Johan Cruyff matches and goals scored

On the footballia website there is only that Cup Winners Cup final indeed.
http://footballia.net/players/hendrick-johan-cruyff
http://blog.footballia.net/en/the-legacy-of-johan-cruyff-ii/

On google video you can find several more:
https://www.google.com/videohp?hl=en

Type in 'Ajax 1986' for example and select '20+ minutes' and you see a few more. The semi finals for example.

This might mention a few games of note:
http://spielverlagerung.de/2015/01/01/cruyff-blamiert-ferguson/
http://spielverlagerung.de/2016/03/24/traineranalyse-johan-cruijff/

It is possible to both overstate and understate his managerial career (one European Cup, two Cup Winners Cups, Champions League runner-up, Cup Winners Cup runner-up, four league titles, three domestic cups, one domestic cup runner-up).

He had once the (well-documented) idea to play without a goalkeeper at all, which would have ridiculed himself, made a joke of football, but luckily this plan was banned higher up. To play with only one defender was already bad enough.

826833835690164225 is not a valid tweet id

It's also easy to be swayed by the subsequent years (the 'Blue Elephant' and Laporta years) and add that glow to his coaching. Yet, the 'Sunday Times Illustrated History of Football' wrote in 1995: "As a player, and as a coach, certainly at club level, Johan Cruyff has had the biggest influence over European football for the last 25 years."

Hopefully this helps.

 

@PDG1978

I'll try to update this thread;

This is the Norman Barrett profile from 1981 (full list posted in the old lists thread).



Although not complete (they miss he was runner-up in 1975-76 too), this is an interesting perspective and comments.




From his debut:





This story of scoring two goals in the first seven minutes is eeringly similar to this episode:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ff-the-american-years/?utm_term=.0806695b9f7c

From the actual archives (as you saw before)

 

OK, it takes longer than I had hoped for but let's try. It's only possible to post up to 10 pictures per post anyway. For my own mood I start with the most cumbersome one, the Livre d'Or.



(this is from an American magazine in 1975, the #2 in circulation back then)


The 1978 Livre d'Or. Click pictures to enlarge.










("New cracks" listed: Krankl, Juanito, Brandts, Hansi Muller, Paolo Rossi, Didier Six, Swat van der Elst, Tarak Diab)

"For his ultimate year in professionalism, Johan the 1st wore four [different] jerseys. Another performance. But rest assured, we will certainly see again the one who we nicknamed the White Pelé on the occasion of gala matches or charity matches."

His salary and his share of the gate receipts he received from the New York Cosmos actually went to UNICEF. This is interesting given what later happened in the 00s at Barcelona. All the revenues of his farewell game went to children suffering from cancer.
I disovered (maybe I had forgotten) that from the Cosmos when checking the 'Once in a lifetime book' again. In the newspapers I found that UNICEF confirmed/said it was one of the most significant gifts they had received from a celebrity (until then).

Of course he went bankrupt and he started to play for money again 23 May 1979 (per Placar the best paid player in the world when he moved to the USA), next to the guest appearances. Most famously in december 1980 when he was the perceived star of the match (with Simonsen, Schuster, Rummenigge, Platini, Blokhin also playing) but managed to get red carded.

He wouldn't have been his usual self if he didn't provide his brief opinion (when asked for it and interviewed on TV):
"Because a recurring limitation of those organizations is that they work together for the good cause, but are autonomous. They're forced to take care of their own narrow viewpoint."

 

Some other things from France Football.



Two brief articles on the 1978 semi final tie in the UEFA Cup.



"Le plus grand joueur du monde"



In this also a long interview with Lucien Muller (Barcelona manager 1978-79 season) who says Cruijff is the one player in the world you cannot replace although there are many world class players around (like Krankl). Hence it will be difficult for the club to achieve the same results at all fronts over a number of years, even with world record signings.

 

Here is a nice article from Onze magazine #34 from 1978. I haven't posted this before.

"Earlier this year, Johan Cruijff confirmed that he would not be re-signing to Barcelona for the 1978-1979 season [...]. We even murmured that the best exercising football player was going to give up the ball [entirely]. In fact, it was not."







