If I uttered the phrase ‘Total Football’ to you, I’d be fairly sure that you’d understand who I might be referring to.
Hendrick Johannes Cruijff, more commonly known as Johan Cruyff, was a god-given talent. A lithe and elegant player and a real student of the beautiful game, he was the perfect exponent of the Total Football system and ideology employed by his coach at Ajax Amsterdam, Rinus Michels.
Michels had long been sold on the innovative system employed by his manager Jack Reynolds who had developed his own understanding after being seduced by River Plate’s ‘La Maquina’ side and the ‘Magical Magyars’ of Hungary.
It was a fluid style of play that was genius in its simplicity. Whilst it required a large degree of technical ability and tactical nous from each and every player, when executed correctly it rendered the (often more physical) opposition impotent.
Players switched position at will, adapting their play accordingly. No one player was pigeon-holed into a single role. He was an attacker, midfielder and defender all rolled into one.
Total Football was perfect for Cruyff whose on-field intelligence was peerless. Starting each game as a centre-forward, he would often drift to whichever area of the pitch he felt would cause maximum damage to the opponent and the flexibility of the system allowed Cruyff’s wanderlust to flourish. It was devastating, beautiful and sensational.
The Rise of Cruyff
Born in 1947, Cruyff grew up in a family home facing the Ajax ground De Meer and on the occasion of his 10th birthday, the football fanatic put pen to paper to join the youth system of the Dutch giants.
His journey to the first team, whilst meteoric, was tinged with sadness. Cruyff was just 12 when his father unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack. In a sign of the mental fortitude we would come to admire in later years, young Johan decided to persevere with his development under the watchful eye and guiding hand of Michels.
By the age of 17 Cruyff was ready to announce himself to the wider footballing public and he made his first-team debut on 15 November 1964 against GVAV, scoring Ajax’s only goal in a 1-3 defeat.
As he gained a foothold in the first team, it was clear to anyone who knew a thing or two about football that here was a gifted young man who already had an insight and analysis of the game that belied his tender years.
Total Football
It was manna from heaven for Michels. Cruyff’s seamless transition from one position to another and his ability to read the game and dictate play was the main component in the success of Michels’ Total Football revolution. Many other teams tried and failed to replicate the system but it was Ajax that won the silverware to support Michels’ philosophy with three consecutive European Cups between 1971 and 1973.
Cryuff was innovator supreme. Everything he did oozed style, grace, class, genius. As well as the ‘Cruyff turn’ (how many other players have had a skill named in their honour?!), who else bar Lionel Messi could’ve executed the famous penalty against Helmond Sport in 1982 when Cruyff played a one-two with Jesper Olsen before calmly slotting the ball into an empty net. It was beautiful and iconic.
The late 60’s and early 70’s were the golden eras for Dutch football and Cruyff was its standard bearer. Yet, ultimately the legacy of the European Player of the Century (awarded by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics in 1999) will not be measured by the successes in his playing career alone. His greatest achievement was still ahead of him.
Cruyff – The Manager
When he went into management, firstly with Ajax and then famously with another of his former playing clubs FC Barcelona (mirroring the route of his mentor Michels), it was obvious that Cruyff could only be content in playing one way. The student became the teacher.
He was absolutely convinced in Michels’ philosophy of how the game should be played and nothing would deflect him from the core values of the system that he had grown up with.
It was, is, and will remain the benchmark of how to play beautiful football. It is a style that has elegance and panache and is so wonderfully pleasing on the eye.
And when Cruyff returned to FC Barcelona as manager in 1988, it was on the proviso that the whole outlook of the club should be changed to suit his methods, and that he would be given carte-blanche to revolutionise the way football was played. He would instil his way of working at every level of the club – from the youngest academy incumbents to the first team superstars.
At all age groups and in all situations, there would be no deviation whatsoever from this policy. His idea was that if all Barca teams were trained in the same way, by the time these players reached elite level the style of play was already completely natural to them. It paid dividends almost immediately, Cruyff securing the club’s first ever European Cup in 1992.
How Cruyff influenced Pep’s Barcelona
Despite being an outspoken, fractious and often aloof character, which made him more enemies than friends, the Dutchman had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and a tactical acumen beyond compare. He was an intelligent and incisive visionary.
The greatest successes of Cruyff’s system came more than a decade after his managerial reign ended in 1996. The legacy of his youth development system was retained after his departure and Pep Guardiola – who had played under Cruyff in the early 90’s – readily acknowledged the Dutchman’s influence when his all-conquering Barca team revolutionised modern football.
We can also see the success of the formula through the current Spanish national side, who have employed the same style of play. More and more clubs across the world are adopting a variant of the Total Football philosophy and managers now look to ball players as opposed to athletes when making decisions on new signings. David Silva and Santi Cazorla are just two names in a long list of intelligent, responsible and talented exponents of the system.
Cruyff’s legacy will continue to live on. Working together during the ‘Dream Team’ era at Barca, Cruyff saw something of himself in Guardiola. The same deep thinking, tactically aware and relentlessly competitive individual that he had once been. A player and manager that accepted nothing but the best. It was a completely natural progression for the baton to pass from Cruyff to Pep just as it had been years earlier from Michels to Cruyff.
And the next link in the chain is the most complete midfielder of this generation, Xavi Hernandez. Pep the teacher, Xavi the pupil. Once the latter has finally hung up his boots and accumulated the necessary coaching credentials, he is sure to take over at Barca and paint another reincarnation of Cruyff’s footballing masterpiece.
There can be no greater tribute to one of the greatest footballers the world has even seen than that.
Johan Cruyff 1947-2016 RIP
