Johan Cruijff famous quotes

Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Inspirational #Motivational #Soccer

Before I make a mistake, I don't make that mistake.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Mistake

Every disadvantage has its advantage.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Sports #Advantage #Disadvantages

Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1000 times. Anyone can do that by practicing. 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.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Team

Playing against 10 is harder than playing against 11 players. You know why? The team with 11 will think "ok, we can take it easy now", while the team with 10 will think "We really have to work hard now."
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Team #Hard Work

If you have the ball you must make the field as big as possible, and if you don't have the ball you must make it as small as possible.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Balls

Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Winning #Games

There are very few players who know what to do when they're not marked. So sometimes you tell a player: that attacker is very good, but don't mark him.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

I find it terrible when talents are rejected based on computer stats. Based on the criteria at Ajax now I would have been rejected. When I was 15, I couldn't kick a ball 15 meters with my left and maybe 20 with my right. My qualities technique and vision, are not detectable by a computer.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Ajax

When you play a match, it is statistically proven that players actually have the ball 3 minutes on average ... So, the most important thing is: what do you do during those 87 minutes when you do not have the ball. That is what determines wether you're a good player or not.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

After you've won something, you're no longer 100 percent, but 90 percent. It's like a bottle of carbonated water where the cap is removed for a short while. Afterwards there's a little less gas inside.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Water

There is only one ball, so you need to have it.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Needs

We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Wanted

Surviving the first round is never my aim. Ideally, I'd be in one group with Brazil, Argentina and Germany. Then I'd have lost two rivals after the first round. That's how I think. Idealisitic.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Thinking

Players today can only shoot with their laces. I could shoot with the inside, laces, and outside of both feet. In other words, I was six times better than today's players.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

Every professional golfer has a seperate coach for his drives, for approaches, for putting. In football we have one coach for 15 players. This is absurd.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

There’s only one moment in which you can arrive in time. If you’re not there, you’re either too early or too late.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Too Late #Moments

Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Simple #Hardest

It's all very simple: if you score one more than your opponent, you win.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Winning #Simple

Football is a game you play with your brain
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Games #Play

Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Simple

The most difficult thing about an easy match is to make a weak opponent play bad football.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Play

The fun part of golf is the variety of shots. In football you can do anything with a ball, but you can do anything with a golf ball as well. When you hit a shot and the ball does exactly what you want it to do ... that's wonderful. It's just great when you hit the ball well. You should always try not to make the ball cry.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Fun #Golf

To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent
-- Johan Cruijff

#Teamwork #Winning #Goal

The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Differences

You have got to shoot, otherwise you can't score.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Score

Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Motivational #Soccer #Running

I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Mistake

Football is a simple game. It's just very hard to play it simple.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Simple

Every advantage has its disadvantage.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Advantage #Disadvantages

I'm not religious. In Spain all 22 players make the sign of the cross before they enter the pitch. If it works all matches must therefore end in a draw.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Religious

He has been outstanding. [Manuel] Neuer is an extraordinary goalkeeper, who would deserve to win it.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Winning #Goalkeepers #Outstanding

You know I don't think there will ever be a time when the English player is not respected, and feared, across the world of football. The English footballer is very brave and strong and committed and there is always enough high-class players in his team to cause concern in any opponent. It is a national characteristic.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Strong

However good an English team is, they will always have an additional advantage. It is that European players know that their English opponents will come at them in the belief they will win, and they can always be guaranteed never to stop fighting. They have a natural aggression that they are born with. If it ever goes, English football will lose its most valuable dimension.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Team

Eric Cantona is a great player, but he's not as good as Ryan Giggs
-- Johan Cruijff

#Player #Eric #Giggs

For the world of football, Messi is a treasure because he is role model for children around the world... Messi will be the player to win the most Ballons d'Or in history. He will win five, six, seven. He is incomparable. He's in a different league.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Children #Winning

The ball is an essential part of the game.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Games #Essentials #Balls

There's not one club in Europe with an anthem like You'll Never Walk Alone. There's not one club in the world so united with their fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team. That's something not many teams have. For that I admire Liverpool more than anything.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Team #Europe #People

I look at Messi, and he makes me laugh. A beautiful footballer who is still like a kid. A world superstar, but still a kid. Innocent, you know. He just plays.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Beautiful #Kids #Play

Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Important #Streets #Footballer

A counter-attack can only arise when you make a mistake. That's why there are rules. A horizontal pass? Prohibited. In my line-up there are as many lines as possible. Because you must have the option to pass the ball forward, even if it's a meter. Because then I can still make up for the loss of possession. After a horizontal pass this is impossible.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Mistake #Loss #Balls

In small space a player has to be capable of acting quickly. A good player who needs too much time can suddenly become a poor player.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Player #Space #Acting

If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Running #Games #Play

If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball
-- Johan Cruijff

#Play #Balls #Possession

If you can't win, make sure you don't lose.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Winning

In a way I'm probably immortal.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Way #Immortal

To play well, you need good players, but a good player almost always has the problem of a lack of efficiency. He always wants to do things prettier than strictly necessary.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Player #Needs #Want

Actually I never make a mistake, because it takes a huge effort for me to make a mistake.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Mistake #Effort

Without the ball, you can't win.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Winning #Balls

Football is simple. You are in time or too late. When you are too late, you should start sooner.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Simple #Too Late

Italy cannot beat you but you can lose to Italy.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Beats

Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Play #Offensive

I felt sorry for the match ball - it came off the pitch crying.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Football #Sorry

I don't want to be a thief of my own wallet.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Thieves #Want #Wallets

Sometimes something's got to happen before something is going to happen.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Soccer #Sometimes

Coincidence is logical.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Coincidence #Logical

Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Player #Law #Two

He deserves ten out of ten for doing what he does. He is a sensation, but still he can improve. He must know when to move the ball on quickly and when to try the impossible mission. When he learns this, he won't win a single Golden Ball, but an entire collection.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Moving #Winning #Trying

YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY AND RESULTS. RESULTS WITHOUT QUALITY IS BORING; QUALITY WITHOUT RESULTS IS MEANINGLESS.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Quality #Needs #Boring

Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Football #Mistake #Winning

One trophy is good, but two are better. That way, when a hero wears his medals on his chest, at least his steps are level as he walks by.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Hero #Two #Levels

Someone who has juggled the ball in the air during a game, after which four defenders of the opponent get the time to run back, that's the player people think is great. I say he has to go to a circus.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Running

Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Strong

Why couldn't you beat a richer club? I've never seen a bag of money score a goal.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Goal

I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Player

I'm ex-player, ex-technical director, ex-coach, ex-manager, ex-honorary president. A nice list that once again shows that everything comes to an end.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Nice

Players that aren't true leaders but try to be, always bash other players after a mistake. True leaders on the pitch already assume others will make mistakes.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Mistake

What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Sports #Football

In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Change #Football #Team

It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man's vision.
-- Johan Cruijff

#Men #Vision #Failing