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There is an element of mysticism about Johan Cruyff that now is folklore. He lit up a World Cup final, won 3 Ballon d’Ors (1971,1973,1974) in a career that saw him play over 500 league games for six clubs (Ajax, Barcelona, Los Angeles Aztecs, Washington Diplomats, Levante, Feyenoord). He won just about every accolade as a player.
10 league titles as a player, 4 as manager, 4 European Cups. It is not for nothing, that he was adjudged the best European player of the 20th century in 1999. These trophies and honours that pepper his career actually don't fully justify his legacy.
For Ajax and Barcelona, especially, their style of football based on possession, positional flexibility, and free-flowing attacking football is down to one man - Johan Cruyff. To him, nothing was more sacred than the pursuit of this philosophy.
In terms of having an impact on a game of football, his influence is uncontested, unrivalled, nonpareil. While he was playing, he was simultaneously conducting the whole team, and while managing, orchestrating from the sidelines; and each time he made the game beautiful. When he spoke, people listened; and it helped that his every quip was a gem.
"In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender."
"What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster."
"Players today can only shoot with their laces. I could shoot with the inside, laces, and outside of both feet. In other words, I was six times better than today’s players."
“Why couldn’t you beat a richer club? I have never seen a bag of money score a goal.”
The Dutch genius was always positive in approach and insightful in observation. Here are 14 quotes on Johan Cruyff that try and capture his otherworldly legacy.
Johan Cruyff painted the chapel, and Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it – Pep Guardiola on Cruyff’s coaching work at the Nou Camp.
Pythagoras in boots. Few have been able to exert, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric control on a match from one penalty area to another.
– David Winner, author of Brilliant Orange.
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.
– Eric Cantona, Manchester United legend
I played 18 years in top football and 17 times for Sweden but that moment against Cruyff was the proudest moment of my career. I thought I’d win the ball for sure, but he tricked me. I was not humiliated. I had no chance. Cruyff was a genius.
- Jan Olsson, the Sweden defender tricked by the Cruyff Turn at the 1974 World Cup
He was certainly the best footballer Europe has produced.
— Franz Beckenbauer, Ballon d'Or Winner 1972, 1976
He was so mature. He was such a skinny little kid but he had such immense stamina. He could run all over the field and he could do everything: set movements up, fly down the wing, run into the penalty area, head the ball in. Left foot, right foot, anything – and such speed.
— Vic Buckingham, Cruyff’s first coach at Ajax
When you saw Cruyff off the pitch he was like a thin boy. But on the pitch, he was from another planet. Without Cruyff, I have no team.
– Rinus Michels, Cryuff's Ajax manager
Cruyff’s genius transcended even the most heated rivalry in European football, considering what the iconic Real Madrid striker, Emilio Butragueno, has had to say about him
I always told everyone that Cruyff was my idol. I'm not being disloyal to Madrid by saying that. You would have to be narrow-minded and short on insight to think like that.
— Emilio Butragueno
A real football brain. He had superb control, he was inventive and he could perform magic with a ball to get himself out of trouble instinctively. He got a lot of goals, and although he was so skillful, he didn’t show off – he played to the strengths of the players around him.
— Sir Bobby Charlton
I played under great coaches like Guus Hiddink and Rinus Michels, but Cruyff shades it for me. An inspirational figure, he always wanted something more from his teams – for him, it wasn’t enough just to win; success had to be achieved in a manner that would be remembered and discussed for years. He was always a winner – a winning football player and a winning coach.
— Ronald Koeman
As a player he turned football into an art form. Johan came along and revolutionized everything. The modern-day Barça started with him, he is the expression of our identity, he brought us a style of football we love.
– Former Barcelona President Joan Laporta
In terms of his physique and power, he would be Cristiano Ronaldo. In terms of his ability, creativity and artistry he would be Messi. Cruyff combined both aspects of the game. Power, speed, he had an amazing change of rhythm, it looked like he was ambling along in fourth gear and suddenly he would go up to fifth and then sixth. At that time he was a one-off. He was unique. A unique figure and without a doubt a unique character.
— Miguel Reina, Goalkeeper (Atlético Madrid, Barcelona)
To speak of Cruyff is to speak of football. He made the sport about entertainment and titles. - Luis Enrique, treble-winning coach, Barcelona
David Winner explains a bit better in book Brilliant Orange -
"The ultimate space-measurer in Dutch football is of course, Johan Cruyff. He was only 17 when he first played at Ajax, yet even then he delivered running commentaries on the use of space to the rest of the team, telling them where to run, where not to run. Players did what the tiny, skinny teenager told them to do because he was right. Cruyff didn’t talk about abstract space but about specific, detailed spatial relations on the field. Indeed, the most abiding image of him as a player is not of him scoring or running or tackling. It is of Cruyff pointing. ‘No, not there, back a little… forward two metres… four metres more to the left.’ He seemed like a conductor directing a symphony orchestra. It was as if Cruyff was helping his colleagues to realize an approximate rendering on the field to match the sublime vision in his mind of how the space ought to be ordered.”
Forget about the titles, I won more titles than him. Our gratitude is infinite and his legacy as well. And this legacy is not measured in trophies. It is rather the fact that he has enforced changes. Johan changed two clubs. But not only Ajax and Barcelona, he also changed the national teams of the Netherlands and Spain. There is nothing that can compare to what Cruyff has done for football. The football of the last 25 years at Barcelona belongs to him and that is something indestructible.
— Pep Guardiola (again, his greatest disciple)