This is from Placar June 1976

Unfortunately this was the last time he played in Brazil, because of (real existing) security and safety concerns.





This was a brief Shoot! profile from December 1980:


December 1979:

 

Well yes, this confirms what we already knew, that he was tasked to play as a center forward in this match (the difference with the 1971 and 1973 finals is clear to see) because Inter would concede a lot of ground and territory anyway, and tighten the defense in front of the goalkeeper. Oriali man-marked him the entire game.

Or as he said here between 59:00 and 1:12:30, he had to wait for his chance. Among other things, he also remarks (1:09:20) that when an attacker is defending a lot less is accepted as the other way round.

The observation on the two-footedness of players is interesting. "The players who took part in this match were more ambidextrous than most. There were seven players within a 15% range of an even 50/50 split of passes between both feet. Inter’s Boninsegna had an exact split; Cruyff was only three percentage points off."


What I don't get about this chart though, is why it doesn't show this (famous) dribbling and cross attempt from the inside right channel?



Seems to be missing surely? Looks as a glaring error.

 

Yes, there are some flaws obviously. There is a section in the 'Data Hackers' book as well on this.

About 15 years ago midfielder Gerrie Muhren looked back on this final. This are the relevant sections for this:

"Gerrie Mühren was a player who kept Ajax in balance. Leaning on durability and a good game-technique he did technically and tactically the right things. 'Who can show me one bad trapping this game, I pay 100 euro", he says challenging. Mühren didn't need to use his wallet.

4th minute
Ajax immediately takes control and is allowed to take control. Right-back Wim Suurbier has already provided three crosses. Inter appears to play without left winger and has fielded midfielder Mario Frustalupi instead of the suspended left sided forward Mario Corso. Mühren: "That type of things we saw very quick. Suurbier saw he had no direct opponent, gave a signal to Haan and Neeskens and those immediately started to play centrally. They dragged that midfielder with them and then Suurbier started to run. A pity that his crosses ended so often behind the goal."

7th minute
Ajax plays pure man-to-man defense. Striker Roberto Boninsegna comes into the account of Barry Hulshoff. Ruud Krol bites himself in the Brazilian Jair. When the strikers swapped, the defenders followed them. There was no question of a zonal defense. Mühren: "We played purely on the man. That was the standard those days. We could play either way. We had players with an enormous character. Ruud Krol, Johan Neeskens and, maybe the best of all, Barry Hulshoff. Barry was an undervalued player, really a crack. We decided in the match the tactics. That actually didn't happen pre match. If a player was not playing who had been put on the list by Michels, Kovacs or Johan, then we put the heads together and made the agreements ourselves."

14th minute
Krol is stormed forward. The cross doesn't arrive. Mühren: "Look at me here, I have already taken over Krol his position. That saves a lot of running back and forth. We were well aware of that: you have to take over, otherwise you get a counter around your ears. A big strength of Ajax was to capture the ball quicker than the opponent can think. If we win the ball, we get the space that otherwise the opponent would have. Especially Neeskens and Suurbier were well adept in this."

15th minute
Mazzola puts aside Hulshoff with a shoulder barge. But Hulshoff keeps chasing the Italian and commences, within his penalty area, on the right moment a sliding. Gliding he places the ball precisely in the feet of Haan. Through Haan the team directly works on a counter. Mühren: "This is precisely Barry Hulshoff. Fantastic. On the right moment a sliding, no foul, not gliding a ball in the feet of the opponent but exactly to a team mate. If he doesn't do this well then you don't have this attack now. I played for nine years with him. The people didn't know his value. Barry was the unknown force of Ajax in the good years of the late 1960s to early 1970s. I've seen back seven European Cup matches from that time, and each time he shines for me. Also on that mudfield in London, when we played Arsenal and couldn't play. Barry helped us to stay on our feet."

15th minute
Suurbier goes deep, but shoots - without opposition - the ball behind the goalline. Mühren: "Also that was Suurbier. The specialist of the cross behind. Arie Haan walks 80 meters for nothing."

