Personal information | ||||||||||
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Full name | Hendrik Johannes Cruijff | |||||||||
Date of birth | 25 April 1947 | |||||||||
Place of birth | Amsterdam, Netherlands | |||||||||
Date of death | 24 March 2016 (aged 68) | |||||||||
Place of death | Barcelona, Spain | |||||||||
Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[1] | |||||||||
Playing position | ||||||||||
Youth career | ||||||||||
1957–1963 | Ajax | |||||||||
Senior career* | ||||||||||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||
1964–1973 | Ajax | 240 | (190) | |||||||
1973–1978 | Barcelona | 143 | (48) | |||||||
1978–1979 | Los Angeles Aztecs | 23 | (13) | |||||||
1979–1981 | Washington Diplomats | 30 | (12) | |||||||
1981 | Levante | 10 | (2) | |||||||
1981–1983 | Ajax | 36 | (14) | |||||||
1983–1984 | Feyenoord | 33 | (11) | |||||||
Total | 514 | (290) | ||||||||
National team | ||||||||||
1966–1977 | Netherlands | 48 | (33) | |||||||
Teams managed | ||||||||||
1985–1988 | Ajax | |||||||||
1988–1996 | Barcelona | |||||||||
2009–2013 | Catalonia | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only |
Club[367] | Season | League | Cup1 | Continental2 | Other3 | Total | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
Ajax | 1964–65 | Eredivisie | 10 | 4 | 0 | 0 | -- | 10 | 4 | |||
1965–66 | 19 | 16 | 4 | 9 | -- | 23 | 25 | |||||
1966–67 | 30 | 33 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 3 | -- | 41 | 41 | |||
1967–68 | 33 | 27 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | -- | 40 | 34 | |||
1968–69 | 29 | 24 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 43 | 34 | ||
1969–70 | 33 | 23 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 4 | -- | 46 | 33 | |||
1970–71 | 25 | 21 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 1 | -- | 37 | 27 | |||
1971–72 | 25 | 21 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | -- | 37 | 31 | |||
1972–73 | 32 | 24 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 46 | 33 | ||
1973–74 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | ||
Barcelona | 1973–74 | Primera División | 26 | 16 | -- | 0 | 0 | -- | 26 | 16 | ||
1974–75 | 30 | 7 | -- | 8 | 0 | -- | 38 | 7 | ||||
1975–76 | 29 | 6 | -- | 9 | 2 | -- | 38 | 8 | ||||
1976–77 | 30 | 14 | -- | 7 | 5 | -- | 37 | 19 | ||||
1977–78 | 28 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 10 | 5 | -- | 45 | 11 | |||
Los Angeles Aztecs | 1979 | NASL | 22 | 14 | -- | 4 | 1 | 26 | 14 | |||
Washington Diplomats | 1980 | 24 | 10 | -- | 2 | 0 | 26 | 10 | ||||
Levante | 1980–81 | Segunda División | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -- | 10 | 2 | |||
Washington Diplomats | 1981 | NASL | 5 | 2 | -- | 5 | 2 | |||||
Ajax | 1981–82 | Eredivisie | 15 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -- | 16 | 7 | |
1982–83 | 21 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | -- | 30 | 9 | |||
Feyenoord | 1983–84 | 33 | 11 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 1 | -- | 44 | 13 | ||
Career total | 511 | 297 | 60 | 46 | 84 | 36 | 10 | 4 | 666 | 383 |
Year | Apps | Goals |
---|---|---|
1966 | 2 | 1 |
1967 | 3 | 1 |
1968 | 1 | 0 |
1969 | 3 | 1 |
1970 | 2 | 2 |
1971 | 4 | 6 |
1972 | 5 | 5 |
1973 | 6 | 6 |
1974 | 12 | 8 |
1975 | 2 | 0 |
1976 | 4 | 2 |
1977 | 4 | 1 |
Total | 48 | 33 |
# | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 7 September 1966 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Hungary | 2–0 | 2–2 | UEFA Euro 1968 qualifying |
2 | 13 September 1967 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | East Germany | 1–0 | 1–0 | |
3 | 26 March 1969 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Luxembourg | 1–0 | 4–0 | FIFA World Cup 1970 qualifying |
4 | 2 December 1970 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Romania | 1–0 | 2–0 | Friendly |
5 | 2–0 | |||||
6 | 24 February 1971 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Luxembourg | 3–0 | 6–0 | UEFA Euro 1972 qualifying |
7 | 4–0 | |||||
8 | 17 November 1971 | Eindhoven, Netherlands | Luxembourg | 1–0 | 8–0 | |
