The Dutchman was a star as a player, and as coach played a big part in revolutionising the game as we now see it. His influence should never be underestimated
It did not take Johan Cruyff, who passed away on Thursday from lung cancer, much time to give the long-suffering Barcelona support back their pride. His debut with the club came on October 28 1973, against Granada, and despite the two goals he netted in a 4-0 win that afternoon nobody could have predicted just how big an impact his decision to snub Real Madrid for the Catalans would have.
Ajax president Jaap Van Praag had tried to sell the Dutch star to the Santiago Bernabeu. But Cruyff, as if he knew something us mere mortals would not dare to guess, chose Barcelona, and the history of the club and football itself was transformed for good.
In his first year Barcelona broke a 14-season Liga drought with the title. It was some introduction for the player, who was barred from using his signature No. 14 due to the fact regulations only permitted 1-11 to start on the field. Cruyff took the No. 9 shirt, although after that unforgettable first year he left the attack to marshal the team from the centre of midfield. An idea had been conceived, although it was still too early for football and his team-mates to understand the positional play he was proposing.
Two decades passed before his master plan could be put into action. In 1988 he walked back into the Camp Nou to become the side's longest-serving coach, as he defined the club's famous philosophy, revolutionised all facets of the institutions and laid the foundations to make the Blaugrana what it is today, the greatest club in the world.
His constant clashes with president Josep Lluis Nunez only threatened his kingdom when results went against him. The 1988 Cup Winners' Cup was the first test in a process that culminated in 1992 with the defeat of Sampdoria in the European Cup final, banishing that historic hoodoo of the Catalan club. Cruyff also buried the Quinta del Buitre, the clique of home-grown players centred around Emilio Butragueno that had dominated and ravished Spanish football for the second half of the 1980s. That Real Madrid side won four consecutive Liga titles, a feat that has never been repeated.
"Anyone who questions Cruyff does not know a f***ing thing about football," Anton Parera, Nunez's right-hand man and known by the Dutchman as a master manipulator of the press, told Goal. Nothing could be truer. Barcelona always understood that the 'prophet' could not be treated as just another coach. Parera, in fact, defended Cruyff before the board when he decided to do away with Luis Milla - because, he explained, "I have a better player in the B team."
That player was Pep Guardiola, who from 1991 was an extension of the coach and his ideas on the pitch itself. After he retired, the midfielder became a die-hard defender of a school which also included Luis Fernandez, Frank Rijkaard, Laurent Blanc, Marco Van Basten, Dick Advocaat and Guus Hiddink, among many others, and even Arrigo Sacchi and Jorge Valdano, who never hid their admiration for the Dutch maestro. But unlike his peers, not even the 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Milan could cast doubt on Cruyff's supremacy in the Blaugrana dressing room.
"We believe that playing well is the best way to secure victories and titles," Guardiola, his most decorated pupil said in his presentation as the new Barcelona coach back in 2008. Pep arrived 20 years after Cruyff had first sat on the club's bench and took his ideas to the next level, gaining the treble in 2009 as well as the admiration of the entire football world. Rijkaard had helped recover some of the Dutchman's essence following the dark days of Louis Van Gaal, who while basing his model on the ideals of Total Football insisted on keeping his most skilful players inside a tactical straitjacket.
Cruyff was a fierce defender of creative freedom and doted on his most talented players, while making sure they understood he was the boss. Hristo Stoichkov and Ronald Koeman had their confrontations with him but ultimately had to bow before the evidence in front of them and make peace with a unique being, the only man capable of dividing the Barcelona supporters and bringing them back together in joy, as has happened now.
It is not just the city of Barcelona and its club that will mourn the loss of the Dutchman. The football world, as well as that group of crowd-pleasers who criticised Cruyff's considerable ego, mourn in unison a footballer blessed with unwordly gifts and the only superstar capable of becoming an even better coach. As soon as he retired in 1996, Cruyff had become a living legend, as his heart problems restricted his work outside a stint with the Catalan national team. He has entered the Olympus of legends, not just in football but rather the entire sporting universe. Johan, it all started with you.
- Goal