16th minute
Ajax builds up from the back. The ball isn't shifted to each other for long. Directly the defenders search the middle line. In no time is Ajax on the half of Inter. Mühren: "We didn't play, as is now custom, in the build up with the defenders next to each other. Then you are going to play the ball around. That was not allowed. Our credo was: play forward. If you didn't do this or played one time back to the goalkeeper, then there was also immediately grumbling. They didn't want to see this.
We never played the ball around on our half for nothing. Every pass was aimed to play out an opponent. Nowadays they play sometimes the ball ten times to each other and then they haven't progressed for one meter. You won't see this at this Ajax. If an opponent applied pressure, we sought him and played him out. And for the rest a pass was meant to be in the length of the field.
It is not only that we joined up quickly, also the field occupation is good. We don't walk in one line ahead. Because if you then lose the ball, you are immediately vulnerable. We walked as it were staggered, with cover. We were not afraid to play in a small space and also not give away space behind our back. At the back there were real characters as Suurbier, Hulshoff and Krol.
The libero was the easiest position in our team. The libero never had to cancel a man, but only had to pick the players that come through. And complain on people that allowed to let their man run, of course. Blankenburg moved up often, also through the sides of the field. When a midfielder went high, the place was immediately filled, for example by Blankenburg. In that sense Blankenburg was a very different player as Vasovic. The Yugoslav was more of an organizer.

19th minute
Piet Keizer puts Bellugi off balance with a very fluid overstep and accelerates. Keizer is faster than thought. Mühren: "Keizer wasn't known as fast. But if he went past his man and he had the ball on his feet, he was actually quick. I walked marathons behind Keizer. Countless times I ran outside him. I had that endurance, had a heartbeat of 32, could on going. Keizer couldn't, but that was also not necessary. His back didn't come up most of the times, he was wary. If I then had done my thing for one-and-a-half hour, Keizer said a few minutes before time: 'Gerrit, if I have to take over, I will hear it right?' Was of course a joke by him. I could take it. Piet was a one in four player. Sometimes you had for three matches nothing. But if he was good, then he was seriously good, the star man. Cruijff was actually always good, had always a great uplifting importance for the results and an additional value. Only in the first half you don't see it very visibly here, he entered the match a fair bit tired. He has only one amazing action, that will come soon. Then he accelerates on the right, takes on, and comes with a good cross off balance within the run. For the rest you don't see him a lot, but even in the rare big matches he was bad on the eye he still has his goals, penalty wins, or assist somehow. He has a few good observing instructions to his colleagues this match."

27th minute
Cruijff stands on a sloppy 35 meters in front of the goal with the ball on his foot. Opposite to him stands the biter Gabriele Oriali, the later world champion and his fixed man marker this match. Cruijff goes past him from a standstill situation, the Italian once again tries to pull his shirt, this time in vain. After that the great 29-years old Facchetti is breezed past as if he is a statue. The cross is headed away. Mühren: "This is the vintage Cruijff scene from the first half. What an acceleration-within-an-acceleration! And then the cross. Look at with how much feeling the ball is played, and how it compares well to all the other 21 players here."

------------------

To be continued later. Maybe also interesting for @PDG1978 and @comme

 

29th minute
Free kick for Ajax, at the right side. Suurbier is played. The cross goes behind. Mühren: "Take a look at his standing leg. He tries to kick the ball perpendicular, but that almost always fails. If Suurbier reached the byline, we often already walked back to our position, because the outcome was known: goal kick."

35th minute
Internazionale tries to play out from their defense from the left side. In a small space Ajax applies pressure with four. Inter comes out of this wonderfully well with some luck. Neeskens distorts the build up with a foul. Mühren: "We didn't need to make specific agreements about applying pressure. Of course you sometimes end up at a different place in a match. You always knew well what you had to do. Pre-match talks weren't a big deal, with Michels that were at most a few words. We knew that Vasovic gave the commands, who had a great perspective from the back, and if he was clear in his head, which he almost always was, Johan saw everything as well. Later on the team had grown so much that the sign to hunt could come from everyone. And then you went for it.
Such command to chase was never given if the opponent was in possession across a large space. It was done when the ball moved towards the sidelines, when the ball was played backwards, or simply when a difficult pass was played. When a player came standing with his back towards the play, we knew what we had to do. Such player was not allowed to turn. If he did, we immediately stood with a few men in front of his nose.
We were the generation from directly after the war, the hunger winter of our parents that placed a mortgage on our health. We had to survive in austerity. Everyone could make himself subordinate to the interest of the team. Also Cruijff. He wanted to win from an underdog position, he had no qualms to do work for his team and for others. It is the combination of pure quality and the absolute urge to survive, that also made the Oranje team of 1974 so good. This good will Oranje never become again."

