Coaching Career
Michels returned to Ajax as head coach in 1965. Under his tenure and along with great players such as Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens, Ajax went from relegation candidates to a team that won the national championship four times and the KNVB Cup three times in the following six years. In 1969 they reached the final of the European Cup for the first time, being defeated 4–1 by Italian side A.C. Milan. In 1971, he managed Ajax's to the first of three consecutive European Cups, a feat only achieved previously by the great Real Madrid team of Di Stefano and Puskas. While at Ajax, Michels modernized the game by introducing what became known as "Total Football" and using the Offside trap (See also: Total football). He then moved to Barcelona in the second part of 1971, being joined by Johan Cruyff in 1973. With Michels and Cruyff, the team won the Primera División title in 1974, before Michels became manager of the Dutch national team.
Read more about this topic: Rinus Michels
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“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)