Johan Cruyff

Early life

Hendrik Johannes "Johan" Cruyff was born on 25 April 1947 in the Burgerziekenhuis in Amsterdam. He grew up on a street five minutes away from Ajax's stadium, his first football club. Johan was the second son of Hermanus Cornelis Cruijff (1913–1959) and Petronella Bernarda Draaijer (1917–2007), from a humble, working-class background in east Amsterdam. Cruyff grew up at Akkerstraat 32 in the Betondorp ('concrete village') neighbourhood, a district whose architectural style was described as "brutalist". Akkerstraat was five minutes away from De Meer Stadion, where the football club Ajax Amsterdam played its home games. His father Manus was a fan of Ajax. The environment in which the Cruyffs grew up is described by his biographer Auke Kok as business- and market-oriented, which distanced itself from leftist ideas. The young Cruyff was shaped by Calvinism; while he was considered a devout person and often referred to God, he later also experimented with spiritualistic practices to make contact with his deceased father.

At school, Cruyff at most showed inconsistent performance and had twice to repeat a school year. Looking back on his youth, Cruyff later expressed the suspicion that his mixed academic performance and his persistent restlessness were due to ADHD. He had a close relationship with his older brother Henny, who was two and a half years his senior, during his youth. Observers originally considered Henny more talented than Johan, but he did not make the leap to the professional team. The regretful Cruyff saw the reason for this in Henny's lack of focus on football; unlike himself, Henny had never regarded football as the top priority in his life. Henny later opened a sports shop and sought to capitalise on the family connection, among other things, by arranging trips to Barcelona that, as a promotional promise, also offered tours of Cruyff's estate. His attempts to manage Cruyff were blocked by Johan's father-in-law, Cor Coster. The two brothers then fell out permanently in the 1980s, and Henny published a book in which he accused Coster of having been a member of the Waffen-SS during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. The allegation was not supported by research.

Already in his first years as a professional footballer, Cruyff anglicised his last name; while in his native Netherlands he continues to be known as Cruijff, the anglicised version of his last name has become established in the rest of the world.

On 8 July 1959, Cruyff's father died from a heart attack. His mother Nel could not continue running the vegetable shop alone and had to give up the business. Instead, she was forced to work as a cleaner at Ajax Amsterdam, cleaning the lockers there. There she met Henk Angel (the caretaker at Ajax), with whom she entered into a second marriage. For Cruyff, the death of his father was both a tragedy and a formative event; throughout his life, he was always haunted by the fear of dying at a young age himself. Additionally, the sudden death of his father and the resulting economic consequences for the family became a driving force for him to accumulate as much money as possible in as short a time as possible in order to support and provide security for his biological and stepfamily.

Club career

Gloria Ajax and the golden era of Total Football

Cruyff joined the Ajax youth system on his tenth birthday. Cruyff and his friends would frequently visit a "playground" in their neighborhood and Ajax youth coach Jany van der Veen, who lived close by, noticed Cruyff's talent and decided to offer him a place at Ajax without a formal trial. Cruyff suffered from physical underdevelopment when he joined the Ajax academy and head coach Vic Buckingham urged him to go to the gym while providing him with better nutrition. When he first joined Ajax, Cruyff preferred baseball and continued to play the sport until age fifteen when he quit at the urging of his coaches. At that age, Cruyff quit his secondary education without a diploma after staying down twice.

Cruyff made his first team debut on 15 November 1964 for Ajax Amsterdam in a 1–3 defeat against GVAV Groningen (since 1971 FC Groningen). In his second match, his home debut against PSV Eindhoven, he scored a goal. The following match against Feyenoord Rotterdam was lost 9–4, and after a draw the following week, Ajax were close to relegation. The management lost faith in Vic Buckingham and forced his dismissal on 21 January 1965.

The 36-year-old Rinus Michels was hired as the new coach. Michels, a sports teacher for deaf children, had previously played for Ajax himself. His job description as coach included team training three evenings a week. However, the ambitious Michels soon began taking radical steps to professionalise the club. Michels placed great emphasis on iron discipline and was soon nicknamed De Generaal ('The General') by his players. He introduced training camps and had the players complete three training sessions a day, as well as a practice match in the evening. Cruyff, in particular, who had become a chain smoker in his youth, hated the rigid training and occasionally tried to hide during runs in the woods. Michels quickly took further steps toward professionalisation. Many players were part-time or amateur players who had another (main) job. Cruyff had been a sort of 'jack-of-all-trades' at a printing company.

Michels prohibited any secondary activities and turned the players into professional footballers. This was financed by a number of sponsors, including collaborators who had done business with the German occupiers during the war and wanted to clear their names, as well as Jewish businessmen, who had survived the war and saw Ajax as a surrogate family. The image of Ajax as a club with a certain Jewish flair had long been established and in the following years was repeatedly emphasised by the player generation around Cruyff (more in a symbolic and playful manner). This ahistorical stylisation began to develop a dynamic of its own especially from the 1980s onwards, when even the fans of the club Ajax stylised it as the 'Jewish club' and, in response, fans of the arch-rival Feyenoord Rotterdam began to sing antisemitic chants and make references to the Holocaust in performances. Originally seen as a symbol of football tribalism, this sparked a societal debate in the Netherlands in the early 2000s.

Barcelona and the first La Liga title in 14 years

Kovács left Ajax in the summer of 1973 and was replaced by coach George Knobel from MVV Maastricht. A major incident occurred at the training camp in De Lutte. Piet Keizer, captain in the 1971–72 season, made it clear that he wanted the captain's armband back, which he had given to Cruyff a year earlier. Keizer argued that Cruyff was too selfish in his business dealings and neglected the well-being of the team.

