Johan Cruyff, innovator and renaissance man

August 10th, 2010 | by: Jan | Comments(92)

What can one say… It’s like preaching for the converted on this blog, but come on… He was the best ever! Pele was a great athlete. Individually extremely good, like Maradona, but none was so important for the game as JC was. Obviously, his individual skills are beyond repute. His speed, his vision, his command over the ball with both the right and left foot, his goalscoring abilities (he was even a very good header of the ball)… but above all, his leadership and his innovative vision of the game… Most people have all those fantastic goals and actions etched in their minds. Mymum, God bless her soul, was pretty demented when she was old but she could still elaborate on his greatest achievements… The ADO goal, the come-back lob against Haarlem, the flying volley at Barcelona, the outside left inswinger against Argentina at the WC74, the 2-0 against Brazil, the header in the CL finals against Inter Milan…

Good mates… El Salvador and Der Kaiser

Cruyff was instrumental in the development in total football, which is based on the fact that the team consists of positions, more than players. And every player should be able to play on the position of another player. So, if Krol goes up front in an offensive action, Rensenbrink should be able to take over from Krol on the left back position. Cruyff was officially the center striker, but left that space open for others (Rep, Rensenbrink, Neeskens) to use, while Cruyff dropped back to midfield to either direct the play or to penetrate the open space himself.

Furthermore, Cruyff played with his hands, arms and mouth. Always talking and instructing. Always pointing and gesturing. Even to the referee.

Off the pitch, Cruyff was instrumental in the professionalizing of Dutch football. He made sure players were insured, he made sure players and clubs were compensated for international matches for Holland, and he made sure players – and not just Ajax players – were paid according to their status and skills.

So, we won’t go into all his great goals (the flying tackle goal he made for Barcelona, the headers against Inter Milan in Rotterdam, the curve ball in ’74 against Argentina, the dropkick against ADO Den Haag, the beautiful goal against Haarlem when he returned to play for Ajax), or assists… We won’t discuss his favorite shimmies and tricks… Instead, we’ll concentrate on typical Cruyffian decisions and logic on the pitch, as player and as coach.

Johan with father in law Cor Coster, who was the mastermind behind Cruyff’s…eh…mastermind…

Psychological warfare

Cruyff knew that everything counts in sports. And all is fair in love and war. And since Football is War (Rinus Michels), all is fair in football.

Cruyff once spotted something weird while warming up with the Dutch team. I can’t remember who the opponent was, but Cruyff – mr Know-it-all – had read on the formal match documents that the opponent would wear black socks. He saw the team come onto the pitch with….white socks. So what?? Well, Cruyff knew he was on to something and said to Michels and the team to prepare for some on orthodox game play. Cruyff didn’t do or say anything about it during the warming up, but at the time of the toss, Cruyff said to the referee that the opponents were not dressed according to the formal match-forms. The referee didn’t want anything with it and told Cruyff not to worry about trivial stuff. So Cruyff said: we will play this match, but we’ll raise a hell of a stink about this and this match will be declared unruly. And it will be your name attached to it. Now, we’ve got spare black socks, so why don’t you just tell these guys to change their socks now? We’ll wait. And so it was. The referee told the stunned opponent to go back in the dressing room and change their socks. The Dutch used the time (some 20 minutes) to do an extra warming up and fool around with the ball. The opponent’s preparation for the match was disrupted by this, and as you can guess, Holland won this match.
Now, Holland would have won anyway, one could say, but still… it shows the obsessive focus of Cruyff to detect stuff he could use in his advantage.

I’m not crazy; I am a….agricultural device

When Barca wanted to sign Cruyff , there were numerous obstacles to overtake. All of them came from the direction of the Madrid based Spanish government (Real Madrid?). When at last the Spanish borders were opened up and the clubs reached an agreement (2 Mio Euro), the Spanish government prohibited the transaction. It was bad for the Spanish economy to export all that money to a foreign state. The financial officer of Barcelona found a solution. JC was registered as an agricultural machine and imported into Barcelona as an impulse for the Catalonian economy…

Last man standing: kick the ball in the stands…

When playing for Feyenoord in ’83, in his last season as a player, Cruyff once received the ball after Feyenoord had a corner kick. Cruyff was playing the last man at that point, behind him was just space and in the distance the Feyenoord goalie. Cruyff couldn’t find a free man upfront, so he decided to kick the ball hard and high up in the stands. Several Feyenoord players didn’t understand that and yelled at Cruyff: “Why the hell did you do that? Now we all need to go back and they have the ball!!!” Cruyff explained: “We had no one available upfront. I could’ve passed the ball and lost it. Then they’d have a huge counter-attack opportunity, with me – 37 years old – as last defender and all that space between me and our goal. Now, we get to re-group, get the ball back and set up a new attack. More effective this way…”

Cruyff lured Mr Feyenoord to Ajax and would make his move to Feyenoord not much later…