9 | 7–0 | |||||
10 | 8–0 | |||||
11 | 1 December 1971 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Scotland | 1–0 | 2–1 | Friendly |
12 | 16 February 1972 | Athens, Greece | Greece | 3–0 | 5–0 | |
13 | 5–0 | |||||
14 | 30 August 1972 | Prague, Czechoslovakia | Czechoslovakia | 1–0 | 2–1 | |
15 | 1 November 1972 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Norway | 4–0 | 9–0 | FIFA World Cup 1974 qualifying |
16 | 8–0 | |||||
17 | 2 May 1973 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Spain | 3–2 | 3–2 | Friendly |
18 | 22 August 1973 | Iceland | 2–0 | 5–0 | FIFA World Cup 1974 qualifying | |
19 | 5–0 | |||||
20 | 29 August 1973 | Deventer, Netherlands | Iceland | 2–0 | 8–1 | |
21 | 4–0 | |||||
22 | 12 September 1973 | Oslo, Norway | Norway | 1–0 | 2–1 | |
23 | 26 June 1974 | Gelsenkirchen, West Germany | Argentina | 1–0 | 4–0 | FIFA World Cup 1974 |
24 | 4–0 | |||||
25 | 3 July 1974 | Dortmund, Germany | Brazil | 2–0 | 2–0 | |
26 | 4 September 1974 | Stockholm, Sweden | Sweden | 1–0 | 5–1 | Friendly |
27 | 25 September 1974 | Helsinki, Finland | Finland | 1–1 | 3–1 | UEFA Euro 1976 qualifying |
28 | 2–1 | |||||
29 | 20 November 1974 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Italy | 2–1 | 3–1 | |
30 | 3–1 | |||||
31 | 22 May 1976 | Brussels, Belgium | Belgium | 2–1 | 2–1 | |
32 | 13 October 1976 | Rotterdam, Netherlands | Northern Ireland | 2–1 | 2–2 | FIFA World Cup 1978 qualifying |
33 | 26 March 1977 | Antwerp, Belgium | Belgium | 2–0 | 2–0 |
Team | From | To | Record | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | W | D | L | Win % | |||
Ajax | 6 June 1985 | 4 January 1988 | 117 | 86 | 10 | 21 | 073.50 |
Barcelona | 4 May 1988 | 18 May 1996 | 430 | 250 | 97 | 83 | 058.14 |
Catalonia | 2 November 2009 | 2 January 2013 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 050.00 |
Total | 551 | 338 | 109 | 104 | 061.34 |
Osvaldo Ardiles: 'I sometimes wonder if Argentina would have won the World Cup in 1978 if Cruyff had been playing but he chose not to be there. In 1974, he scored two goals against Argentina in the quarter-final but without him in 1978 we just had the edge. He was a great player at a time when Dutch football was going through a great period and deserves to be considered as one of the all-time greats.'
Dutch flamboyance, German power and English spirit dominated the European Champion Clubs' Cup in the 1970s, with clubs from those three countries winning the trophy every single year in that decade.
The 1970s saw the flowering of some brilliant talent in the Netherlands, a hitherto relatively unheralded football country. Amsterdam-based side Ajax put the Dutch on the map by reaching the final of the European Cup in 1969, but it was their Rotterdam-based rivals Feyenoord that ushered in a new European order the following year by taking home the trophy.
The stage was then set for Ajax to galvanise the game. Masterminded by the dazzling attacking skills of local boy Johan Cruyff, Ajax swept all before them with their swashbuckling 'total football', in which defenders and attackers exchanged positions, leaving opponents bewildered and beaten.
Ajax lifted the Champion Clubs' Cup in 1971, 1972 and 1973, as well as winning the hearts of football enthusiasts. 'Dutch football was very much emerging at that time', said Cruyff. 'It was a really different development for football itself... and it had an enormous impact on the whole world, which eventually led to a lot of respect for Dutch football.'
There was also no rational reason why Dutch football should produce someone like Cruyff at the time that he began kicking around a ball in the East Amsterdam planned neighbourhood of Betondorp... Until he pulled on the Oranje jersey, the Dutch national team had failed to qualify for a major tournament since before World War II. No Dutch side had won European silverware. It was very much a footballing backwater, as likely to spawn a guy who would change the sport forever as Jamaica is to produce the world's greatest downhill skier.