Cruyff refused and insisted on a vote. New-signing Pim van Dord did not vote, whereupon the remaining 15 players cast their ballots. The vote was 8 to 7 in favour of Keizer. The sulky Cruyff felt humiliated and immediately called his father-in-law, Cor Coster, to whom he expressed his desire to leave, saying: "You must call Barcelona immediately, I want to get out of here." In mid-1973, Cruyff was sold to FC Barcelona for 6 million guilders (approx. US$2 million) in a world record transfer fee. FC Barcelona had been interested in Cruyff for years; however, offers had been impossible, as foreigners were not eligible to play in the Spanish league from 1962 to 1973. Furthermore, since Barcelona coach Rinus Michels viewed Cruyff as a difficult, disruptive character, the management had initially tried to sign Gerd Müller from Bayern Munich. After a breakdown of negotiations with Müller, Michels agreed to facilitate a transfer for Cruyff. Barcelona's manager Armand Carabén, who was married to a Dutch woman, initiated the negotiations for the transfer. Cruyff, who was still under contract with Ajax, pushed for the transfer by implicitly threatening that he would simply stop playing for Ajax or the national team if the transfer did not go through. As a result, the federation and Ajax initially relented. A last-minute offer from Real Madrid also failed; Cruyff blackmailed the national federation and Ajax with a threat to resign if Ajax sold him to Madrid against his will. The transfer fee of 6 million guilders made him the most expensive player in the world.

Cruyff, who was generally apolitical, was unaware of the political situation in Spain at that time. He appreciated Barcelona's climate and the financial opportunities, which far exceeded what he could earn in the Netherlands. He defended his move to Francoist Spain, which was criticised in some quarters, with a shrug. He was also unaware about the political background of the rivalry between the formerly autonomous Catalonia on the one hand and Castile, or rather Real Madrid as a symbol of the central government, on the other, and knew nothing about the years of political and cultural discrimination against the regions (especially Catalonia) by the Franco regime. When his son was born and the Cruyffs chose the name Jordi for him, they were unaware that Jordi was the patron saint of Catalonia and that the name had therefore been banned by the Franco government. As part of a general, gradual political liberalisation of the regime in the 1970s, the Cruyffs were allowed to name their son Jordi. This naming was misinterpreted as a political statement and increased Cruyff's popularity. It was only in his second year that he began to express some political views, often railing against the (supposed) discrimination against Barça by the central organisation, or Madrid. However, according to his biographers, the entirely apolitical Cruyff always focused on the sporting aspect; he was always referring to the federation and/or the referees, never to Franco's fascist regime itself.

Brief retirement and spells in the United States

During the 1976–77 season in Barcelona, the Cruyffs had met French businessman Michel Basilevitch, who was a socis and made a favourable impression on the Cruyffs. Cruyff entrusted him – instead of his father-in-law Cor Coster – with extending his expiring contract with FC Barcelona by one year. Basilevitch was able to negotiate a salary increase, which made the Cruyffs like him all the more. Soon, Basilevitch became a confidant, and he and Cruyff began to establish a company called Grupeco Holding, which invested in various activities, including a pig farm. Critical press reports published that Cruyff had considerable tax debts and that his investments were failures.

In 1978, a bank made public that Grupeco Holding could no longer meet its obligations. The investments proved to be almost without exception failures and ended in ruin for Cruyff. His father-in-law got involved and spread in press interviews that Basilevitch had an affair with Cruyff's wife and had enriched himself fraudulently at Cruyff's expense. Basilevitch immediately countered Coster's accusations. He claimed to have suffered losses himself in the bankruptcy of Grupeco Holding and threatened to expose the dubious business practices of Cruyff and Coster, in which he had gained insight as a confidant of the Cruyffs. Coster (and thus also Cruyff) had for years channeled large sums of money past the tax authorities; for example, he claimed hand money for Cruyff was not declared in the tax return, and Coster had in part also transferred funds to Switzerland for the purpose of tax avoidance. Thus Coster was forced to back down. Fearing further revelations about his own business activities, he refrained from further charges. Due to the bankruptcy, Cruyff was forced to continue playing as a footballer. He left Spain with enormous debts, which were not even remotely paid off until his return years later.

Cruyff and his family moved to the United States. Cruyff insisted that his decision to resume his playing career in the United States was pivotal in his career, stating, "It was wrong, a mistake, to quit playing at 31 with the unique talent I possessed", and adding, "Starting from zero in America, many miles away from my past, was one of the best decisions I made. There I learned how to develop my uncontrolled ambitions, to think as a coach and about sponsorship."

In May 1979, Cruyff signed a lucrative deal with the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League (NASL). He had previously been rumoured to be joining the New York Cosmos, but the deal did not materialise; he played a few exhibition games for the Cosmos. He stayed at the Aztecs for only one season, and was voted NASL Player of the Year. After considering an offer to join Dumbarton in Scotland, in February 1980, he moved to play for the Washington Diplomats. The Cruyffs settled in at Tracy Place, an area with various representative embassies and mansions of politicians, where they formed friendships with diplomats, politicians, and executives. He played the whole 1980 campaign for the Diplomats, even as the team was facing dire financial trouble. At the Diplomats, Cruyff had to fight for his position on the team; he initially clashed with teammates and coach because he skipped team evenings (due to his wife) and smoked in the shower. The team was also accustomed to a completely different style of play than what Cruyff wanted to teach them – the Diplomats played deliberately physical and used to play kick and rush with long, wide passes, as was done on the British Isles.

Return to Spain with Levante and second spell at Washington Diplomats

Cruyff returned to Europe in November 1980. He became a "technical advisor" at Ajax, where he trained with the team but did not play, and soon fell out and clashed with manager Leo Beenhakker. In January 1981, Cruyff played three friendly matches for FC Dordrecht. Also in January 1981, manager Jock Wallace of English club Leicester City made an attempt to sign Cruyff, competing with Arsenal and an unnamed German club for his services, and despite negotiations lasting three weeks, in which Cruyff expressed his desire to play for the club, a deal could not be reached.

After the move to English club Leicester City fell through, Cruyff instead chose to sign with Spanish Segunda División side Levante in February 1981. His subsequent stint with the Spanish second-division side Levante was also financially rewarding for Cruyff, but entirely unsatisfying from a sporting perspective. His biographer, Auke Kok, considers his time at Levante an absolute low point, both from a professional and a personal standpoint. Cruyff, who had not played a match for months, was in poor health and suffering from several minor injuries. Furthermore, he was more preoccupied with the health of his wife Danny, who was initially bedridden after a fall from a horse and, after a deterioration of her condition, had to be admitted to a hospital.