No tall defenders

For a European Cup game with Barcelona, all Barca’s tall defenders were injured or suspended. And the opponent was particularly strong in the air: tall strikers who scored easily with their heads. How to solve this puzzle? “Easy”, Cruyff said. “They score mostly through set-pieces and corners. So, whatever you do: don’t give away corners, and we’ll be right. On top of that, we’re going to attack like crazy, we’re gonna put all the pressure on them.” So much for complex problems…

Yes can do

In ’83, Holland and Spain were topping the group standings in the qualification for the European Championship in France in 1984. Both had to play Malta, and both teams knew that the number of goals scored would be vital. Only one of the two teams could make it to the tournament. Holland played Malta first and won 5-0! So now, Spain would have to make 11 goals against Malta. It did seem feasible, but really, no one believed Spain would be able to do it. One goal every 8 minutes? No way… When the NOS (Dutch TV) interviewed both Cruyff and Van Hanegem, they were the only two – in the whole of the nation – who claimed deadpan: “Yes, we think Spain will do it. We think it’s over and done with. We are not going to the tournament.” Every one in Holland laughed and scoffed at this. Some even claimed the two giants of 74 couldn’t stand to see their successors do well. Jealousy. Envy. On the night of the match, Spain vs. Malta, Dutch comedian Freek de Jonge had a live show on the other channel. Most Dutch people decided to see how the Spanish side started and would then zapp to Freek. In the first 15 minutes, Spain was given a penalty kick. And they missed!!! Still 0-0. Then, some minutes later, a break out from Malta and Malta scores… 0-1. Most viewers zapped to Freek and decided to grab a beer… When Freek announced during his live show on TV that Spain had just scored 10-1 and was still going strong, the audience laughed themselves silly. And then Freek addressed the camera and said to the viewers: please, I am not joking, switch channels and you’ll see… And yes, 11-1 and then…12-1. It was over. Spain was going. Our team manager – Kees Rijvers – hadn’t even been watching, he was playing cards with his neighbors, totally convinced Holland had the ticket to France in it’s possession… Cruyff (and Van Hanegem) was right once again

Note: Years later, evidence surfaced that the Spanish had bought the match, during half time. Watch the game again, and take notice of the shenanigans of the goalie, who was later signed by a Spanish club for a lot of peseta’s…

Piet Keizer and Johan Cruyff….

Why does it always rain on me?

Ajax played Telstar in ’72. It was raining cats and dogs. Lots of water on the pitch, but the ref decided to play. Gerry Muhren and JC are inspecting the pitch, and JC points at a large pool of water in one of the penalties areas. Gerry knew what JC wanted. During the match, Muhren has the ball in midfield and kicks the ball hard to the Telstar side. The defenders didn’t chase the ball into no-mans land, expecting the ball to bounce on the goalkeeper. But Muhren aimed for the water pool, and only JC reacts. He picks up the ball and scores, leaving a flabbergasted and out-thought defense and keeper behind.

I do not want to play like this!!

When Ajax once played a friendly in Greece, the Greek ref was a typical home-ref, giving advantage to the Greek opponent all the time. JC and Piet Keizer decided that enough was enough, and kicked every ball they got in the stands. Continuously. The audience started boo-ing and the ref wanted to know what was happening. JC said: we’ll keep on doing this, unless you do your job right! From that moment on, Ajax was treated equal by the ref.

Master class

When Cruyff took over as Ajax coach in the 1985, he wanted to teach the young group how to play total-football. He declared the season to be a learning season and started to experiment with outrageous attacking football. Taking risks at the back with young defenders, never more than three. And he let players play on positions they were not really comfortable with. Van Basten for instance, needed to play in the shadow striker position, servicing the actual center striker John Bosman. Van Basten didn’t like it at all. He wanted to be the league’s top scorer, so he wanted the center position. The fans complained, the press ridiculed JC, the players were irritated, but he kept on doing it totally disregarding the position in the league and everything else. The pay-off came later.

Teaching defenders how to defend

At Feyenoord, JC was tested in his first training session. Feyenoord had and has a reputation as being a closed group. When Grabowski (of 1974 German Weltmeister fame) was almost signed by Feyenoord to replace Henk Wery, Grabowsky had a test-training session with the Feyenoord team. He left the pitch on a stretcher after 10 minutes, screaming. Needless to say, he didn’t sign on. So Cruyff, for many years the arch enemy, was tested. And his right ankle was already hurt after 20 years top football so he needed to play everything with his “weaker” left foot. He hardly moved during the training sessions, but his swift thinking, his extremely able left foot and his ability to sense a tackle from behind, he survived. 10.000 spectators saw that training – yours truly included. After a couple of matches with Feyenoord he said that the tough Feyenoord defenders were not up to the task and needed some extra lessons. Andre Stafleu: “Johan called our defending pseudo-defending. A lot of running and sweating, so the fans and the manager thought you were very eagerly trying to do your best, but JC said it was clueless. He taught us how to defend spaces by moving around smarter. Maybe just a couple of steps to the left, to close of an entire stretch of the pitch. JC was great at tempting defending, as we called it. He would allow the opponent space in a certain direction, knowing that the player would certainly use that space. And if he did, JC would explosively move forward and be on the guys case. We all would mark the other players and the ball would be ours in seconds. JC was a class-act defender.”

