Cruijff

24th of March 2016 Johan Cruijff passed away.

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Since then I've wanted to make a blog to honour him and to try to explain to everyone who is less familiair with him why this is such a blow to us.

I'm not a very good writer (especially not in English) so if I make mistakes or am unclear I apologize in advance. While writing it looks like this blog will be pretty huge so bear with me ^^.

I'll start the blog with a little about myself and why Cruijff is important to me, then I'll try to show how football is a huge part of the identity of the Dutch, after that I'll go trough his career as a football player and coach and the influence he has on football and Dutch/Barca's football in particular. I'll end it with the tributes given to Cruijff by the Dutch national team, Ajax and Barcelona.

Rvb and Cruijff
Some of you might know me from the football thread even though I've been less active in it lately. Like nearly every boy in The Netherlands I started playing football at a young age (I'm pretty bad at it though). Ever since then it has been the only sport I've followed all my life and it has been a huge part of my identity and how I developed as a person.
As a young kid everyone wants to be a professional football player and there's only one person who everyone aspires to be. Johan Cruijff. This feeling was only made stronger for me since I am a huge fan of Ajax, Barcelona(I've been a fan of them because we always went on holiday in Catalunya not because of their connection with Dutch football btw) and the Dutch national team. Those are the teams where Cruijff excelled, which he made great and most importantly which he loved.

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Football and The Netherlands
Like I already mentioned every Dutch boy starts playing football. This might feel like an exaggeration to many but it really is not. The semi finals of the world cup 2014 against Argentina attracted 12.4 million viewers out of a population of 16.9mln. The occupancy rate of stadiums in the Dutch Eredivisie is 90% only England does better with 94% (in 2014). THis means on average 90% of the seats in all stadiums are taken. Ajax has an estimated 7.6 million fans (more than 40% of the population). It's mostly a sport for men though with the Eredivisie only having 14% female supporters.

The Netherlands isn't a very nationalistic country or at least we don't show it very often. There is one exception though and that is sports. And there's one sport which is king: Football. Once every 2 years if we qualify (euro 2016 =/) the nation gathers together to cheer on the national team. Once every 2 years this happens:
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Once every 2 years The Netherlands drowns intself in nationalism and watches our team beat down scrubs
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'
(this is at the finals of the world cup of 2010 I was there as well)

This all started because of one team in the world cup of 1974 with one player at it's core: Johan Cruijff (more on this later).

Ajax
Cruijff was born in 1947 in the district 'betondorp'(village of concrete) in Amsterdam. This was close to the Ajax stadium 'De Meer'. Since he was 6 years old he trained with Ajax and at the age of 10 he became member for the first time. In 1963 he signed a contract with Ajax and became the second full professional football player in The Netherlands after Piet Keizer.

His debut came in november 1964 against GVAV with a 3-1 loss. Cruijff scoring the goal for Ajax and starting a long tradition of famous Ajax players scoring in their first match (Van Basten, Rijkaard and Kluivert for example).
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The GVAV goalie saving a goal attempt by Cruijff

A funny little anecdote is that nearly all newspapers misspelled Cruijffs name. Cruijff / Cruyff / De Kruijff / Kruyff / Kruijff / Kruyf were all variants written. To be clear his name is Cruijff although Cruyff is acceptable as well.

It took untill 1965 for him to claim a spot in the first 11. After replacing replacing Nuninga he immediatly made 2 goals. With Cruijff as Nr. 9 Ajax didn't lose 11 matches in a row and won the league. In the next season Ajax won the league with 122 goals a record which still exists. In 1967/1968 season Ajax won the league for the third time in a row and they qualified for the Europa cup 1 for the next season. They instantly got into the finals beating the Benfica of Eusebio. In the finals they lost 4-1 against AC Milan and their catenaccio football style. They also lost the league that year with Feyenoord winning it. Feyenoord proceeded to win the Europa cup 1 as first Dutch team the next year.
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Cruijff in action

In the 1970 season Cruijff started wearing the nr. 14 for the first time. The first game after his injury Mührens shirt with nr. 7 was missing. Since Cruijff just came back he thought it'd be fair if he gave his nr. 9 shirt to Mühren. He took out a random shirt himself with the nr. 14. They won the match and the next match he played with the nr 14 again because he thought he had played well last game.
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Cruijff playing with his nr. 14