On the pitch, Cruyff unsuccessfully attempted to establish his preferred Total Football style of attacking football. The mid-season tactical change proved a complete failure, and Cruyff, plagued by minor injuries, reached his limits in the second division, characterised by its intense physicality. Levante ultimately finished the season in ninth place. Only part of the promised sum was paid to him. In May 1981, he then made a highly lucrative guest appearance for AC Milan in a mini-tournament of friendly matches. Due to injury, he only played half a half; before his departure, he promised to make up for it, but this never happened. In June 1981, Cruyff returned to the US. He played for the Washington Diplomats in 1981 NASL season.

Second spell at Ajax

After his spell in the U.S. and his short-lived stay in Spain, Cruyff returned to playing for Ajax in December 1981. Originally, he had rejoined Ajax on 30 November 1980, before his time as a player with Levante, as "technical advisor" to trainer Leo Beenhakker, Ajax being eighth in the league table at the time after 13 games played. After 34 games, Ajax finished the 1980–81 season in second. In December 1981, Cruyff signed a contract as "player" with Ajax until the summer of 1983. Alongside an economic crisis in the country, Dutch football had also been in a downward spiral for years. Internationally, Oranje had failed to qualify for the 1982 finals. This decline was accompanied by falling stadium attendances. At his own request, Cruyff signed a performance-based contract with Ajax Amsterdam, which guaranteed him higher earnings if stadium attendance increased. David Winner considers Cruyff's last three seasons, in the autumn of his career, remarkable.

As a playmaker, Cruyff inspired a group of young players who formed the backbone of the Oranje's 1988 European Championship title. At 34 years old and no longer at his physical peak, he compensated for his physical shortcomings with his comparatively outstanding understanding of the game and his vision, which allowed him to anticipate game situations earlier than his opponents; a system that Cruyff mastered to perfection during these years, according to his biographers. He also benefited from a tacit non-aggression pact that opposing coaches made with Cruyff; they instructed their defenders to play "cleanly" and not to foul the crowd-pleaser Cruyff excessively. In addition, Cruyff, as usual, influenced the referees, allowing him to operate largely freely on the pitch. In retrospect, referee Charles Corver later admitted that he had sometimes allowed himself to be manipulated by Cruyff and that his decisions were sometimes influenced by Cruyff.

At Ajax, Cruyff encountered a group of talented young players such as Frank Rijkaard, Ronald Koeman, Gerald Vanenburg, and Marco van Basten; he quickly assumed the leadership role within the team and exerted his influence on both lineup and tactics. In his sold-out home debut against HFC Haarlem, Cruyff dribbled past two opponents in the 22nd minute and scored a goal. With Cruyff, Ajax became significantly more consistent compared to previous years and secured the championship five matchdays before the end of the 1981–82 season. In 1982, he scored a famous goal against Helmond Sport. While playing for Ajax, Cruyff scored a penalty the same way Rik Coppens had done it 25 years earlier. He put the ball down as for a routine penalty kick, but instead of shooting at goal, Cruyff nudged the ball sideways to teammate Jesper Olsen, who in return passed it back to Cruyff to tap the ball into the empty net, as Otto Versfeld, the Helmond goalkeeper, looked on. At the end of the 1982–83 season, Ajax, along with Cruyff, again became league champions. Additionally Ajax won the Dutch Cup (KNVB-Beker).

Final season at Feyenoord and retirement

After that, Cruyff wanted to extend his contract to play for one last year. Ajax board member Tom Harmsen, however, rejected a contract extension. This angered Cruyff, who responded by signing for Ajax's archrivals Feyenoord. Feyenoord's team had been mediocre for years and, apart from the young Ruud Gullit and Peter Houtman, unlike Ajax, had no highly talented players in its ranks. On the seventh matchday, Feyenoord faced Ajax in "De Klassieker" in Amsterdam; the game was lost 8–2. A defiant Cruyff nevertheless declared after the game: "We will win the championship." Feyenoord also suffered heavy defeats in the European Cup; in the game against Tottenham Hotspur, Cruyff was completely neutralised by his opponent Glenn Hoddle.

Undeterred by these initial defeats, Cruyff influenced tactics, training, and lineup, importing his football knowledge. While rival Ajax played erratically, Cruyff's well-organised Feyenoord usually won unspectacularly but consistently and was already leading the table by winter. In February 1984, Ajax were first defeated in the KNVB Cup, then 4–1 in the second leg of the league season, with Cruyff also scoring a goal. At the end of the season, the team won the double of league title and KNVB Cup. Because of his performance on the field, he was voted as Dutch Footballer of the Year for the fifth time. On 13 May 1984, he played his last match against Zwolle. He rejected offers from the club to extend his contract, as he was no longer able to meet the physical demands of the game. Cruyff played his last game in Saudi Arabia against Al-Ahli, bringing Feyenoord back into the game with a goal and an assist.

International career

As a Dutch international, Cruyff played 48 matches, scoring 33 goals. The national team never lost a match in which Cruyff scored. On 7 September 1966, he made his official debut for the Netherlands in the UEFA Euro 1968 qualifier against Hungary, scoring in the 2–2 draw. In his second match, a friendly against Czechoslovakia, Cruyff was the first Dutch international to receive a red card. The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) banned him from international games, but not the Eredivisie or KNVB Cup.

Accusations of Cruyff's "aloofness" were not rebuffed by his habit of wearing a shirt with only two black stripes along the sleeves, as opposed to Adidas' usual design feature of three, worn by all the other Dutch players. Cruyff also had a separate sponsorship deal with Puma. From 1970 onwards, he wore the number 14 jersey for the Netherlands, setting a trend for wearing shirt numbers outside the usual starting line-up numbers of 1 to 11.

World Cup 1974

Before training camp, Cruyff initiated tough negotiations with the federation regarding bonuses and lucrative sponsorship deals. During the training camp, Cruyff and the Ajax players quickly reconciled. Neither side had any interest in reviving old disputes and they quickly came to an understanding. At the training camp in Zeist, Cruyff and the Ajax group were the dominant force. Rinus Michels, appointed as coach, constantly commuted between the Netherlands and Spain, where he was coaching FC Barcelona in the cup competition. Therefore, Cruyff played a key role; he assumed the role of player-coach (now with Michels' blessing) and dictated tactics as well as parts of the starting lineup. Players whom Cruyff criticised or who did not acknowledge the dominance of the "Amsterdammers" were immediately sidelined or sent home.