Totally not superstitious…

The man, who made fun of all the prayers and crosses in Spain, had his own ritual. He tells a reporter about it in1972. “No one is allowed to touch my shoes. Only Tonny Pronk could touch them. 15 minutes before the match I get dressed, three minutes before the match a short massage. Then everyone needs to leave the room, I want to be alone for half a minute. Then I take a gum, go onto the pitch and give Gert Bals (goalie) a little rub in his gut. Then I kick the gum on the opponents half of the pitch.”

What a comeback!

December 6, 1981. Ajax – Haarlem 4-1. JC is back in Amsterdam, 34 years old. 20 minutes in the game, Cruyff tricks Gerry Kleton and lobs the ball – without looking – over goalie Metgod and scores a magical goal. Former Ajax-player and then Haarlem defender Gerry Kleton was heavily criticized for the lack of fierce defending. He said: “Hey, what did you expect? I would never hurt the little fella…!”

Indirect Penalty

December 5, 1982. Ajax – Helmond Sport. It was a cold December day, a routine win for Ajax. Then, Ajax gets a penalty kick. JC normally doesn’t take the penalties, but this time he grabs the ball and places it on the spot. Instead of shooting, he passes the ball left to the incoming Jesper Olsen, who dribbles towards goalie Otto Versveld (made famous by this incident) and passes the ball back to Cruyff who scores. After the match, JC said: “ It was a cold day and the quality of the match was average. We wanted to spice things up a bit. Give people something to talk about.

Ajax is Boss

When Ajax players went to play for the Dutch team, they used to tell Cruyff things that happened during the sessions with Oranje. And Cruyff instructed his players (Blind, Silooy, van Basten, Wouters, Van ‘t Schip) to be the Boss at Oranje. “Because we were Ajax players”, Danny Blind said in an interview. “He wanted us to force our will onto the rest of the players. If there was a player in the team, that didn’t want to play ball with us, we needed to force him out of the team. By ignoring him, or giving him hospital balls. I didn’t like it at first, but Cruyff said it was the way it needed to be, when you want to be top.” Goalie Van Breukelen was appalled when Blind’s remarks were published and this fact didn’t help the relations between Ajax and PSV players at Oranje (then the two main contributors for the Dutch national team).

Mr. Know-it-all

Infamous are the stories of Cruyff’s Mr.-know-it-all antics. He’d have an opinion about everything. He met one of America’s most famous American Football coaches once, and he started to lecture him on the tactical aspects of American Football. He would repeatedly tell taxi-drivers how to drive, even in cities he’d never been to before! When analyzing games for the NOS, he’d go into the directors’ booth to tell him which fragments to use. At Feyenoord, they’d make fun of him, by asking the meaning of complicated words. And he’d know all the definitions. Even if Mario Been would feed him words Been himself made up! For JC to explain to Been what that word meant!

I want a defender as left winger

At Feyenoord, in 1983, coach Libregts used the same team as in 1982, with Cruyff as only new player on Van Hanegem’s position. Left winger was the unpredictable but extremely popular Pierre Vermeulen. Pierre’s problem was: he didn’t want to do any defensive work and didn’t even know how to do it. So, with Cruyff and Vermeulen in the team (and Gullit and Houtman as strikers) there was misbalance in the team. After the 8-2 loss against Ajax (Olsen, Van Basten, Van ‘t Schip, De Wit) Cruyff decided he needed to change things. He sacrificed Vermeulen (formally Libregts did, but everybody involved knew that Cruyff was calling the shots). Stanley Brard was a young and not too talented left full back at the time, he spent a lot of time on the bench. In that championship year, however, he was promoted to left winger. Vermeulen was axed, the fans scoffed at the decision and the only thing Brard did, was Cruyff’s dirty work. But it payed off! Feyenoord found balance and didn’t lose another game. Brard even started to excel and the fans saw why this decision was made…

This somehow never looks good…

FC Cruyff

In 1988, Cruyff and right-handman Tonny Bruins Slot approached McKinsey for a tough mental exercise: the foundation of a new Eredivisie (Premier League) team: FC Cruyff. Cruyff wanted to buy an existing license-holder (FC Utrecht was rumored to be the target) and wanted to mould this club into FC Cruyff. Totally designed to play Cruyff’s total football. McKinsey did the organizational work, selected sponsors, came up with the legal matters, etc etc. Cruyff c.s. would fill in the football technical aspects. It didn’t work out, because the target club didn’t want to become FC Cruyff and because a certain club in Catalunia wanted Cruyff as their coach….

Infamous moment of Johan settling next to Ajax coach Beenhakker and taking over the reigns…