Johan Cryuff RIP

[Syferus]

Surely worth its own thread. The father always spoke about him as one of the all-time greats. What he did in bringing the Ajax academy system to Barcalona changed football off the field too.

[seafoid]

The rich man's LVG.
Unbelievable career. Father of tiki taka

[BennyCake]

The rich man's LVG.
Unbelievable career. Father of tiki taka

...and Jordi.

Before my time, but looked a great talent.

[seafoid]

Johan Cruyff: How will 'militaristic' Louis van Gaal manage all the egos at Manchester United?
The Dutch legend, who once tried to block the appointment of Louis van Gaal at Ajax, says Manchester United manager must get the players to develop their games for the sake of the team
•   Share 586
•   
•   
•   inShare49
•    Email
•   
•   
o   Donald McRae
o   
o   The Guardian, Friday 12 September 2014 12.38 BST
Johan Cruyff says Louis van Gaal will need time as 'you can't arrange the chemistry of the team in two weeks'. Photograph: Niels Den Haan for the Guardian
Johan Cruyff has come home to Amsterdam and, on a cloudy day in the old city where he was born, grew up and made his professional debut for Ajax 50 years ago this November, he moves with good-humoured elegance through the crowds calling out his name and trying to touch him. At the Olympic Stadium, walking around an arena that has been taken over for the day by his Foundation, this is an exercise in the familiar art of being Johan Cruyff. The 67-year-old reacts to the adoration, and even being cuddled by a grown man dressed up as a "Cruyffie" mascot, with a wry smile. This is how it feels to have been a football superstar for five decades.
Alongside his earliest hero Alfredo Di Stéfano, who died this summer, Pelé and Diego Maradona, Cruyff belongs to a giant quartet who illuminate football with their almost mythic reputations. Cruyff stands out in even sharper relief for, while Di Stéfano succeeded as a coach, only the Dutchman can claim a sustained impact on the game from the touchline during his years in charge of Barcelona. Di Stéfano once complained of football management that "apart from working with the young, it's the most horrible profession that could exist".
Cruyff has always thought differently. During his remarkable tenure at Barcelona, from 1988 to 1996, he used the speed, space and tactical fluidity of Total Football, which he and Rinus Michels, his coach at Ajax, conjured up together, to transform a moribund team and build an enduring legacy.
Barcelona's masters of tiki-taka, such as Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta, always stressed everything they did was based on the Cruyff template. From his creation of the youth academy at La Masia to the whirligig of training rondos [piggy-in-the-middle routines], which perfected their purity of possession, to the relentless pressing of the opposition, Barcelona and Spain used Cruyff's model to dominate European and world football. That era has faded, reaching its symbolic end on a World Cup night in June when Holland, coached by Louis van Gaal, with whom Cruyff shares a mutual antipathy, destroyed Spain 5-1.
Of course Van Gaal is now at Manchester United, struggling to overcome the problems of the post-Ferguson regime, while Cruyff is unshackled from the pressures of football. The life of Cruyff is still exhausting – and he explains wearily he has to fly back to Barcelona, his other "home", that night. Yet, right now, being Van Gaal is much more difficult.
We retreat to a secluded lounge overlooking a typical Amsterdam canal. Cruyff, who is friendly and animated but reluctant to start another war with Van Gaal, with whom he has admitted to "a bad chemistry", can afford to take a laconic view of his fellow Dutchman's travails. Asked if he expects Van Gaal to succeed at Old Trafford, Cruyff shrugs. "We hope so because it would be good for Dutch football and other Dutch managers. But how it will go? You never know. It will take time."
In 2011 Cruyff, who was then on the board at Ajax, went to court to block the re-appointment of Van Gaal at the club they supported as boys. They were also part of the Ajax squad in the early 1970s when, as his understudy, Van Gaal had no chance of replacing Cruyff as the star forward. Cruyff established himself as the finest player in Europe while Van Gaal laboured in relative obscurity at clubs such as Royal Antwerp and Sparta Rotterdam.
Children show off their skills at the annual Open Day of the Johan Cruyff Foundation at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. Photograph: Niels den Haan/The Guardian
When Cruyff moved into coaching, at Ajax and Barcelona, Van Gaal eventually followed him to both clubs. The younger man, by four years, found his true self in management and he emerged as head coach at Ajax in 1991. Cruyff and Van Gaal were already rumoured to have become further estranged – apparently after a misunderstanding at a Christmas dinner in 1989. The rivalry resurfaced three years ago when the Ajax board appeared to wait until Cruyff was back in Barcelona to call a meeting that approved Van Gaal's return. Cruyff resorted to legal means to challenge that decision. In the end, despite the court ruling against Cruyff, Van Gaal never made it back to Ajax. Instead, in 2012, he became Holland's manager.
So Cruyff pauses when asked again for his gut feeling in regard to Van Gaal's prospects with United. "I don't know because they almost bought and created a new team. So now you have to fix it together – the team itself. It's not a question anymore about the quality of the players, or are they good enough. But to make a mixture of good players is very difficult."
Does he see any logic in United's transfer policy, which now has Van Gaal juggling the attacking talents of Radamel Falcao, Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Ángel di María, Adnan Januzaj and Juan Mata? "There should be a logic always, but the big problem is to manage all these players. It's the same thing with Barcelona. They now have Suárez, Messi, Neymar – how do you play them together? If you see them individually then they are great players. It's the same at Manchester United. Individually they are great but they have to play like a team.
"Then you get another problem. They are all famous. They earn a lot of money both on and off the field. How can you create a team and bring all these egos together? The main goal for Manchester United is for them to play well – and not have a player saying, 'I play well, I scored two goals'. Because if I score two goals but three goals go into our net then we lose. They provide [Van Gaal] with a lot of good players but he has to turn them into a team. And you can't arrange the chemistry of the team in two weeks. It needs time."
Could it take Van Gaal a whole season to transform United's seemingly scattergun transfer business into a coherent team? "No, no," Cruyff says. "That's too long. But it doesn't mean they will win the league. But you can see a better performance every week and you can aim for a better fit as a team in the details. And [Van Gaal] is a person of details. So it could be possible that things work. But, once again, can these people develop their own game for the sake of the team? It's not easy."
Do he and Van Gaal share any similarities in their respective football philosophies? "No. Not much. We're both Dutch and that is always a [shared] basis. But I always think of being in charge of the speed and of the ball. Maybe he knows more than me but I always want control of the ball. When I don't have control of the ball what do I do? I press to get it back. It's a way of defending. But more important is that I like to have the ball."
Johan Cruyff plays a game of tennis on the annual Open Day of the Johan Cruyff Foundation. Photograph: Niels den Haan/The Guardian
Cruyff has said: "Van Gaal has a good vision of football but it is not mine. He wants to gel winning teams and has a militaristic way of working with his tactics. I want individuals to think for themselves." Does Van Gaal remain "militaristic" in his stress of "the collective"? Cruyff nods. "Yes. But I've always been an individual who likes to create something himself within a team performance. I am happy if my players start thinking. [Pep] Guardiola is a good example. As a player he was tactically perfect but he can't defend. That's what he said. I said: 'I agree – in a limited way. You're a bad defender if you have to cover this whole area. But if you have to defend this one small area then I think you're the best. Take care that there are people there to help you cover the other areas. As long as you do that you can be a very good defender.' And he did become very good."
He has also criticised Van Gaal's supposed reluctance to focus on training individual players – and he reiterates this point. "That's why I believe in individual coaching sessions to prepare players properly. You have to take care of the individual for the benefit of the team – as our work with Guardiola showed."
Guardiola became one of Cruyff's disciples and eventual successors as Barcelona manager before he took a sabbatical and then moved to Bayern Munich last year. Cruyff admits his admiration for Bayern but, at the same time, "I still like Barça very much. I also like Madrid. It's totally different to my style but they fit things together. Now they are a team where you wait to see what will happen. In midfield they have three players who are touching the ball perfectly but they have three forwards who need space to play. Where will it go? We will see. Barça also went back a little because of the people they put as coaches. I'm not saying they're good or bad coaches but it's very difficult to control a Messi and a Neymar. If you don't control them it's a problem. It's the same thing with David Moyes and Manchester United. Some people can control certain players and you need that – otherwise it will not work. Moyes is a good coach – just not for Man United."
Cruyff shakes his head and moves on to a different tangent. "Football is now all about money. There are problems with the values within the game. And this is sad because football is the most beautiful game. We can play it in the street. We can play it everywhere. Everyone can play it but those values are being lost. We have to bring them back."
Does he believe that the situation in England, where the Premier League swamps the development of the national game, in contrast to the Bundesliga and Germany, will change? "Hopefully," Cruyff says. "In the Premier League the money is a problem but I don't really know how to control it. If you look at England or even Spain you see the problems. How many England players are in the first four teams in the Premier League? How many Spanish forwards are playing for Barcelona or Real Madrid?"