Franz Beckenbauer: 'Wenn Spieler wie Bale oder Ronaldo um die 100 Millionen wert sind, würde es bei Johan in die Milliarden gehen!' [Original in German]
Sid Lowe: 'As a player, he led them to their first league title in 14 years; as a manager he led them to their first European Cup. The legacy is clear, profound and present. Before 1990 Barcelona had won 10 league titles in their entire history and no European Cups; since then they have won 13 leagues and five European Cups. But it is not about the trophies, or not only; it goes beyond that, to philosophy and identity. Winning, sure; a way of winning too.'
As Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona who appointed Rijkaard and Guardiola, recalled: 'It was Johan who recommended Frank as coach and who told me that Pep was ready to manage the first team.' Cruyff did not need to be on Barcelona's payroll to shape the fortunes of the club.
Luciano Spalletti: 'Nowadays, we like to play around with the idea of the false nine. You could say he had all the necessary qualities for that position. Cruyff was a false nine because he'd play up front, then he'd pop up on the left wing and he'd also drop beneath the halfway line to pick up the ball and start move.'
...But faith in the virtue of playing creative and exciting football remained the cornerstone of Cruyff's footballing beliefs. It marks him out from the vast majority of other coaches who, to a greater or lesser degree, think winning is more important. Being pragmatic is often a euphemism for winning ugly, and Cruyff has never signed up for that cynicism. In the 1960s, the win-at-all-costs mentality was epitomized by the Italian teams who played catenaccio, the Italian system focused on defending. Cruyff and his fellow Dutchmen became the heroes of those who wanted football to be more uplifting... He sees winning and beauty as inseparable. He was once asked whether he'd be willing to play with a mainly defensive system to win the league. He said no because it would be too boring.
...Cruyff's admirers don't just like the way he and his teams played. They believe the world could be a better place if his vision of football prevailed. Cruyffian football, they feel, is more beautiful, more fun and more spiritual than other approaches... Until relatively recently, English football was synonymous with long balls, bad ball control and big, clumsy centre-forwards charging into lumbering centre-halves. Now, most of the top coaches at the Premier League's biggest clubs are either Dutch or heavily influenced by the Dutch. There's Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, Van Gaal at Manchester United and Guus Hiddink at Chelsea. Roberto Martínez at Everton and Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool are devout Cruyffians. Next season, Pep Guardiola will start converting Manchester City to tiki-taka.
One of the most apparent differences between British and local players [South Americans] were their playing styles. The English values of gentlemanly behaviour dominated and impregnated the spirit of the game—they considered their most important aspects as strength, virility and physical stamina. The British expected to find the spirit of the gentleman behind every player... To the Creoles, soccer was a form of art, while the British executed it like machinery. One was graceful while playing and the other was more in tune with the technicalities of the sport.
In the 19th century, the English invented football as a chivalrous substitute for war and played in straight lines with fixed formations. Brazilians thought of football as a platform for individual artistry.
FC Barcelona's 40th president Josep Maria Bartomeu told La Repubblica: 'We [Barça] have had great players before, from the days of László Kubala and Luis Suárez. [Johan] Cruyff, as a player, made us relevant again and as a manager he put us on the map with the European Cup win in 1992. Ronaldinho made us global and Messi has made us universal.'
Josep Maria Bartomeu told La Repubblica: 'We [Barça] don't want to win in just any way. This is the Dutch school of [Rinus] Michels, Cruyff, [Louis] Van Gaal and [Frank] Rijkaard. At the centre of every decision is the ball; if you treat it well, you will be rewarded. We are a global club, respected and admired, with the mission to entertain.'
Arsène Wenger: 'I have a big respect in general for the Dutch school, and Johan Cruyff especially, because let's not forget he is the product of a school in Holland which was around before him. People like Rinus Michels, who influenced his players too, because this is not an isolated way of thinking. Johan Cruyff had it too – that personality, the character to say 'yes, I believe in this game, and I'm strong and brave enough to apply it on the pitch.' That's what I admired.'