40th minute
Mühren receives a free shooting chance on the edge of the penalty area. With his weaker right he shoots over. Mühren: "Terrible, I don't want to see this. I was always fed up with this, such shooting chances that you simply need to aim between the posts on technique. It is with my right here, not my best foot, but I find these shots terrible. To shoot over or wide should not happen with pros, but it happens."

45th minute
Ajax and Internazionale play from time to time hard as nails. Yet rarely a player is laying injured on the field. Mühren: "A few players among us - Krol, Suurbier, Hulshoff, Neeskens especially - played rock-hard. Not mean, but hard. But you could also accept a tickle. That was the norm: no complaints, just go on. Needlessly laying on the ground didn't enter your mind. When a player kept sitting there, then something real had happened. All that feigning and embellishing became more common a decade later."

46th minute
The second half begins. Inter kicks off. Ajax immediately disturbs and Cruijff nicks the ball. His dribble and run is stopped at the cost of a corner kick by right back Bellugi. Mühren: "This has to do with one thought in the team. Inter kicked off and we didn't wait for what the opponent will do. We immediately went for it, like: here we are. There was one starting point: we dictate what happens, also in the 2nd half. It was bluff, but bluff with quality. That is necessary otherwise you get embarrassed. We didn't start with the idea that it could go wrong.
A fine example is the first goal in the 47th minute, now. Barry Hulshoff gives high up the half of Inter a wrong pass. We didn't fold back, but apply pressure immediately. That is to say: recapture the ball before the opponent can think. Suurbier captures the ball and crosses. Bordon and Oriali jump against each other. They are so confused that they cannot 'think' and act quickly. Then you see this sort of miscommunication. But we increased the odds by the early recapturing - what the Italians were of course not used to. Cruijff scores. And look at how he makes the ball dead. The ball is behind his knee, straight away ready to play. He was smart, really. Johan knew he likely couldn't win the aerial duel on this day, and then just anticipated that something might go wrong among the Italians, with a man marker that always sees him, but not always his own goalkeeper. Both are World Cup winners by the way.
He also did it once against Telstar. It had rained hard and Johan said: 'Gerrie, do you see the puddle of rain close to the goal?' I saw it indeed, but Johan said nothing more. Telstar kicked off, played the ball back to the keeper and then the ball was suddenly sitting there in the puddle. Everyone stood still and off balance, except Johan. He picked up the ball and scored. Nine seconds! He had an eye for that. [or was it ten seconds?]

50th minute
Left back Krol walks in the build up on the right, next to Wim Suurbier. Mühren: "Today a coach would say: 'we are not standing properly in the build up'. That is nonsense. If you always stand on the same place while building up, then the surprise is gone and the opponent can settle himself. We often walked and mixed up through each other, the opponent couldn't get to grips to this. But you can count on that I occupied the left flank well in this situation because Krol was gone. Barry by the way also paid sharp attention to this. These Italians thought very organized and couldn't do much with this style. Piet and Johan think overloading one side can still be of great use today."

55th minute
Hulshoff again intercepts the ball with a perfectly timed tackle. Some seconds later Neeskens does the same. Mühren: "This is essential in our game. This is one of those few things Michels learned to us. Make not a sliding immediately, rather stay on your feet and walk a bit longer until you have a bigger chance to not only play the ball, but also recapture it. That namely provides immediate chances for a counter-attack. Of course it does depend on the place of the field, but this was a guideline: only a sliding or tackle if you could really 100% recapture the ball. Additionally it means: don't give a prejudiced-or-not referee room for doubt, or 50-50 decisions about a sliding. We have to thank Michels for this."

