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How can a team that failed to win the World Cup still be remembered among the greatest of all time — and did the Netherlands of 1974 change football more profoundly than many champions?
Season 5 of By Far The Greatest Team continues with one of football history’s most influential and endlessly debated sides: the Netherlands at the 1974 World Cup.
Jamie Rooney and Graham Dunn are joined by Dutch guest Lars Kuizenga, who brings his knowledge of Dutch football and a national perspective on a team whose influence extended far beyond one extraordinary summer.
The story begins long before 1974.
The Netherlands did not officially embrace professional football until 1954 and then missed six consecutive World Cups. Yet within two decades, Dutch football had been transformed. Feyenoord won the European Cup in 1970, Ajax followed with three successive triumphs, and the ideas developed by Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff and their predecessors were ready to be presented to a global audience.
The Netherlands almost failed to reach the tournament at all. Belgium completed qualifying unbeaten and without conceding a single goal, but missed out on goal difference after a late winner against the Dutch was wrongly disallowed for offside.
Once in West Germany, however, the Netherlands appeared to be playing a different game.
They defeated Uruguay and Bulgaria in the opening group stage, with only Sweden holding them to a draw in the match that gave us the Cruyff Turn. They then dismantled Argentina 4–0, beat East Germany 2–0 and overcame defending champions Brazil by the same scoreline.
Across six matches before the final, the Dutch scored 14 goals and conceded only one — an own goal.
Cruyff was the conductor, but this was far more than a one-man team. Johan Neeskens, Willem van Hanegem, Ruud Krol, Arie Haan, Johnny Rep, Rob Rensenbrink, Wim Jansen and the unconventional goalkeeper Jan Jongbloed all contributed to a system built around intelligence, movement and collective courage.
In the final against West Germany, the Netherlands completed 16 passes before their opponents touched the ball. Cruyff burst into the penalty area, Neeskens converted the first penalty ever awarded in a World Cup final and the Dutch led after only 88 seconds.
But the hosts were European champions, filled with Bayern Munich’s finest players and led by Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier. Paul Breitner equalised from the spot before Müller scored what proved to be the winner.
The Netherlands lost the final but won something more complicated: immortality without the trophy.
Jamie, Graham and Lars explore the origins of Total Football, the personalities who made it possible, the internal tensions behind the beautiful image and how the team became connected to a wider period of Dutch cultural confidence and change.
They also ask whether the romantic memory has grown greater than the football itself — or whether the Netherlands of 1974 genuinely deserve to stand alongside the most successful teams in history.
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"Netherlands 1974" is an episode of By Far The Greatest Team Football Podcast. Runtime 1 hr 25 min. Published October 1, 2026. Hit play above to stream it here, or open the free Spot Sports app for background play and offline downloads.