Chérif Ghemmour: 'Les trois dimensions de Cruyff, c'est qu'il a révolutionné le foot en tant que joueur, qu'entraîneur et en tant que penseur.' [Original in French]
Christophe Kuchly: '...ce n'est peut-être pas le meilleur de tous les temps. Mais c'est le seul qui a réussi à être à la fois un grand joueur, un grand coach et un grand penseur du ballon. ... Donc pour moi, c'est la personne la plus marquante de l'histoire du foot parce qu'il a brillé dans tous les domaines.' [Original in French]
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands: 'The Dutch love their country and are proud of the legacy left by Erasmus, Grotius, Spinoza, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cornelis Lely and Johan Cruyff.'
Ruud Gullit told Telesport: 'He [Cruyff] is the one who put our football on the map.'
Simon Kuper: '...he [Cruyff] loved money with the passion of a man who had grown up without it, ... When Cruyff returned to Ajax in 1981, the Dutch were sceptical. The Calvinist Holland of the time distrusted anyone who thought he was special. Cruyff had never been popular at home, where he was known as 'Nose' or 'The Moneywolf'. By now he was 34, with a broken body. Surely he was coming back for the money?'
Jorge Valdano: 'Jamais dans ma vie je n'ai vu un joueur gouverner les matchs comme Cruyff. Il était le propriétaire du spectacle. Beaucoup plus que son équipe, que l'arbitre, ou que les supporters. Son emprise sur ce qui se passait sur le terrain était incroyable. Il était joueur, entraîneur, et arbitre à la fois.' [Original in French]
César Luis Menotti: 'Yo creo que hubo cuatro reyes y el quinto no ha aparecido. Di Stéfano, Pelé, Cruyff y Maradona. Ahora estamos esperando al quinto, que será Messi o, de momento, no será nadie. Es el que está más cerca, pero no le vas a dar la corona a los cinco años.' [Original in Spanish]
César Luis Menotti: 'Se nos ha ido un inmortal, un prócer del fútbol, uno de los cuatro reyes de la historia junto a Di Stéfano, Pelé y Maradona. Con la muerte de Johan Cruyff, el fútbol pierde a un jugador excepcional, a un referente histórico del buen juego y a un refundador del Barcelona. Como futbolista fue notable, era como un pájaro que volaba dentro de la cancha. Como entrenador, un maestro.' [Original in Spanish]
Michel Platini: 'Aujourd'hui, le football a perdu l'un de ses meilleurs joueurs et ambassadeurs. Je suis très triste parce que Johan était le héros de mon enfance, mon idole, mon ami.' [Original in French]
Eric Cantona: 'I loved the Dutch in the '70s, they excited me and Cruyff was the best. He was my childhood hero; I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall. He was a creator. He was at the heart of a revolution with his football. Ajax changed football and he was the leader of it all. If he wanted he could be the best player in any position on the pitch. ... As an eight-year-old, I watched the 1974 World Cup Final between West Germany and Holland and I was supporting the Dutch. I cried my eyes out when they lost. ... I was going to choose Cruyff as a player-manager because I loved his tactical brain. He was always thinking, he always wanted to improve his players. I know what his teams can do as I watched from the stands as his Barcelona side beat United 4–0 in 1994.'
Emilio Butragueño: 'I always told everyone that Cruyff was my idol. I'm not being disloyal to Madrid by saying that.'I believe in honesty and when you look at what Johan's like, who he is and how he played, then if you can't say he's your idol, you are not a person worthy of being a Real Madrid supporter.'
Rafael Benítez: 'He has been inspirational to me along my career. When I was giving my first steps as a footballer he was a myth, an icon to follow. Afterwards, when I became a football manager, Cruyff was one of my references.'
Joan Laporta: 'You really have to put things in their context and their historic moment. For me, my idol was always Johan Cruyff. For me he has always been the greatest, not just as a player but also as a person... He has been a point of reference for me. It was his era, his moment – and he was the best in the world. For me, the best in history.'
Carlos Alberto Torres: 'The only team I've seen that did things differently was Holland at the 1974 World Cup in Germany. Since then everything looks more or less the same to me... Their 'carousel' style of play was amazing to watch and marvellous for the game.'
Arsene Wenger: 'I played 4–3–3 at Monaco and I think Barcelona has not created that system. That system is a Dutch system. Johan Cruyff exported it and played in that system. The Dutch used that system in 1974 in the World Cup in Germany.'