The experienced first-choice goalkeeper, Jan van Beveren, defied the "Amsterdammers" and was promptly sent home. Instead, at Cruyff's instigation, Jan Jongbloed was installed as the first-choice goalkeeper. Cruyff justified this not only as part of the group dynamics within the team, but also saw Jongbloed as the better player with the ball and a disguised libero, which in his eyes was important due to the team's attacking style. The libero role was also determined by Cruyff, who assigned the task to midfielder Arie Haan; while he had had disagreements with Haan at Ajax in 1973, he nevertheless valued his passing accuracy. In addition, Wim Rijsbergen from Feyenoord Rotterdam was installed as the second central defender. Tactically, according to Cruyff's vision, Oranje were to play a riskier version of Total Football, as practiced by Ajax.

In their opening match in Hanover, the Netherlands defeated a defensively minded Uruguay 2–0. In the second game against Sweden, Cruyff performed the so-called "Cruyff Turn"; he kicked the ball so suddenly with his heel past his own leg that the startled defender Jan Olsson lost his footing. Cruyff had been using this move for years in the Netherlands, so it no longer attracted much attention from Dutch reporters and the public, but for the rest of the football world, it was a defining moment of the World Cup. In their 4–1 victory in the third group match against Bulgaria, the Netherlands thrilled the crowd. Cruyff was clearly the star, directing the team, creating gaps with his pacey dribbling and delivering precise long passes.

In the second group stage, the Dutch national team, led by Cruyff, improved once again and reached the peak of their abilities. In the opening match of the second group stage against Argentina, Cruyff again dominated the game; with his first touch, he rounded the Argentine goalkeeper Carnevali in the eleventh minute and scored to make it 1–0. After that, the team conserved their energy for a long time, with Cruyff remaining passive and only playing passes from a stationary position. In the 72nd minute, he set up the third goal and then scored the fourth goal himself.

Euro 1976

Between 1974 and 1976, the Netherlands played successfully in the qualifying rounds for the 1976 European Championship, in which four teams participated. Michels had been replaced by George Knobel, who submitted unconditionally to Cruyff and gave him free rein. In response to Cruyff's dominance, PSV players Jan van Beveren and Willy van der Kuylen retired from the national team. Before Euro 1976, Cruyff again initiated negotiations with the federation regarding bonuses and sponsorship contracts, which dragged on and on and completely overshadowed the sporting aspect. The federation and the Cruyff/Knobel duo were also at odds over the Chef d'équipe. The match against Czechoslovakia was actually intended by the self-confident Dutch as merely a warm-up before a rematch against Germany, but turned out to be completely different. The Czechs disrupted the Dutch rhythm and took an early lead. In the end, it was a clear defeat. Cruyff left before the third-place match to undergo knee surgery in Barcelona.

After 1976

Cruyff retired from international football in October 1977, having helped the national team qualify for the upcoming World Cup. Without him, the Netherlands finished runners-up in the World Cup again. Initially, there were two rumours as to his reason for missing the 1978 World Cup: either he missed it for political reasons (a military dictatorship was in power in Argentina at that time), or that his wife dissuaded him from playing. In 2008, Cruyff stated to the journalist Antoni Bassas in Catalunya Ràdio that he and his family were subject to a kidnap attempt in Barcelona a year before the tournament, and that this had caused his retirement. "To play a World Cup you have to be 200% okay, there are moments when there are other values in life."

Coaching career

Entry into management with Ajax

After retiring from playing, Cruyff followed in the footsteps of his mentor Rinus Michels. In June 1985, Cruyff returned to Ajax again. He coached a young Ajax side to victory in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1987 (1–0). In the 1985–86 season, the league title was lost to Jan Reker's PSV, despite Ajax having a goal difference of +85 (120 goals for, 35 goals against). In the 1985–86 and 1986–87 seasons, Ajax won the KNVB Cup.

It was during this period as manager that Cruyff was able to implement his favoured team formation—three mobile defenders; plus one more covering space – becoming, in effect, a defensive midfielder (from Rijkaard, Blind, Silooy, Verlaat, Larsson, Spelbos), two "controlling" midfielders (from Rijkaard, Scholten, Winter, Wouters, Mühren, Witschge) with responsibilities to feed the attack-minded players, one second striker (Bosman, Scholten), two touchline-hugging wingers (from Bergkamp, van't Schip, De Wit, Witschge) and one versatile centre forward (from Van Basten, Meijer, Bosman).

Return to Barcelona as manager and building "the Dream Team"

After having appeared for the club as a player, Cruyff returned to Barcelona for the 1988–89 season, this time to take up his new role as coach of the first team. In 1988, FC Barcelona was going through major turbulence both on and off the field. Since Cruyff's departure in 1978, there had been a lack of an overarching sporting philosophy, and the playing style had varied with each coach in charge. English coach Terry Venables had guided Barça to their first championship title since 1974 in 1985. In 1986, the team reached the final of the European Cup (in Seville) but lost in a penalty shootout to the clear underdog Steaua Bucharest, which went down in the club's and fans' history as the "Seville trauma". The defeat undermined Venables' position at the club and subjected him to ongoing criticism; among other things, Venables was accused of favouring the British players. After an unsuccessful following season, he was dismissed and replaced by Luis Aragonés. Under Aragonés, the team again played a disappointing season and were eliminated in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals by Bayer Leverkusen. In the championship, by April 1988, the team was already 23 points behind the eventual champions Real Madrid. At this moment, the 'Hesperia mutiny' occurred, in which the players and coach Luis Aragonés (who stood loyally by his players) had initiated an open rebellion against President Núñez and demanded him to resign. After the Hesperia mutiny, President Núñez was in a weak position within the club just before the upcoming re-election of the presidency. The signing of Cruyff, who was widely respected both within the club and in Catalonia, is generally described as a populist move intended to relieve the unpopular and criticised Núñez. According to British authors Jonathan Wilson, Simon Kuper, and Sid Lowe, the signing of the famously headstrong Cruyff would never have happened otherwise.

Cruyff retained his previous assistant Tonny Bruins Slot and hired his former teammate Carles Rexach as assistant coach. He banned the board members from the locker room. With Barça, Cruyff also started work with a completely remodelled side after the previous season's scandal. As Sid Lowe noted, when Cruyff took over as manager, Barcelona of the late 1980s "were a club in debt and in crisis. Results were bad, performances were worse, the atmosphere terrible and attendances down, while even the relationship between the president of the club Josep Lluís Núñez and the president of the Spanish autonomous community they represented, Jordi Pujol, had deteriorated. It did not work immediately but he [Cruyff] recovered the identity he had embodied as a player. He took risks, and rewards followed."