57th minute
Inter plays the ball across the line. Libero Blankenburg picks up the ball and throws in quick. Mühren: "Not waiting, take fast. Make an advantage. And what does it matter that it is the sweeper who throws in? Nowadays they don't pick up the ball, because the central defender first has to get back in the center: everything aimed on control. We also wanted control, but the position centrally at the back could be occupied by someone else too. Neeskens for example, who had a good jump, or even the other Johan. The players were educated well enough as generalists that this went fine."
After an hour it is 1-0. Ajax doesn't slow down. When goalkeeper Stuy has the ball in his hands, he immediately resumes play with a quick throw. Also with this small 1-0 lead Blankenburg storms ahead over the right. With each attack Ajax brings six or seven players within and around the Inter penalty area. Halfway through the second half it is clear Cruijff cannot dominate this time in his classic way. Mühren: "Cruijff relies on his moments in this game. But everyone knew the moments would come. A goal, a penalty or whatever. You only didn't know when. That made the opponent watchful, but also anxious. Thus also when Cruijff wasn't swiveling and spinning, he was still of great value. His reputation was enough. He tied a couple of players to him, who pulled his shirt or not regularly, and that delivered seas of spaces for the others. So in a certain way he still dominated.
He is here certainly not the director he was in other matches, or a few years later. Especially later at Barcelona, when I was at Real Betis, this was a continuous thing. There he received a completely over the top style of man marking, overseen by utterly biased and incompetent referees. Because of this he often dropped deep and started to direct play from there with his passes and interceptions, similar to what he did in his final year at Feyenoord. In this 1972 final you don't see him in midfield really, was also not necessary. He is here really a center forward."
This center forward heads in the 2-0 after 78 minutes. After a cross from a free kick by Keizer, at the height of the corner flag, he towers above Oriali, Burgnich and Facchetti and 'slams' the ball with his head high in the upper corner of the goal. "Johan was of the opinion that we had a few players who could put in a half decent cross. He signals to us that he isn't available for swinging this one in."

----------------------------

https://www.kentudezenog.nl/gerrie-muhren-1946-2013/

Part three (the last) next.

 

67th minute
Sandro Mazzola, runner-up in the 1971 Ballon d'Or, breaks out. Stuy dives in front of his feet and snatches the ball. Mühren: "That is also striking: Stuy was in each of these finals very good. Stuy had actually the name to not be a special keeper. They called him 'Hein Croquet' because he dropped balls sometimes. As it were too hot. But in all those finals he was top. Short before the end of the match you see his willpower and ambition. There is then already whistled for offside, but the ball is still headed towards goal. Heinz touches the ball away with a dive from the top corner, in a reflex. No ball was allowed to go in, even one that didn't count."
The ones who now ask how it is going with him, sees the keeper often making a 'pico bello' sign, by making a round with his thumb and index finger, at which he stretches the other fingers upright in the air: three times the zero in a final for the big cup. He managed to be unbeaten for 1082 minutes.
Noteworthy is the labor on midfield. Haan, Neeskens and Mühren all do their work in applying pressure. In the attacks they are all active. Combined they do in this match fourteen goal attempts.
Mühren: "Even though we were all pretty all-round, Neeskens had often the special task to get the sting out of the opposing team. If there was a midfielder of which we knew he decided the play, then Johan had to play against him. But he had also the task if possible to move past the midfielder and support the attack." Against Inter he succeeded in this, Neeskens shoots seven times on goal, the most of all players.
Mühren: "Midfielders move nowadays only if a ball comes into their vicinity. And even then they are often too late. Our midfield with Haan, Neeskens and myself were mobile with tiny movements. Movement without ball was a big strength of Ajax. We also trained much heavier than now is custom, often to the point we were out of gas near the end of a campaign, a weakness of Michels his general approach. You didn't get really a day off. We had a much smaller squad. Your life was dominated by football. Never was you asked whether you was tired. If you ask that to someone, he will feel tired automatically so it wasn't asked. The day before the final of 1971 on Wembley we trained incredibly hard. On the day of the final we were almost unable to walk, no exaggeration. You just did it. Apparently the departing Michels found it necessary. He maybe saw the discipline going down, or something like that. I never asked him later.
The distance between manager and players was in general bigger as it is now. You don't think we dared to ask many questions to Michels right? Even Cruijff had his limits, sure. With Kovacs there was even more to say by Johan. Kovacs was more like Carpe Diem, but for him you happily made more effort than for other managers. For Michels you worked with your mind, Kovacs with your heart. Kovacs was in a certain way a tragic man. Michels could be tough, a bureaucratic executioner. You wasn't a name, you was a number and function. Gertjan Verbeek and Louis van Gaal maybe still have that to an extent, but in principle that is impossible in the country of today. Partly thanks to our generation of players. But the heavier the discipline, the more the eleven will connect to each other. In the society that is occasionally true as well: loose discipline, soft measurements and the result is chaos in times of crisis. Piet Keizer was very smart, who could talk with everyone else on the same wavelength, but didn't have discipline. With him Michels didn't speak as a result. If Michels named a winger as example, he almost always talked about Sjakie. Rarely Piet. Piet just went his own way.