Jonathan Wilson: 'It was Michels who, in the seventies, took the Dutch ethos to Barcelona in 1971. Johan Cruyff, who had been his captain at Ajax, followed two years later. Together, they established the school of soccer whose philosophy lives on in the modern Barcelona. They pressed high, they prioritized possession, they interchanged position. They were also happy to flip between three and four at the back as required, something that was particularly true of the Barca side Cruyff coached in the early nineties. Until the start of this season, Pep Guardiola had, broadly speaking, stuck to 4–3–3 and its variants. But against Villarreal on the opening weekend of the season, Barcelona lined up in a 3–4–3.'
Jonathan Wilson: 'Cruyff the player was gloriously impudent, a slight and graceful genius who proved that brain could outmanoeuvre brawn. Watching his Netherlands dart and thrust their way around Uruguay or Argentina in 1974, or seeing his Ajax outwit Juventus in the European Cup final in 1973, was to see a devastating puppet-master toying with lumbering opponents. Cruyff the coach, Cruyff the manager, was able to retain that sense of the joy of the game, the importance of beauty and, what's harder, to convey that sense to his players. There has never been such a great player who was also such a great manager. In that he stands utterly unique.'
Jamie Carragher: 'It is 28 years since Barcelona made the most significant managerial decision in their history to appoint Cruyff. Back in 1988, they were a big name but they were far removed from being Spain's dominant force, never mind one of world football's superpowers.'
When we enjoy the symphony of scintillating football which Lionel Messi and Xavi and Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets and Neymar and Gerard Piqué and Ronaldinho and Deco and Samuel Eto'o and Carles Puyol have played for us for more than a decade, we need to understand that, without Cruyff's brain, his stubbornness, his vision, his daring and his intelligence it would never have happened. All of those players were either recruited to Barcelona as stripling kids or bought as professional talents based on the football bible that Cruyff wrote. Talent over height. Brains over brawn. Bravery, meaning making the right pass, the right darting run, the right 'show' for the ball no matter the pressure, no matter the risk. Intelligence, above all.
...Added to their vast commercial income it is obvious why Barca were able to earn £405.2m in the 2013–14 season – but that only put them fourth in football's rich list with Real Madrid on top with £459.5m. Such financial muscle explains Barca's place among the super clubs, but not their dominance of them.
This is not about the power of money. It is about the power of ideas – and one grand idea in particular. It has almost become modern Barcelona's creation myth: how Johan Cruyff descended from the heavens to create a club in his own image and instill a belief system which even to this day creates religious fervour. Enrique may have tinkered with aspects of Barcelona's approach but the fundamentals remain in place.
It is the idea of La Masia and the idea of football played in line with Cruyffian ethics – an ideological position on the mode of production and the style of play. First aroused by the Dream Team in 1992 it was reignited by a new generation: Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta, who have won the Champions League in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015.
You can separate Barça's history into BCE (Before Cruyff Era) and CE (Cruyff Era). And, yes, Barça are still, nearly 20 years after he coached his final game for the club, still very much in the Cruyff Era.
It is difficult to overstate the impact he had. His own natural vision for the game, the concepts of Rinus Michels' Total Football, and the experiences gleaned in a 20-year playing career formed the blueprint, but his great merit was to synthesize and tweak it to suit Catalan football. The building blocks were possession, pressing and proactivity, the idea that the opposition would adjust to you, not the other way around.
The concept was that football was something to be done right, or not done at all. A quote often attributed to him – possibly apocryphal, but nevertheless truer than so much of what managers say – was that he'd rather play well and lose than play poorly and win.
For Cruyff, playing well suggested adhering to certain fundamental canons of style and execution. That Cruyff 'idea of football' has come to mean many things to many people. It's almost easier to define it by what it is not: It's not a philosophy based on waiting for your opponent to make a mistake, unless it's a mistake that you cause them to make through your own excellence.
When he [Cruyff] walked into the dressing room and drew 3–4–3 on the tactics board for the first time, this is how the players reacted: 'We looked at each other and said: 'What the hell is this?!' This was the era of 4–4–2 or 3–5–2', explained Eusebio, who had come to Barcelona to play under Cruyff, 'He single-handedly introduced a new way of playing football in Spain. It was a revolution'.
'I much prefer to win 5–4 than 1–0' said the erstwhile manager, and set about finding the players that fit his ideology. This was 1988 when players were chosen for their physique, or more accurately, not chosen because of it. Even Barcelona had 'a prueba de la muneca' – the wrist test – that discounted anyone at 15 who didn't look like growing to be at least 5'11.
