the final third to help create a chance on the counter-attack and overturn Barcelona’s onslaught in the second half. As one article put it, ‘to see Bergkamp collecting a losers medal, with a clean, fresh shirt was a sight to bring tears to the eye.’
I finish the article with a tribute video to Bergkamp, the magician of the final third:
