KEIR RADNEDGE ANALYSIS —- Johan Cruyff stands out as not merely the greatest Dutch footballer but one of the greatest players of all time, a status which owes much to the persistence of his mother.

She worked as a cleaner in the offices of Ajax and persuaded the club coaching staff to take Johan into their youth sections when he was still only 12. The rest is history, and a virtually unbroken 25-year succession of trophies and awards on the highest plane as first player and then coach.

Cruyff made his first-team debut at 17, his goal-scoring international debut at 19 and went on to inspire Ajax and Netherlands through most of their golden 1970s.

This was the era of “total football”, a concept of the game first described as “The Whirl” in the early 1950s by the Austrian journalist Willy Meisl in his seminal book Soccer Revolution.

Meisl, brother of Viennese football pioneer Hugo Meisl, foresaw the day when every player in a team would possess comparable technical and physical ability and would be able to interchange roles at will.

Cruyff was The Whirl personified. Nominally he played centre-forward. But Cruyff’s perception of centre-forward was as orthodox as the squad No. 14 he wore on his back for most of his career with Ajax.

Cruyff did turn up at the apex of the attack: but he was also to be found meandering through midfield and out on the wings, using his nimble, coltish pace to unhinge defences from a variety of angles and positions.

Final triumphs

Single-handed, he not only pulled Internazionale apart in the 1972 European Cup final but scored both goals in Ajax’s 2-0 win. The next year, in Belgrade, he inspired one of the greatest 20-minute spells of football ever seen as Ajax overcame Juventus.

Already the vultures were gathering. Spain had reopened its borders to foreign players and Cruyff was an obvious target. Eventually Barcelona won the transfer race – but after the close of the Spanish federation’s autumn deadline. However, such was the magnitude of the transfer that the federation bent their own regulations so that Cruyff could play immediately.

When Cruyff arrived in Barcelona, the Catalans were struggling down the table. By the season’s end they were champions, Cruyff’s triumphant progress having included a spectacular 5-0 victory away to deadly rivals Real Madrid. Surprisingly, apart from that league title, Barcelona won little else, though Cruyff completed the first ever hat-trick of European Footballer of the Year awards.

It was at the end of his first season with Barcelona that Cruyff’s career reached its international zenith. At the 1974 World Cup finals Holland took their total football through round after round. No one could withstand them.

New stylistic era

Above all, no one could handle the mercurial Cruyff, who inspired victories over Uruguay and Bulgaria in the first round, then provided two goals to lead the way against Argentina in the second. The last group match – in effect the semi-final – was against Brazil: the old masters against the new. Cruyff scored Holland’s decisive second goal in a 2-0 victory which signalled a new era.

The final, of course, ended in defeat at the hands of West Germany and, though Netherlands reached the final again in 1978, by then Cruyff had retired from the national team and was about to head west. First he joined the Los Angeles Aztecs in the NASL.

He won the Most Valuable Player award that year, moved to the Washington Diplomats in 1980 and, late in 1981, returned home to win the Championship twice more with Ajax and once, mischievously, with old rivals Feyenoord.

Cruyff’s move into management, typically, aroused new controversy as he had never obtained the necessary examination qualifications. Not that it mattered. He guided Ajax to the European Cup- winners’ Cup in 1987, and repeated the trick in 1989 after retracing his steps to Barcelona. His innovations now cause as much fuss as the total football of his playing days.

Thus Cruyff ranks not only among the game’s greatest players and personalities but among its greatest innovators as well.

CRUYFF TIMELINE

1947 Born on April 25 in Amsterdam

1959 Enrolled by his mother in the Ajax youth section

1963 Signed his first Ajax contract at 16 on the recommendation of English coach Vic Buckingham, then marked his debut with a goal

1966 Made his debut for Holland in a 2-2 draw against Hungary and scored a last-minute equalizer in the first of his 48 internationals

1969 Made his first European Cup final appearance with Ajax, but Milan won 4-1 in Madrid

1971 Won the first of three successive European Cups, helping Ajax defeat Panathinaikos of Greece at Wembley. He was also voted European Footballer of the Year, the first of three such accolades

1973 Sold by Ajax to Barcelona for a world record transfer fee of £922,000

1974 Captained and inspired Holland to reach the 1974 World Cup Final in Munich, where they lost 2-1 to hosts West Germany

1978 Retired from the national team before the World Cup finals in Argentina, and left Barcelona to play in America with Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats

1981 Returned to Europe to play for minor club Levante in Spain, then to Holland with Ajax and, finally, Feyenoord

1984 Went back to Ajax, this time as technical director

1987 Guided Ajax to victory in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup as a parting gift before being appointed coach to Barcelona

1992 Managed Barcelona to their long awaited victory in the European Cup Final, where they beat Sampdoria 1-0 at Wembley

1996 Left Barcelona after a record seven years in charge including four consecutive league championships.

**Johan Cruyff died in March, 2016.

###########