Cruyff changed that, focussing instead on ability and technique, cultivating players who treated the ball with care, were quick and pressed the opposition. One benefactor of this new policy was a skinny 15 year-old named Pep Guardiola, who would play an integral part in the club's first European Cup success as a player in 1992, then manage the team in their most successful period ever. 'Johan Cruyff painted the chapel, and Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it', was how Pep put it. The Dutch master was the Godfather of La Masia, Barça's talent factory that has since become a production line of footballing prodigies. They play 3–4–3 from the under-8's all the way to the senior side, a continuity that has served the club well.
Xavi: 'Our model was imposed by [Johan] Cruyff; it's an Ajax model. It's all about rondos [piggy in the middle]. Rondo, rondo, rondo.'
Ronald Koeman: 'It was Cruyff who introduced the Dutch style of attacking football into the first team and the academy... Barcelona said goodbye to the 4–4–2 system. Cruyff would never use that again. He introduced the 4–3–3 and later even the 3–4–3 system, with only three defenders. The way we played under Cruyff was revolutionary. In my eyes it was sometimes too attacking but that was Johan Cruyff for you... Our game was full of risk. I was not even a real defender and had to move into midfield with the ball whenever possible. We also pushed right up in every game. It created fantastic games to watch but we were also punished. We left big spaces behind our defence, but Cruyff said we would win the majority of our games and he was right... Cruyff was deliberately looking for players who could play in the attacking style he had been used to in the total Dutch football of the seventies. He brought in Michael Laudrup, he bought me and Hristo Stoichkov... When Cruyff brought Pep [Guardiola] into the squad, he said to me, 'You are going to look after this boy. You are going to be his tutor, help him develop and make sure he learns the Dutch style of play.' From the very beginning he [Guardiola] was asking me everything about the Ajax youth academy. He wanted to know about the Dutch school of football. More than any other player he wanted to know about one-touch football, about positional play.'
Jonathan Wilson: 'The predominant style was that which has sustained Barcelona since the arrival of the Ajax coach Rinus Michels in 1971. He brought with him Total Football, a belief in possession football, rooted in a high offside line, pressing and the interchange of players on the field and, in 1973, the great Dutch forward Johan Cruyff. When Cruyff became Barcelona's manager in 1988, he reinforced this philosophy and, although he saw the version of the game practised by his successor as manager, Louis van Gaal, as overly mechanised, the starting point was the same. This was perhaps the greatest coaching seminar in history, and the philosophy it taught was that which had been flowing from Ajax to Barcelona, which believed the same things but had more money, for three decades: what we might perhaps term the Barçajax school.'
Ronald Koeman: 'Cruyff was undoubtedly the biggest influence on me... I had some great years with Rinus Michels: one at Ajax, the rest with the national team. But Cruyff was the coach in my career. He was someone I spent a lot of great years with – my best years. Being part of that Dream Team at Barcelona was without doubt the highest point of my career and all the successes we had, the football we played, was down to him. It's the most difficult way to be successful – by playing that kind of beautiful, attacking football – but Cruyff was able to make it possible.'
In his first week at the club, Johan Cruyff turned up unannounced at the 'Mini' stadium, a venue just down the road from Camp Nou used by the youth and B teams. Just before half-time he wandered into the dug-out and asked Charly Rexach, the youth team manager at the time, the name of the young lad playing on the right side of midfield. 'Guardiola – good lad' came the reply. Cruyff ignored the comment and told Rexach to move him into the middle for the second half, to play as pivot. It was a difficult position to adapt to and one not used by many teams in Spain at the time. Guardiola adjusted immediately, as Cruyff had suspected he would, and when he moved up into the first-team in 1990 he became the true fulcrum of the Dream Team.
Johan Cruyff: 'Barça wanted to get rid of him [Guardiola]. They considered him scrawny, bad defensively and ineffective in the air. What nobody saw was that he had the basic qualities to go far: he had game intelligence, speed in his execution, technique. If I hadn't been at Barcelona, for sure he would have been sold to a Segunda División club.'
José Mari Bakero: 'Seit Cruyffs Ankunft in Barcelona in den siebziger Jahren orientiert sich der Klub an der holländischen Schule. Das wird über Generationen weitergegeben. Einige der damaligen Mannschaft sind wie ich Trainer geworden. Wir sind alle Cruyffistas.' [Original in German]
Xavi: 'I'm a footballing romantic just like Cruyff. We like football that is attractive, attacking and easy on the eye. When you win playing like this it's twice as satisfying. ... I've always played attacking football: my footballing ideals are very clear and well-defined. I've grown up at Barcelona with that style and that's the one I like. I think it's good to win like that, by taking the initiative right from the off.'
