The great Dutch soccer legend Johan Cruyff would have celebrated his 75th birthday today – but unfortunately the “king of soccer” passed away six years ago. His idea of the game was unique, as were his life and sayings. A reminder of one of the greatest football has ever seen!
“If I wanted you to understand that, I would have explained it better.” That was one of those incomparable, typical sayings of Johan Cruyff. The two journalists Frits Barend and Henk van Dorp never took offense at this sentence – slightly condescending, a bit snotty and certainly straight from the gut. On the contrary: they even used it as a chapter heading in their book because they knew – there is no better way to summarize this very special person and great football aesthete Johan Cruyff in a single sentence.
Most football fans still know today that Johannes Hendrikus Cruyff, who was born on April 25, 1947 in a slum in Amsterdam, was one of the most fascinating geniuses on the ball and later as a coach on the sidelines. But the fact that the man, who lost his father early and was raised alone by his hard-working mother, has always had his own mind and was never easy in dealing with other people, is often forgotten or hidden under the broad cloak of his unique talent.
If you want to know how stubborn the player with the legendary number 14 could be, just look at pictures from the 1974 World Cup in Germany – when the Netherlands, after an exhilarating ride through the tournament, only failed unhappily in the final against the German team.
With Weisweiler nothing is as it was
Since Cruyff was under contract with Puma at the time and loved the company, he refused, like his teammates, to wear an Adidas jersey. Shortly before the tournament, the situation threatened to escalate, so that a compromise had to be found. And indeed, the famous company with the three stripes finally sewed a jersey with only two stripes especially for the exceptional Dutch artist. One might think the incident was trivial, but for Cruyff it was more. He was the man who pulled the strings. And so in the end he got his way again.
Just like just two years later in Spain. Johan Cruyff was already the big, celebrated star of FC Barcelona after incredibly successful years at Ajax Amsterdam. The Catalans loved their Dutchman and Cruyff loved his club. But then the successful German coach Hennes Weisweiler came to FC Barcelona – and nothing was like before. The two alpha animals fought each other on and off the pitch for nine long months until February 8, 1976, when the two finally broke.
Cruyff and Weisweiler – not a successful combination.
(Photo: imago/Horstmüller)
The FC Barcelona team lost 2-0 to FC Sevilla and Weisweiler not only took his star off the field prematurely in the 65th minute, but also explained at the press conference afterwards: “A man with a salary of 600,000 marks has to Club offer more. Both goals were preceded by Cruyff errors.”
“Barça without Cruyff is impossible”
One can imagine how upset the Dutchman was after this public display and humiliation. Cruyff immediately turned to the press and said: “Weisweiler has no idea about football!” Of course, the German coach of FC Barcelona could not watch this verbal counterattack by his Dutch star without comment – and so Weisweiler demanded a large fine and a training ban for Cruyff.
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary anecdote treasure chest. for ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his page www.scudetto.de.
But that was just a through ball for the Catalan star, who confidently declared that he would no longer train under this coach anyway and that Weisweiler was finally done for him. FC Barcelona president Agusti Montal prematurely extended the Dutchman’s contract on the same day – and Weisweiler asked in return for his agreement with the Catalans to be terminated.
Günter Netzer, who was playing for Real Madrid at the time, once said many years later: “The Spaniards thought that there would be many Weisweilers, but only one Cruyff.” How right Netzer was about that is expressed by the sentence of the former president of FC Barcelona, Josep Bartomeu, who said on Cruyff’s death in 2016: “It is impossible to understand Barça without Cruyff.”
Simple but meaningful sentences
The philosophy of the player and later coach Johan Cruyff can still best be summed up with the Dutch word “Totaalvoetbal”. And so the two journalists Frits Barend and Henk van Dorp once wrote: “The footballer Cruyff knew no fear. The footballer Cruyff didn’t understand that teams were prepared to defend.”
The Dutchman has said many unforgettable phrases in his life that reflect this attitude: “In my teams, the goalkeeper is the first striker and the striker is the first defender.” Or: “If we have the ball, the opponent cannot hit it.” And also this one: “If you want to play faster, you can run faster. But actually the ball always determines the speed of the game.”
Johan Cruyff always achieved his countless successes as a player and as a coach, which made him the “king of football”, on the basis of these simple but often also profound sentences: “The basis is to get the ball as quickly as possible under control. The more time you have to watch.”
Speeches from the Moon
And sometimes things came into his head that at first glance seemed completely banal and actually odd. Before a qualifier against Finland, for example, he and his Bonds coach Marco van Basten decided to only allow very small and agile players onto the pitch. The reason given by the two: At that time, the Finns only had particularly tall men in their team. And indeed, Cruyff and van Basten’s plan worked that day.
Six years ago, the man who once said – “If football didn’t exist, I would invent it” – died far too young. Johan Cruyff would have been 75 today. It might be worth gazing up at the stars that night. Because the great Dutch football legend once said: “I will continue with my speeches. Even if I’m dead. Then I’ll just give them from the moon.”