[T Fearon]

Remember the Ajax team coming to prominence in the early 70s,after Feyenoord led the way beating Celtic in 1970 European Cup Final,and then Cruyff leading Holland to 1974 World Cup Final.The Messi of his era

[Billys Boots]

There would never have been a Messi without Cruyff. 

[magpie seanie]

Messi wouldn't lace Cruyff boots in my opinion.

[The Stallion]

I don't blame him, they probably don't smell great if he's still wearing them.

[gallsman]

Messi wouldn't lace Cruyff boots in my opinion.

Lolololol, I'm no barca fanboy but this is a sad, sad sentiment.

[StGallsGAA]

If Cryuff had an equivalent on the gaelic field it would be Frank McGuigan.  Two footballers whose skills seemed to defy gravity itself.

[T Fearon]

It was only upon his death that I learned that Cruyff had chosen not to take part in the 1978 World Cup on principal as he disagreed with the political torture taking place in Argentina.A hell of a selfless act as he practically threw away a World Cup medal in what he must have known would have been his final chance to win one.

[Minder]

It was only upon his death that I learned that Cruyff had chosen not to take part in the 1978 World Cup on principal as he disagreed with the political torture taking place in Argentina.A hell of a selfless act as he practically threw away a World Cup medal in what he must have known would have been his final chance to win one.

On the contrary I read today that his wife banned him from going to it due to being caught skinny dipping with a few ladies at the '74 World Cup

[T Fearon]

As a huge football fan I recall the disappointment and surprise generally at the time Cruyff opted out in 1978,but I don't recall any specific reason being given.If it was to appease his wife she would hardly have approved of club away fixtures surely?

[mouview]

It was only upon his death that I learned that Cruyff had chosen not to take part in the 1978 World Cup on principal as he disagreed with the political torture taking place in Argentina.A hell of a selfless act as he practically threw away a World Cup medal in what he must have known would have been his final chance to win one.

On the contrary I read today that his wife banned him from going to it due to being caught skinny dipping with a few ladies at the '74 World Cup

And I read sometime that it was because, thanks to the political situation in Argentina at the time, he received kidnap or death threats prior to the tournament if he attended. He was always well aware of his own value so decided not to go.

Never saw him in his pomp but doubt very strongly that he was superior (or similar) to Messi; very strong grounds for adjudging the latter to be the best of all time.

[T Fearon]

I think he's up there with Messi as he could produce for both club and country.Also Messi outside the brilliant team mates at Barcelona,with another club would be interesting to see.