Dutch national team

In 1990, most Dutch players wanted Cruyff as their coach for the upcoming World Cup tournament in Italy. Rinus Michels, who at that time was responsible at the Dutch KNVB, however, instead chose Leo Beenhakker as coach. Cruyff never forgave Michels; even in his autobiography, he speculated that Michels had denied him the coaching position out of jealousy. While still at Barcelona, Cruyff was in negotiations with the KNVB to manage the national team for the 1994 World Cup finals, but talks broke off at the last minute.

Catalonia football team

As well as representing Catalonia on the pitch in 1976, Cruyff also managed the Catalonia football team from 2009 to 2013, leading the team to a victory over Argentina in his debut match. On 2 November 2009, Cruyff was named as manager of the Catalonia football team. It was his first managing job in 13 years. On 22 December 2009, they played a friendly game against Argentina, which ended in a Catalonia win, 4–2 at Camp Nou. On 28 December 2010, Catalonia played a friendly against Honduras winning 4–0 at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys. On 30 December 2011, Catalonia played Tunisia in a goalless draw at the Lluís Companys. In their last game under Cruyff, on 2 January 2013, Catalonia drew with Nigeria at the Cornellà-El Prat, 1–1.

Post-coaching career

The British author Jonathan Wilson characterised Gaspart's words upon Cruyff's dismissal as a slip of the tongue. Contrary to Gaspart's statement that there was no one who ever belonged to Barça more than Johan Cruyff. For Wilson, however, this was a decisive moment – free from the everyday obligations of being a coach and relieved from the pressure of having to deliver good results every week – Cruyff could now even more strongly propagate his football-theoretical ideas. Within a short time, he became a kind of grey eminence, who on the one hand influenced Ajax and Dutch football, where he, in the words of David Winner, "became the personalised soul, conscience, and guiding point of Dutch football." On the other hand, he initially opposed in Barcelona his intimate enemy Núñez and his management along with the coaches he had hired.

In the 2000s, Cruyff's legacy and reputation increasingly took a divergent path in Spain and the Netherlands. While Cruyff was critically questioned in the Netherlands, he became an influential advisor and idea provider behind the scenes at FC Barcelona after Joan Laporta was elected president of the club, and his football philosophy soon became an established dogma under successive coaches. In contrast, football at Ajax and in the Netherlands as a whole developed for years in a different direction than Cruyff had demanded. Jonathan Wilson highlights the irony that Cruyff was more successful in shaping the much larger Spanish club entirely according to his will, while he repeatedly failed to implement his ideal at Ajax and in the Netherlands.

As a technical advisor

Cruyff left in 1996, and never took another top job. The coaching position at Barcelona was temporarily taken over by his assistant Rexach; Cruyff, who had expected Rexach to resign with him, then broke off with Rexach and did not speak to him for years. Cruyff remained based in Barcelona and became part of Barcelona's Entorno himself. Even after his dismissal, the public petty war between Cruyff and Núñez continued with increasing intensity. Immediately after his dismissal, Cruyff publicly stated that if Barcelona needed him, he was willing to return, but never again under President Núñez. Due to the premature dismissal, Cruyff sued Núñez and FC Barcelona for a severance payment. The trial dragged on for years and ended for Cruyff only in a partial success.

Even after the appointment of Louis van Gaal as Robson's successor in the summer of 1997, Cruyff did not relent in his campaign against Barca's club management. Cruyff and van Gaal had formerly been teammates at Ajax, but had fallen out in the late 1980s. Although van Gaal is considered a Cruyffian as a coach in the sense of the same Ajax philosophy – Simon Kuper even calls him a lost brother of Cruyff due to various other biographical similarities – he was virtually criticised by Cruyff on a weekly basis. Jonathan Wilson has no doubt that Cruyff saw van Gaal's interpretation of the Ajax philosophy as inferior compared to his own. On a tactical level, Cruyff criticised that the tactical version of the Ajax school propagated by van Gaal lacked spontaneity and willingness to take risks. He also expressed criticism about van Gaal's so-called Hollandisation of the squad and publicly posed the rhetorical question of whether it was so difficult to hire a few Spaniards.

Conversely, Núñez tried to make Cruyff a pariah within the club. However, the manner of Cruyff's dismissal and his refusal to leave Barcelona for another coaching engagement had left deep divisions within FC Barcelona and had a polarising effect on the membership and also the environment. For parts of the socis, Núñez had become a figure of enmity. They accused him – besides a lack of identification with Catalan values – above all of dismissing Cruyff and of his treatment of Cruyff, which was perceived as unworthy. The environment, such as the media, was also polarised by the petty war between Núñez and Cruyff; while the sports newspaper Sport supported Laporta and Cruyff, the newspapers La Vanguardia and Mundo Deportivo were critical of Cruyffismo.

In 1999, Joan Laporta finally founded the interest group "Elefant Blau." Laporta mainly cited Núñez's handling of Cruyff, who had become an idol to parts of the club's membership, as the reason. Laporta launched a petition that sought to force Núñez's removal through a vote of no confidence. Cruyff, who still desired the coaching position, immediately publicly supported Laporta's petition and advised Laporta. Laporta aimed to dismiss van Gaal and reinstate Cruyff as coach if he were elected. Even though the vote of no confidence failed, Núñez resigned in 2000. His successor was Vice President Gaspart, with whom Cruyff had also been at odds since his dismissal. Gaspart's short tenure is generally characterised as unsuccessful; when he resigned in 2003, Joan Laporta ran for his successor, among other things, on the promise of renewing the club according to Cruyff's principles. Laporta's election led to a process of modernisation. Laporta used Cruyff's advice and stated publicly that all sporting decisions were first approved by Cruyff. At the same time, however, he never gave Cruyff an official position, which he explained years later by saying that Cruyff would have polarised everyone around him. Initially, Laporta appointed the staunch Cruyffian Txiki Begiristain as the new sporting director. In addition, on Cruyff's advice, Frank Rijkaard was hired as Barça's coach in 2003. Rijkaard, also a Cruyffian despite earlier disagreements, initially relied heavily on Cruyff and frequently consulted his advice. At his suggestion, Rijkaard changed the team's tactics from 4-2-3-1 to the classic 4-3-3 formation propagated by Cruyff. In 2007, Cruyff's favourite pupil, Pep Guardiola, took over as coach of Barcelona's B team. Guardiola also initially relied on Cruyff as an advisor; when he faced a revolt by two players right at the beginning, he asked Cruyff for advice, who advised him to get rid of both of them immediately.

