Hendrik Johannes Cruijff OON was a Dutch professional football player and coach. As a player, he won the Ballon d’Or three times, in 1971, 1973, and 1974. Cruyff was a proponent of the football philosophy known as Total Football explored by Rinus Michels, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in football history. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dutch football rose from obscurity to become a powerhouse in the sport. Cruyff led the Netherlands to the final of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and received the Golden Ball as player of the tournament. At the 1974 finals, he executed a feint that subsequently was named after him, the “Cruyff Turn”, a move widely replicated in the modern game. Wearing the number 14 jersey, he set a trend for wearing shirt numbers outside the usual starting line-up numbers of one to eleven. After finishing third in UEFA Euro 1976, Cruyff refused to play in the 1978 World Cup in protest of Argentine dictator Jorge Videla. At club level, Cruyff started his career at Ajax, where he won eight Eredivisie titles, three European Cups, and one Intercontinental Cup. In 1973, he moved to Barcelona for a world record transfer fee, helping the team win La Liga in his first season, and was named European Footballer of the Year. After retiring from playing in 1984, Cruyff became highly successful as manager of Ajax and later Barcelona; he remained an influential advisor to both clubs after his coaching tenures. His son Jordi also played football professionally. May these Johan Cruyff Quotes On Success inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.
1. “Before I make a mistake, I don’t make that mistake.” Johan Cruyff
2. “Football is not about suffering. It’s about enjoyment. Control the ball, be friendly with it, try to attack, try to score goals. Of course defending is part of it, but you can defend in a lot of ways.” Johan Cruyff
3. “Football is a game you play with your mind.” Johan Cruyff
4. “I always delegate. If someone is very good at something, whatever it is, he will be in charge.” Johan Cruyff
5. “Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.” Johan Cruyff
6. “Coaching courses are still much too theoretical, and this is what you see reflected in the basic technical skills of the average player. I even see things deteriorating.” Johan Cruyff
7. “Football is now all about money. There are problems with the values within the game. This is sad because football is the most beautiful game. We can play it in the street. We can play it everywhere.” Johan Cruyff
8. “You have got to shoot, otherwise you can’t score.” Johan Cruyff
9. “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.” Johan Cruyff
10. “Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.” Johan Cruyff
11. “Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.” Johan Cruyff
12. “It’s unbelievable. I changed the way Barcelona played. Now, Spain have had to change.” Johan Cruyff
13. “To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent.” Johan Cruyff
14. “It’s disappointing to see how football, the world’s No. 1 sport, is not No. 1 when it comes to development. It seems to me that a wealth of practical football knowledge is being squandered.” Johan Cruyff
15. “Quality without results is pointless. Results without quality is boring.” Johan Cruyff
16. “My foundation now has some 120 football pitches laid out for children, a lot of them immigrants. We live in a multicultural society.” Johan Cruyff
17. “I learned my English from Keith Spurgeon. He had some small children, and I was young, too, and so we spoke the language together, and it was fantastic.” Johan Cruyff
18. “Every disadvantage has its advantage.” Johan Cruyff
19. “Football should never be a worry. It should be exciting. When a child plays football outside, he doesn’t need to worry. Professionals should be the same.” Johan Cruyff
20. “One trophy is good, but two are better. That way, when a hero wears his medals on his chest, at least his steps are level as he walks by.” Johan Cruyff
21. “There is no greater medal than to be acclaimed for your style.” Johan Cruyff
22. “The most important part are the fans, that people going home are happy. It’s their time off, and you should give them something to enjoy.” Johan Cruyff
23. “Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.” Johan Cruyff
24. “Everybody could use the money, but you don’t play for it – you play with your heart – and that’s a big difference you see in Barcelona. Everybody wants to play there; everybody wants to enjoy themselves. It’s maybe a small percentage, but maybe it’s the difference.” Johan Cruyff
25. “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. That’s why I believe in individual coaching sessions to prepare players properly.” Johan Cruyff
26. “The disabled people that do sport, they don’t think about what they don’t have but try to get better with what they do have. That is the same for me.” Johan Cruyff
27. “I always use the basic quality of people to achieve what I want to achieve. That’s a different way of thinking. I always love that they do things. And when it goes wrong, well, try to correct it in one way or another.” Johan Cruyff
28. “It’s like everything in football – and life. You need to look, you need to think, you need to move, you need to find space, you need to help others. It’s very simple in the end.” Johan Cruyff
29. “This is the great crisis in football now. It’s not just Rangers; it’s a lot of clubs. Big clubs always create more debt despite the huge income they have. It’s almost an achievement, isn’t it? They make so much money, and yet, still, their debts rise and rise and rise. How does that happen? It’s absurd.” Johan Cruyff
30. “My generation put in a lot more hours playing football after school than kids today. These days, all the football these kids play, they play at their clubs, so the clubs need to work seriously on the basic skills.” Johan Cruyff
31. “Ajax was spending too much money; they were buying players that were too expensive. If you get 100 per cent, you can’t spend 120 per cent. It’s quite easy.” Johan Cruyff
32. “If you look at other countries, you see they have different values: defend more, pass the ball out more, winning is holy. In England, you could say that sport itself is holy. They say, ‘Look, guys, it’s about more than just winning.'” Johan Cruyff
33. “There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring. In the tactical area, I think I just have more than most other players.” Johan Cruyff
34. “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.” Johan Cruyff
35. “All these countries like Holland and Scotland, they create their own problems. They are always complaining, but they don’t solve anything. Don’t look at what you don’t have; look at what you can create.” Johan Cruyff
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