80th minute
The umpteenth impressive move by Suurbier on the right side. Exactly measured he receives the ball from the otherwise invisible Sjaak Swart, and steams up to the byline. Result: a cross behind goal. Gerrie Mühren: "Welll..."

84th minute
Settling deep on own half is not involved much. Not even when Ajax defends a 2-0 advantage at the end. Because of this playing style Internazionale doesn't come to a final offensive. When Ivano Bordon kicks out, Ajax stands with six players on the half of Internazionale.
Mühren: "In the present day one would sit deeper on own half and make the spaces smaller. You only call the doom to yourself. The more players you put behind, the more the opponent is invited to move people up front. With corners the same. If you let defend everyone, then the opponent is allowed to attack with everyone. Is that what you want? Johan always placed two or three attackers up front with a corner kick. You have less players in your own penalty area and if you recapture the ball, there are more playing options. We also tried to make the spaces small, then you need to run less, and force the opponent to mistakes, but preferably on their half. The further away from our goal, the better.
In 1973 we won for the third time the European Cup, now from Juventus, of which we discovered one year later that they were bribing referees. And again we had really no lucky breaks along the road, unlike the way we qualified for the 1974 World Cup, I played in that match. It is that Johan left after this, who wanted to expand his horizon and a new big challenge, otherwise we had certainly competed more often for this big trophy. The average age was 26 years old. Swart was getting old, but Rep was already replacing him. For the 28 years old Keizer, close to 29, we had my brother standing by, who became a great player and had a long career at a high level. Our team only became better. Though you need some luck and fortunate circumstances for this, we could have won the cup more often. Equally, less often as well with more misfortune."

http://port.pravda.ru/news/desporto/01-02-2009/25997-guarda-0/
https://colgadosporelfutbol.com/en/porteros-imbatibles-cuando-marcar-gol-es-imposible/
------------------------

This was the final part, @PDG1978

 

On this thing, there is an intriguing part in J. Wilson about Hungarian football, which I hadn't realized and fully processed so far.

He discusses this in great length because: "In his remarkable 1983 book 'Only the ball has a skin' the Hungarian journalist Peter Borenich details how Budapest became a centre of the nexus of corruption in European football in the 1960s and the 1970s." Most of it, including this reference is directly copied from Brian Glanville though.

What I didn't realize was this:
"The referee then [in both 1965 EC semi final legs] was the Spaniard José María Ortiz de Mendibil; as the British journalist Brian Glanville pointed out a decade later in the Sunday Times, Italian teams seemed to do remarkably well when he was in charge. [...] 'Football is a game of fine margins. All we did was try to ensure those were not against Inter. If a free kick is going to be given one way or the other, we wanted to make sure we were seen as the victim and not the opposition. [quote by Dezso Solti]'"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_María_Ortiz_de_Mendíbil

Then I looked up his record, which is indeed suspiciously favorable for certain teams, and among other big matches he officiated the euro 1968 final replay (Italy vs Yugoslavia 2-0), the 1968 CWC final (Milan vs Hamburg 2-0), as well as the 1969 EC final (Milan vs Ajax 4-1; with the British commentator wildly enthusiastic about the cynicism on display by the Italians).

https://www.transfermarkt.com/jose-maria-ortiz-de-mendibil/profil/schiedsrichter/6664

Cartel referee.