TV expert and columnist

At the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, Cruyff worked as an analyst for the broadcaster ITV in London. Cruyff's vocabulary was limited, and in addition, the fast-speaking Cruyff often skipped important points in his explanations. As a result, it was often difficult to follow him. Nevertheless, after his return to the Netherlands in 1982, he received his own show on Dutch television, where he commented in a column-like manner on current football topics and described his ideas about the game to the viewers. In 1987, he took part in a TV documentary (Schijnbewegingen), in which he met Rudi van Dantzig, the artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet, and they both exchanged ideas about their professions.

Starting in 1994, he began producing spoken short film columns for Filmnet, a pay-TV channel. From 1996, Cruyff was a TV analyst for the Dutch broadcaster NOS during Champions League matches as well as World and European Championships. In 2009, he ended this activity, as the coverage by the broadcaster had, in his view, become too negative. In addition, he wrote a weekly column for the Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf (mostly authored by Jaap de Groot as a ghostwriter) and one for the influential magazine Voetbal International. From 2005 to 2007, he was a columnist for the Dutch football magazine Nummer 14; here, Bert Nederlof acted as his ghostwriter. In Spain, he wrote columns for El Periódico and later occasionally also for La Vanguardia. In his columns and as a TV expert, he defended his legacy and, according to David Winner, repeated the same message for years like a preacher: possession, willingness to take risks, use of wingers, dominance, and numerical superiority in midfield. He frequently referred to the 1974 World Cup and emphasised that although the Dutch team lost the final, it had nonetheless achieved a victory because it played football that the world still talks about. He also persistently and relentlessly criticised the defensive style of play in world football. As an expert, he criticised the defensive Italian style of play. In England, a tactical line would be practically unrecognisable.

Cruyff's analyses and columns were always characterised by a strong subjectivity; as biographer Kok notes, his personal friendships and feuds also always seemed to come through in his analysis. In 2005, he vehemently criticised José Mourinho in a column, who at Chelsea promoted a purely result-oriented defensive style, which, according to Cruyff, made him sick. Another preferred target of his criticism was his Dutch compatriot Leo Beenhakker, who as a coach at club level and in the national team always played an opposing model to Cruyff's ideology and publicly advocated placing success over attractiveness.

Ambassador for Belgium and the Netherlands joint bid to host the World Cup

In September 2009, Cruyff and Ruud Gullit were unveiled as ambassadors for the Belgium–Netherlands joint bid for the World Cup finals in 2018 or 2022 at the official launch in Eindhoven.

Profile and legacy

Style of play: The total footballer

Regarded as one of the greatest players in history and as the greatest Dutch footballer ever, throughout his career, Cruyff became synonymous with the playing style of "Total Football". It is a system where a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus allowing the team to retain their intended organizational structure. In this fluid system, no footballer is fixed in their intended outfield role. The style was honed by Ajax coach Rinus Michels, with Cruyff serving as the on-field "conductor".

Space and the creation of it were central to the concept of Total Football. Ajax defender Barry Hulshoff, who played with Cruyff, explained how the team that won the European Cup in 1971, 1972 and 1973 worked it to their advantage: "We discussed space the whole time. Cruyff always talked about where people should run, where they should stand, where they should not be moving. It was all about making space and coming into space. It is a kind of architecture on the field. We always talked about speed of ball, space and time. Where is the most space? Where is the player who has the most time? That is where we have to play the ball. Every player had to understand the whole geometry of the whole pitch and the system as a whole."

The team orchestrator, Cruyff was a creative playmaker with a gift for timing passes. Nominally, he played centre-forward in this system and was a prolific goalscorer, but dropped deep to confuse his markers or moved to the wing to great effect. Due to the way Cruyff played the game, he is still referred to as "the total footballer". Cruyff was known for his technical ability, speed, acceleration, dribbling and vision, possessing an awareness of his teammates' positions as an attack unfolded. "Football consists of different elements: technique, tactics and stamina", he told the journalists Henk van Dorp and Frits Barend, in one of the interviews collected in their book Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff. "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." On the concept of technique in football, Cruyff once said: "Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1,000 times. Anyone can do that by practising. Then you can work in the circus. Technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the right foot of your team mate."

Style of management and tactics

Cruyff is widely seen as a revolutionary figure in the history of Ajax, Barcelona, and the Netherlands. The offensive style of play Cruyff introduced at Barcelona later came to be known as tiki-taka—characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession—which was later adopted by the Euro 2008, 2010 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2012 winning Spain national football team. As a manager, Cruyff's tactics were influenced by the Dutch total football system in which he played a part during his playing career under his former manager Michels. His favoured formations were fluid 3–4–3 and 4–3–3 systems, which he often used interchangeably throughout the course of a match depending on whether the team were attacking or defending. Uniquely, his 3–4–3 formation made use of a midfield diamond.

At Barcelona, Cruyff deployed Danish playmaker Michael Laudrup in a free centre-forward role, due to his mobility, positioning, passing, and tendency to be involved in the build-up of attacking plays and create chances for teammates; Laudrup would often drop deep into midfield, which would disorient opposing defenders, allowing other midfielders, or offensive wingers, such as Stoichkov, to exploit the space he created, and get into good attacking positions from which they could shoot on goal. This role has retroactively been likened by pundits to the modern "false 9" role, and has also been compared to Cruyff's own playing position. Cruyff did also use a genuine striker at times, in particular when Romário joined the club. Cruyff also used Pep Guardiola as the team's deep-lying playmaker in a holding midfield role, who would dictate play with his passing, and help the team control possession; when defending off the ball, he would also drop back into the back-line to help the defence. He would also occasionally drop deeper to act as an additional centre-back in Cruyff's fluid system.

