Home   >   News   >   Ten seconds to encapsulate the artistry of Johan Cruyff

Ten seconds to encapsulate the artistry of Johan Cruyff

By on March 24, 2016

“Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is,” the late Johan Cruyff once famously remarked.

The beloved football figure was outspoken and tactically innovative and the news of his passing has been met by the world of football with a stream of admiration for the Dutch great.  As a player, he will be remembered for his mesmerizing talent and swift demeanor.  As a coach, his Total Football philosophy revolutionized the game. He showed the world a new way to play football, then a new way to approach the game.

“Pythagoras in boots,” as David Winner, author of Brilliant Orange, described Cruyff.

There are hours upon hours of Youtube clips to gawk at his brilliance, but one moment defines them all.  It was the twenty-third minute in the Netherland’s match against Sweden and he received a long, ranking pass down the left flank.  He extends a leg to bring the ball down on a needle point, but gets it slightly stuck under his boot, he swivels around and faces his own goal.

He drops his hip ever so slightly and opens up his body for a cross.  His marker, Jan Olsson, lunges in front to block.  Then, in one graceful, elegant motion, Cruyff pulled the ball back around and went cantering off down the byline.

“The proudest moment of my career. I thought I’d win the ball for sure, but he tricked me. I was not humiliated. I had no chance. Cruyff was a genius,” said Olsson, per The Guardian.

“My team-mates after the game, we looked at each other, they started to laugh and I do the same,” Olsson said. “I laughed then and I laugh now. It was very funny. He was a world-class player. I do my best but I was not a world-class player. The players in my team, they all laugh because they know me – we laughed together in the changing room because everyone saw what a player he was. What more could we do?”

“I do not understand how he did it. It was a fantastic sequence,” he said. “I thought I was going to take the ball. I still cannot understand. Now when I see the video, every time I think I have got the ball. When he is about to kick the ball I am sure I am going to take it, but every time he surprises me. I loved everything about this moment.”

In that moment, we saw football through Cruyff’s lens and it became interwoven with art and beauty.  It lasted but a second, yet changed the game forever.  For years, his disciples have strived to replicate his genius but there was no better preacher off the philosophy that the turn represented than Cruyff himself.

“Cruyff painted the chapel, and Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it,” Pep Guardiola once remarked.

Homepage photo credit: Mieremet, Rob / Anefo [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.