 

France Football 1971:


Placar Magazine, June 1973




Sports Illustrated 1974:




Placar June 1976:



Brian Glanville 1984:

 

"Johan Cruyff represented an almost pathological case of self-confidence. Never in my life have I seen a player rule games like him. He was the owner of the show. He was a player, coach, and referee at the same time." – Jorge Valdanohttps://t.co/4PRwa2YYCo

— MUNDIAL (@MundialMag) September 4, 2020

Interesting book this (december 2018), by an actual scientist, recently deceased.
https://www.radboudumc.nl/personen/jacques-van-rossum

"Coach Cruijff in numbers"


Here one of the partial conclusions:

Cruijff a coach of the outside category?

The numbers in this text make clear that Cruijff certainly belongs to the row of successful coaches from Ajax: the results under Rinus Michels, Louis van Gaal and (debatable but possibly) Frank de Boer are reasonably comparable (see table 1). This is also true for the results of Ajax-coaches at FC Barcelona (see table 2). Yet only about Johan Cruijff it has been said he changed the footballer of Barcelona. That different football, the football with a high visual attractiveness, the football designed to entertain people and therefore let them go to the stadium, was eventually not as successful and superior in match result as Cruijff had hoped or perhaps expected.

At the same time it needs to be established the vision of Cruijff shows very strong similarities with the points that can be found back in scientific studies and meta-studies about most effective coaching (for example Curtis, Smith & Smoll 2008; Smith & Smoll 2007; Smith, Smoll & Curtis 2007; Smoll & Smith 2000; see also Van Rossum 2012). Cruijff his vision also shows strong overlaps with the ones of other successful sport coaches, like the basketball coach John Wooden and the hockey coach Ric Charlesworth (see Van Rossum 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2015).

Additionally the conclusion should be that Cruijff as coach was unfortunately not in state to implement the vision with the best possible success (see table 2). It needs to be established too that Cruijff his vision appealed to many different people.

One relevant element with Cruijff in the constrained implementation of his vision is his usage of language. Cruijff was known for his gesture: pointing he showed the road, as player and as coach (see figures in this book). He was inimitable in his spoken word. In clear language he didn't always excel. One of Cruijff his nicknames was: 'the Oracle of Betondorp', after the neighborhood - under the smoke of De Meer (the former Ajax stadium) - where Johan grew up.

In a bundle with Cruijff his citations, the compiler Henk Davidse (1998) included some texts about Cruijff his usage of language. Lex Muller remarked in this connection:

"Johan Cruijff talked in the way he played football. Flashing in tempo, straight to the goal, often inimitable, with incredible feints." (Davidse 1998, p. 72)

The problem for the listener is by ghostwriter Jaap de Groot condensed to one sentence: "Since players themselves have to make the decisions, it is not most important what he says, but especially what he means."

The 1970s football commentator Herman Kuiphof writes: "Often Cruijff explains things with limitations. For him few words are needed. It is no coincidence he perennially places the word 'logical' in his mouth. Unfortunately that is not for us, who only partially hears him. We need further elaboration, but the master has already moved to the next point." (Davidse 1998, p.33)

It may not be a surprise that Cruijff his 'followers' and fellow-thinkers at AFC Ajax haven't been able to explain the Cruijff method to each other. It first led to a separation of the minds (the aforementioned 'velvet revolution') and recently, as an aftermath, to an exit of people at Ajax.

From the intellectual legacy of Johan Cruijff it hasn't been possible, at least at Ajax, to let the youth education and the professional performance team (Ajax 1) operate successfully. Now the stadium has been renamed, the spirit of Cruijff isn't flowing around as accentuated as Cruijff and followers had envisioned it in their eyes. Several former players who had been active under coach Cruijff, among them Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp, have been expelled in and around the Arena in recent years.

Working in the mindset of Cruijff appears to be harder than the master himself had seen it possible. Working to the vision of Cruijff goes in Amsterdam not without a struggle. How different has that process gone in Barcelona...