Defensively, his teams made use of heavy pressing, a high defensive line, and the offside trap, and relied on the positioning of his players to recover the ball quickly, maintain possession, and reduce the possibility of facing opposing counter-attacks; as such, Cruyff's philosophy was based on defending by attacking, a view also echoed by Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling. He also used Sergi and Ferrer as inverted full-backs, who moved inside to occupy central areas of the pitch, flanking an offensive sweeper – usually Ronald Koeman – who could carry the ball, start attacks or switch the play from the back, while he also favoured goalkeepers who were comfortable with the ball at their feet, and equally capable of building plays with their passing. Despite Cruyff's reputation as one of the greatest managers of all time, former Milan and Italy manager Arrigo Sacchi was critical of Cruyff in 2011, however, due to the fact that he did not pay as much attention to the defensive aspect of the game as he did to the offensive side.

Named after Cruyff

Johan Cruyff Shield (Johan Cruijff Schaal in Dutch), a football trophy in the Netherlands, also referred to as the Dutch Super Cup.

Johan Cruyff Award or Dutch Football Talent of the Year (Dutch: Nederlands Voetbal Talent van het Jaar), the title has been awarded in the Netherlands since 1984 for footballers under 21. The award Dutch Football Talent of the Year was replaced by the Johan Cruyff Trophy (Johan Cruijff Prijs in Dutch) in 2003.

14282 Cruijff, the asteroid (minor planet) was named after Cruyff. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially ratified the naming of Cruijff on 23 September 2010.

Johan Cruyff Institute, an educational institution, founded by Johan Cruyff, aimed at educating athletes, sport and business professionals in the field of sport management, sport marketing, football business, sponsorship and coaching through a network that currently has five Johan Cruyff Institute (postgraduate and executive education), three Johan Cruyff Academy (graduate education) and five Johan Cruyff College (vocational training).

Cruyffista (mainly in Spain), a follower/supporter of Cruyff's views (principles) on football development philosophy and sports culture.

Johan Cruyff Stadium (Estadi Johan Cruyff in Catalan), FC Barcelona's newly constructed stadium is named after Cruyff.

Johan Cruyff Arena (Johan Cruijff Arena in Dutch), home stadium of Ajax and previously known as the Amsterdam ArenA.

In popular culture

In 1976, the Italian-language documentary film Il profeta del gol was directed by Sandro Ciotti. The documentary narrates the successes of Johan Cruyff's football career in the 1970s. In 2004, the documentary film Johan Cruijff – En un momento dado ("Johan Cruijff – At Any Given Moment") was made by Ramon Gieling and charts the years Cruyff spent at Barcelona, the club where he had the most profound effect in both a footballing and cultural sense. In 2014, the Catalan-language documentary film L'últim partit: 40 anys de Johan Cruyff a Catalunya was directed by Jordi Marcos, celebrating 40 years since Johan Cruyff signed for Barcelona in August 1973.

Cruyff had a small hit (number 21 in the charts) in the Netherlands with "Oei Oei Oei (Dat Was Me Weer Een Loei)". Upon arriving in Barcelona, the Spanish branch of Polydor decided to release the single in Spain as well, where it was rather popular. In 2004, a public poll in the Netherlands to determine the greatest Dutchman ("De Grootste Nederlander") named Cruyff the 6th-greatest Dutchman of all time, with Cruyff finishing above Rembrandt (9th) and Vincent van Gogh (10th). In 2010, the asteroid (minor planet) 14282 Cruijff (2097 P-L) was named after him. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially ratified the naming of Cruijff on 23 September 2010. After Josef Bican and Ferenc Puskás, Cruyff is the third football player to have an asteroid named after him.

Philanthropy

In the spring of 1997, Cruyff founded the Johan Cruyff Foundation, which is intended to help disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs. He handed over organisational control to others. Apart from the usual sponsor meetings within the framework of the foundation, he was mainly occupied with spending time with children with Down syndrome. Additionally he founded the Johan Cruyff Academy in 1999, which was soon expanded under the umbrella organisation Johan Cruyff Institute and extended to several countries. As a programme for 35 athletes as part of the Johan Cruyff University of Amsterdam it has since become a global network and allowed thousands of former players to complete their school or vocational education.

Beginning in 2003, the Johan Cruyff Foundation has provided over 200 Cruyff Courts in 22 countries, including Israel, Malaysia, Japan, United States, and Mexico, for children of all backgrounds to play street football together. UEFA praised the foundation for its positive effect on young people, and Cruyff received the UEFA Grassroots Award on the opening of the 100th court in late 2009. Cruyff was also an ambassador of the Postcode Lottery Group, which establishes and manages charitable lotteries worldwide to raise funds for social organisations.

Personal life

At the wedding of Ajax teammate Piet Keizer, on 13 June 1967, Cruyff met his future wife, Diana Margaretha "Danny" Coster (born 1949). They started dating, and on 2 December 1968, at the age of 21, he married Danny. Her father was Dutch businessman Cor Coster, who also happened to be Cruyff's agent. Cruyff's football career, both as a player and as a manager, was considerably influenced by his family, in particular his wife Danny. He and Danny had three children together: Chantal (16 November 1970), Susila (27 January 1972), and Jordi (9 February 1974). The family lived in Barcelona from 1973, with a six-year interruption from December 1981 to January 1988 when they lived in Vinkeveen.

Quotes

Cruyff is the originator of several catchphrases and aphorisms that have entered everyday language, especially in the Netherlands and to some extent in Spain, where they have become proverbial. Several books of collected quotations have become bestsellers in the Netherlands. Biographer Nico Scheepmaker believes Cruyff exerted a universal fascination: even when he was talking nonsense, it was still interesting nonsense. Biographer Auke Kok, conversely, sees the complete absence of common clichés and Cruyff's originality as the reason for his enduring success. For Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield, Cruyff's one-liners oscillate somewhere between the brilliant and the banal.

"Coincidence is logical."

"Every disadvantage has its advantage."

"If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better."

"I suspect, that if journalists really understood football they wouldn't be journalists."

"Every trainer talks about movement, about running a lot. I say don't run so much. Football is a game you play with your brain."

"Playing football is very simple but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is."

"Winning is an important thing, but to have your own style, to have people copy you, to admire you, that is the greatest gift."

"In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender."

