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Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (Johan Cruijff (help·info)) - often spelled Cruyff
outside the Netherlands; see IJ (digraph)); born April 25, 1947 in Amsterdam) is a
Dutch football manager/coach and former player.
He was named European Footballer of the Year three times (1971, 1973, 1974)
which is a record jointly held with Michel Platini and Marco van Basten. Cruijff
was the most famous exponent of the football philosophy known as Total Football,
developed by Rinus Michels.
After his retirement from playing in 1984, Cruijff became highly successful as
manager of Ajax and later FC Barcelona; he remains an influential advisor to both
clubs.
In 1999, Cruijff was voted European Player of the Century in an election held by
the IFFHS, and came second, behind Pelé in their World Player of the Century poll.
He came third, behind Pelé and Diego Maradona, in a vote organised by the French
weekly magazine France Football consulting their former Ballon D'Or winners to
elect their Football Player of the Century.
 Style of
play
Through his career Cruijff 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 his or her intended outfield
role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. The
style was honed by Ajax coach Rinus Michels around the time Cruijff came to
prominence.
Strictly speaking, Cruijff played centre forward in this system. But he would drop
deep to confuse his markers or suddenly move to the wing with devastating effect.
No one had seen a centre forward like that before. Due to the way Cruijff played
his game he is still referred to as "the total footballer."
Cruijff was known for his technical ability, speed and acceleration, but his
greatest quality was vision, based on an acute sense of his team-mates' positions
as an attack unfolded. The sports writer David Miller believed Cruijff superior to
any previous player in his ability to extract the most from others. He dubbed him
"Pythagoras in boots" for the complexity and precision of his angled passes and
wrote: "Few have been able to exact, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric
control on a match from one penalty area to another."
Cruijff also perfected a move now known as the "Cruijff Turn". To do this move,
Cruijff would look to pass or cross the ball. However, instead of kicking it, he
would drag the ball behind his planted foot with the inside of his other foot and
turn through 180 degrees and accelerate away outside a defender.
Outside
football
In November 2003, Cruijff invoked legal proceedings against the publisher Tirion
Uitgevers, over its photo book Johan Cruijff de Ajacied, which used photographs by
Guus de Jong. Cruijff was working on another book, also using De Jong's
photographs, and claimed unsuccessfully that Tirion's book violated his trademark
and portrait rights.
In 2004 he ended sixth place in the election of De Grootste Nederlander (The
Greatest Dutchman).
Family
On 2 December 1968 Cruijff married Danny Coster. Johan and Danny have 3 children:
Chantal (16 November 1970), Susila (27 January 1972) and Jordi (9 February 1974).
The family lives in Barcelona.
His son, Jordi, has played for teams such as FC Barcelona (while his father was
manager), Manchester United and Alaves.
Interestingly, the younger Cruijff sports "Jordi" on his shirt to distinguish
himself from his famous father (this also reflects the common Spanish practice of
referring to players by given names alone or by nicknames).
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Johan
Cruyff - Manifesting Generator - Biography