While Feyenoord won the Europa cup Ajax won the league again. This is where the unbelievable story of Cruijff and the most succesful club team in the history of The Netherlands starts. Ajax proceeds to win the Europa cup 1 three times in a row in 1971, 1972 and 1973. They won against Panathinaikos, Internazionale 2-0(With Cruijff scoring twice) and Juventus 1-0. Particularly impressive was the 4-0 win against Bayern München in the quarter finals which was chosen in 2005 as the best europa cup game ever by l'equippe.
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This is one of the legendary Ajax teams.
From left to right starting in the back: Wim Suurbier, Ruud Krol, Gert Bals, Barry Hulshoff, Gerrie Mühren en Nico Rijnders. In front: Skaak Swart, Velibor Vasovic, Johan Cruijff, Dick van Dijk en Piet Keizer.

After this season and some drama which I won't bore you with he left for FC Barcelona. He would return as a player showcasing his skills and winning the league again. After initial sceptisism he scored this beauty against Haarlem

The national team
Cruijff playis his first game for the national team in 1966 against Hungary. Just like at Ajax he scores in his first game. In his second match he gets sent off and he's the first Dutch player to get sent off the field. The Netherlands didn't qualify for the WC in 1970 and euro 1972. This was mainly because the players didn't really care that much about the national team. They did qualify for 1974 though which would be the only world cup Cruijff participated in.
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The national team against the DDR

The tournament started well with a 2-0 win against Uruguay. After a 0-0 against Sweden, The Netherlands showed how good they were by winning 4-1 against Bulgaria. They started playing the total football which they're still known for (Total_Football. Later Van Hanegem would say that playing total football was never really their intention. They just played the best and most attractive way they could.
Cruijff also exhibited his famous 'Cruijff turn' against Sweden against Jan Olssen.

Seeing this still gives me wet pants even after watching it 100 times.

After winning the first poule they went onto the second. First beating Argentina 4-0 (2 goals by Cruijff), next beating the DDR 2-0 and the third game they won 2-0 against Brazil (one goal by Cruijff). They had qualified for the finals against West Germany.

The game started out well. Cruijff had an incredible dribble into the 16 of Germany and after a foul of Hoeneß we got a penalty. Neeskens scored. Sadly the Dutch got complacent and were outplayed by Germany losing 2-1. To this day we've haven't won a world cup yet while playing 3 finals (1974, 1978 and 2010).

FC Barcelona
I don't think I am actually the best person to write about Cruijff at Barcelona but since it's such an important part of his career I will anyway.

In 1973 Cruijff made his debut for Barcelona against Cercle Brugge in a friendly with a 6-0 win. His debut in an official match was against Granada with a 4-0 win (2 goals by Cruijff).
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Cruijff in the shirt of Barcelona

At this point in time Barcelona was pretty low in the ranking with 2 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses. After his debut they went on a streak of 25 games without a loss (19 wins and 6 draws) winning the league after 14 years.
He made this incredible goal against Atletico Madrid:

Sadly this would be the only time he'd win the league with FC Barcelona as a player. The only other prize he won is the cup in 1978. He'd quit his career after 1978 although after being scammed he'd return to playing football for a few years.

Cruijff as a coach
He started his coaching career at Ajax in 1985. He had a good group of players with for example Koeman, Rijkaard and van Basten. In his first season and second season he won the cup although both years PSV won the league. He also won the first international prize in 14 years for Ajax with the Europa cup 2. In 1988 after some drama's he left the club.
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Cruijff as coach

He would return to Barcelona. After a dispute at the club the chairman of Barcelona had fired the trainer and all players at the club except for 9 players. This gave Cruijff the chance to build a whole new team. They used a double pronged strategy. First they bought excellent foreign players and secondly they added youth players from the cantera to complement them. Some of the famous foreigners would be Koeman, Laudrup, and Stoichkov. Out of La Masia he could use players like Pep Guardiola, Guillermo Amor and Albert Ferrer.
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Barcelona's dream team (Though I am sure they've never seen Ajax of the 70's or the Dutch national team of that time play if they call this a dream team ^^).