Illness and death

Even as a teenager, Cruyff was a chain smoker (at times smoking 80 cigarettes a day) – a vice he continued into professional football and vehemently defended. He was even said to smoke during halftime breaks. In February 1991, he suffered a heart attack and had to undergo bypass surgery. Afterward, he quit smoking and participated in various anti-smoking campaigns; for example, he featured in a Catalan health department advertisement, and symbolically kicked away a cigarette pack.

In October 2015, it was revealed that Cruyff had been diagnosed with lung cancer. In February 2016, he announced that he felt as if he were leading 2–0 at halftime in his fight against cancer. However, by that time, the cancer had already spread from his lungs to his back and brain. Cruyff died on 24 March 2016, surrounded by his family. His ashes were scattered in the garden of his summer house in El Montanya.

Memoirs

In 2016, Cruyff's posthumously autobiography My Turn was published, and he also ironically alludes to his legendary trick move. The book, co-written with his long-time ghostwriter Jaap de Groot, was generally met with a very critical reception. Simon Kuper, in a review in the Financial Times, summed it up as a "missed opportunity". He said it was "full of uninteresting banalities" and argued that the book showcased none of Cruyff's virtues but all his shortcomings and seemed to have been written primarily to settle old scores from his past disputes.

For NOS, the endless list of administrators and managers, both at Ajax and Barça, with whom Cruyff settled accounts in the book was also a major theme, although Cruyff was also portrayed as mild and understanding towards former associates like Marco van Basten. The figure of Rinus Michels also runs like a leitmotif through the book: first as a surrogate father, then as a confidant in football tactics, then as the man who may have denied him the coaching position at the 1990 World Cup out of jealousy. In an article for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Javier Caceres viewed Cruyff's autobiography as a bland, uninspiring book. He described it as a settling of scores in many places, with few pearls of insight to be found. On German Deutschlandfunk radio, Thomas Jaedicke concluded after reading it that his childhood idol, Cruyff, had also been arrogant and a haughty egotist.

Biographies

Dutch author Nico Scheepmaker published the first major biography of Johan Cruyff (Cruijff, Hendrik Johannes, fenomeen) in 1972; Scheepmaker's book was well received. In 2007, Marcel Rözer published a dual biography of Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer, Beckenbauer & Cruijff: De Keizer en de Verlosser. Rözer saw significant overlaps and parallels between the two in their backgrounds, careers, and lives; both had become national heroes in their home countries and could even spout nonsense without facing any opposition.

In 2019, the Dutch author Auke Kok published a biography of Cruyff. The biography, a revisionist and critical examination of Cruyff, portrays him as an exceptional athlete but in his private life as someone who engaged in questionable business dealings; while a devoted family man, he was also a notorious womaniser for years, a fact he carefully shielded from the public eye. Also in 2019, Arthur van den Boogaard published the book Het laatste seizoen about Cruyff's final year at Feyenoord and a retrospective of his playing career. He saw Cruyff as a self-important man with an enormous need for recognition; at the same time, he asserted that in the Netherlands there was a "before Cruyff" and a "after Cruyff", which he likened, analogously to the passing of a Rembrandtian era in art. In 2021, Andy Bollen published the book Fierce Genius, in which he also blended a biography with a description of Cruyff's last year as a player for Feyenoord Rotterdam.

Career statistics

International

Scores and results list the Netherlands' goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Cruyff goal.

Honours

Player

Ajax

Eredivisie: 1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1969–70, 1971–72, 1972–73, 1981–82, 1982–83

KNVB Cup: 1966–67, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1971–72, 1982–83

European Cup: 1970–71, 1971–72, 1972–73

European Super Cup: 1972

Intercontinental Cup: 1972

Barcelona

La Liga: 1973–74

Copa del Rey: 1977–78

Feyenoord

Eredivisie: 1983–84

KNVB Cup: 1983–84

Netherlands

FIFA World Cup Runner-up: 1974

UEFA European Championship Third place: 1976

Tournoi de Paris: 1978

Manager

Ajax

KNVB Cup: 1985–86, 1986–87

European Cup Winners' Cup: 1986–87

Barcelona

La Liga: 1990–91, 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94

Copa del Rey: 1989–90

Supercopa de España: 1991, 1992, 1994

European Cup: 1991–92

European Cup Winners' Cup: 1988–89

European Super Cup: 1992

Individual

Player

Super Ballon d'Or Second place: 1989

Ballon d'Or: 1971, 1973, 1974; Third place: 1975

Eredivisie top scorer: 1966–67, 1971–72

KNVB Cup top scorer: 1966–67, 1967–68, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1971–72

European Cup top scorer: 1971–72

Dutch Footballer of the Year: 1968, 1972, 1984

Dutch Sportsman of the Year: 1973, 1974

FIFA World Cup Golden Ball: 1974

FIFA World Cup All-Star Team: 1974

Sport Ideal European XI: 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977

FUWO European Team of the Season: 1972

World XI: 1972, 1977

Onze de Onze: 1977

Don Balón Award for Best LaLiga Foreign Player: 1977, 1978

North American Soccer League MVP: 1979

FIFA World Cup All-Time Team: 1994

FIFA World Cup Dream Team: 2002

World Team of the 20th Century

FIFA 100: 2004

AFS Top-100 Players of All-Time: #21 (2007)

Orders and further honours

In 1974, Cruyff was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

In 2002, Cruyff was promoted to Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of the Netherlands by the KNVB as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.

On 22 May 2006, Cruyff was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to football by Laureus in their annual World Sports Awards.

In April 2016, Cruyff was posthumously awarded the Laureus Spirit of Sport Award, which was accepted by his son Jordi.

Cruyff received a lifetime achievement award from the KNVB in August 2006.

On 18 April 2007, Ajax decided to retire the number 14 shirt in honour of Cruyff and in celebration of his birthday.

In 2010, Cruyff was presented the FIFA Order of Merit (highest honour awarded by FIFA) for his contribution to football.

In 2010, Cruyff entered in the FICTS "Hall of Fame" and was awarded with "Excellence Guirlande D'Honneur".

In 2013, Cruyff was recognised with the UEFA President's Award

On 29 March 2016, the Prime Minister of Spain awarded Cruyff with the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit.

On 25 October 2017, the Amsterdam Arena was renamed Johan Cruyff Arena.