Luis Enrique: 'The idea of 4–3–3 or 3–4–3 has been at Barça for a long time. It's something that has become a part of the club and I hope it stays that way for a long time. Our idea of football is all about putting on a show. Not just winning, but winning with style... We look for individual flair through command of the ball and a clear idea of how to play. There have been different managers over the years, all with different approaches to the same method. It's not easy to do. Other teams have tried it, but you need to stay faithful to the idea, even when the results aren't going so well.'
Arsène Wenger: 'He [Cruyff] was one of my idols when I was a kid because he was not much older than I was and did a lot of things on the pitch that I couldn't do... He was the kind of exceptional personality that marked me and all my generation. The other day Michel Platini was speaking about him and he had exactly the same impression... What Dutch football and Cruyff's generation has created is 'let's be bold enough to play offensive football and let's defend it,' no matter what happens. I think that is a very generous idea because it starts from the fact that you want to express yourselves and give pleasure to the people sitting in the stands. The only respect you can give to the people in the stands is, at least at the start, to give them some pleasure and transform our game into art.'
Angela Merkel: 'Cruyff hat mich beeindruckt. Ich glaube, ich war auch nicht die Einzige in Europa.' [Original in German]
Cruijff began his career at Ajax with the number 9. After a long injury, in 1970 he came back wearing the number 14, which he kept for the rest of his football career. When Cruijff turned 60, Ajax honoured him by deciding not to allow any other player to use the number 14 ever again.
Simon Kuper: 'In 1973, 1988 and 2003 he [Cruyff] came to save a struggling club seeking direction.'
Cruyff is a family man ..., one of the few professional players who married young and kept his marriage alive over all these years. He also managed to keep himself, his wife and children away from the wrong kind of tabloid headlines. His son Jordi has praised Johan as a very considerate and playful father and that his childhood was a very happy one, although his father was away quite often. So, for Johan Cruyff his family may have been even more important than his football career...
Then Carles Rexach published his book and also claimed that she [Danny] always had a big influence over his career. ... She can also be blamed for Holland missing out on the World Cup in 1970, and then probably winning it, why not, when Johan had to go on a trip to Milan with Danny to buy shoes for her shop in Amsterdam. He returned too late for the Dutch training camp before their decisive qualifier against Bulgaria and was subsequently dropped. A draw ended all hopes of a trip to Mexico.
Following his heart operation in 1991, Danny became stricter in controlling her man. He withdrew as [Netherlands] national coach for the 1994 World Cup in a cloud of arguments after an initial agreement. She probably forbade him to go as it was too dangerous for his health. Several times since, Cruyff has promised to commit to some responsibility, only to resign later with some half-hearted excuse. It's as if she told him to stop being foolish, but he did not dare to say so in public. Danny appears to be very well capable of handling Cruyff.
According to newspaper AD, the man, a labourer from Rotterdam, drove to Barcelona buying a sawn-off shot gun on the way. He forced Cruijff and his wife Danny to lie on the floor, bound Cruijff– who asked with admirable and typical sang-froid for the rope not to be tied too tightly because he'd just had an operation (which wasn't true) – and held a gun to the footballer's head. Danny made a dash for the door and when her screams alerted neighbours the attacker fled, dropping his gun. After some fisticuffs with other residents he was handed over to the police and spent a couple of years in prison. Later Cruijff said the attempted kidnap was the reason he decided not to go to the World Cup in Argentina in 1978.
I'm not religious, in Spain all 22 players cross themselves, if it works the game is always going to be a tie.
Johan Derksen: 'Johan [Cruijff] is absoluut gelovig, al gaat hij nooit naar de kerk'. [Original in Dutch]
As Cruyff said in a statement on his official website (Cruyff Management – The World of Johan Cruyff), 'After several medical treatments I can say that the results have been very positive, thanks to the excellent work of the doctors, the affection of the people and my positive mentality. Right now, I have the feeling that I am 2–0 up in the first half of a match that has not finished yet. But I am sure that I will end up winning.'
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Awards and achievements | ||
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Preceded by Ljupko Petrović | European Cup Winning Coach 1991–92 | Succeeded by Raymond Goethals |
Preceded by Ard Schenk | Dutch Sportsman of the Year 1973–1974 | Succeeded by Jos Hermens |