The team won the league 4 years in a row and won both the europa cup 2 and 1 once (a first for Barcelona at that time). Both times they won against Sampdoria. In total he won 11 prizes only being surpassed by Guardialo in 2011 who won his 12th in that season. In 1994 they lost in the finals of the Champions league (the successor to the Europa cup 1) 4-0 against AC Milan. This turned out to be a turning point with the dream team slowly collapsing. In 1996 he got fired.

His career in numbers and prizes
Cruijff played a total of 704 games for 7 clubs (Ajax, FC Barcelona, LA Aztecs, Washington Diplomats, Levante and Feyenoord). He scored 395 goals. The majority of these are for Ajax and FC Barcelona. He played 364 games for Ajax in total scoring 266 goals. For Barcelona he played 227 games with 85 goals.

He won the Dutch league 8 times, the cup 5 times the europa cup 1 3 times the world cup for club teams once and the european cuper cup once with Ajax. With Barca he won the league once and the club once. For Feyenoord he won the league and cup once as well.

Individually he was chosen as the best European football player in 1971, 1973 and 1974. He was also the best player for the 1974 world cup.

As a coach he won the cup twice with Ajax and the Europa cup 2 once. For Barcelona he won the league 4 times, the cup once, the national super cup thrice, the europa cup 1 once, the europa cup 2 once and the european super cup once.

He actually has more awards to his name but these are the most important ones.
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Cruijff with the 3rd Europa cup 1 after their win against Juventus.

His influence on football
Cruijffs influence on football and on Ajax, Barcelona and the Netherlands is impossible to overstate. The next part is my personal opinion and I won't say it's all correct or even covers all he stands for. I was pretty tired already writing this chapter so it might not be the strongest of the whole blog. Sorry for that in advance.

De keeper voetbalt mee als laatste verdediger. Hij schiet de bal nooit hoog en hard naar voren maar rolt hem uit, want je kan alleen maar doelpunten maken als je de bal hebt.

The goalie plays as the last defender. He never shoots the ball high and fast forward but rolls it, because you can only score if you have the ball.

De basis van het spel is om de bal zo snel mogelijk onder controle te krijgen, zodat je meer tijd hebt om te kijken

The basis of the game is to control the ball as quickly as possible, then you'll have more time to watch.

Simpel spelen is het mooist

Playing simple is the most beautiful

Als je op balbezit speelt, hoef je niet te verdedigen want er is maar één bal.

If you play on ball possession you don't have to defend because there is only one ball.

They're my own translations so they're probably imperfect but I think it gets the point across.

These quotes show his football philosophy. 1. everyone is important to play good and attractive football even the keeper. 2. keep the game simple. 3. get a grip on the basics. 4. Keep the ball in posession and in extension of that play entertaining football. He couples this with the will to win and an insane confidence in young players. In fact he advised Barcelona to start La Masia.

His style of play was perfected (and maybe still is) by the Barcelona of Guardiola. A team with players out of La masia like Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and Messi playing on ball posession, with attractive football and with the most basic technique being used and perfected: The pass.
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Barcelona under Guardiola

Ajax under Frank de Boer still follows his principles as well. Even though they're not nearly as good as Barcelona they try to play attractive football, with a lot of passes, a youthful team and they have results to show for it. They won the league 4 times in the last 5 years and are in first place again this year.
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Ajax team of this season

If you think if Dutch football there's one thing everyone thinks of: Attractive football (though our national team in the last few years has been boring). Think of the Ajax in '95, the national team in '98 and of course Ajax in the 70's. There is one person who has relentlesly advocated this type of football and who by leading us with himself as example made us play this way and that is Johan Cruijff. Cruijff is the main reason why the Dutch play entertaining football.

Misc video's
Here are some vids of Cruijff which didn't really fit into the story but are incredible to watch.
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Last words
As a fan of Ajax, Barcelona and The Netherlands I am incredibly sad that Cruijff passed away. I hope I've given some insight in how important he has been to the beautiful game of football. Even after having written this for 6 hours straight I still don't feel like I've done his legacy true justice. Especially the part about his football philosophy isn't to my satisfaction. I wonder if I could ever truely do him justice though no matter how much time I spend on it.

I'll end it with 4 video's of tributes given to Cruijff by Ajax and Barcelona.
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Gràcies Johan, Bedankt Johan.

Cruijff

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