Actually similar was said when Hockey abolished the offside rule like 20 years ago, people thought that players would literally goal hang and do nothing which is far from the case. If anything it has opened up the game a great deal, but the sport is forever changing with new rules implemented to make the game faster every 2 years, for example the self passing rule on free hits was a major rule. But anyhow Van Basten much like Cruijff based a lot of what 'Total football' is from hockey and basically trying to follow suit with the rules of the game too.