60 Fun Facts About Johan Cruyff

How many times did Johan Cruyff win the Ballon d'Or?

He won it in 1971, 1973 and 1974, a haul matched only by a handful of players before the Messi-Ronaldo era.

Which shirt number did Cruyff make famous at Ajax and with the Netherlands?

It was so unusual that a Dutch football magazine and a documentary were both later titled after it.

In which city was Cruyff born in April 1947?

He grew up a five-minute walk from Ajax's old ground, where his mother later worked cleaning the lockers.

Which sport did the young Cruyff prefer to football until his coaches made him quit it at fifteen?

He was a physically underdeveloped teenager, and Ajax coach Vic Buckingham sent him to the gym and improved his diet.

Cruyff's 1973 move from Ajax to Barcelona set a world-record fee of roughly how many Dutch guilders?

That was about US$2 million at the time; foreigners had been barred from Spanish league football from 1962 until that year.

Which Ajax coach, nicknamed 'De Generaal', developed Total Football with Cruyff?

He had been a sports teacher for deaf children and introduced three training sessions a day, which the chain-smoking Cruyff hated.

Which Romanian coach led Cruyff's Ajax to the 1972 and 1973 European Cups?

His relaxed regime let Cruyff become an even more dominant on-pitch 'player-manager', arguing with referees and dictating discipline himself.

Cruyff scored both goals in the 1972 European Cup final as Ajax beat which club 2–0?

Dutch newspapers hailed the win as the death of Italian catenaccio at the hands of Total Football.

Which country beat Cruyff's Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup final?

The Dutch led through a penalty before the hosts had even touched the ball, then lost 2–1; Beckenbauer later said 'Johan was the better player, but I am a world champion'.

Against which team at the 1974 World Cup did Cruyff perform the move now known as the 'Cruyff Turn'?

The startled defender Jan Olsson lost his footing; Dutch reporters barely noticed because Cruyff had been doing it for years at home.

Which individual award did Cruyff collect at the 1974 World Cup despite losing the final?

He described the defeat for the rest of his life as a moral victory; in the Netherlands it became a national trauma.

In 2008 Cruyff finally revealed the reason he refused to play at the 1978 World Cup. What was it?

For decades the rumours were politics or his wife; the attempt happened at the family's Barcelona home a year before the tournament.

In only his second international, a 1966 friendly, Cruyff became the first Dutch player to do what?

The KNVB banned him from international matches but not from club football, and he had scored on his debut the game before.

Cruyff's Netherlands shirt had only two sleeve stripes because of his deal with which brand?

Every other Dutch player wore Adidas's three stripes, and the odd shirt fed accusations of aloofness.

Cruyff's Ajax first-team debut in November 1964 was a 3–1 defeat to which club?

He scored in his home debut in the next match, but Ajax then shipped nine goals in Rotterdam and drifted toward relegation.

How many times in his career was Cruyff voted Dutch Footballer of the Year?

The last came in 1984 at the age of 37, in his final season as a player.

In November 1970 Cruyff equalled an Eredivisie record by scoring how many goals against AZ Alkmaar?

It was the season Ajax won its first European Cup, beating Panathinaikos in the final.

Cruyff first wore his famous number in October 1970 because which teammate had his usual number 9?

He was returning from a groin injury against PSV, and simply never went back to the number 9.

In 1973 Ajax's players voted 8–7 to hand Cruyff's captaincy to which teammate, prompting his exit?

The humiliated Cruyff phoned his father-in-law immediately: 'You must call Barcelona immediately, I want to get out of here.'

Which of Cruyff's children was given a name banned under Franco because it belonged to Catalonia's patron saint?

The apolitical Cruyffs had no idea; the name was read as a political statement and made him even more popular in Catalonia.

In February 1974 Cruyff's Barcelona won away at Real Madrid's Bernabéu by what score?

A New York Times writer said Cruyff had done more for the Catalan spirit in 90 minutes than politicians had in years.

Barcelona's 1973–74 title, won in Cruyff's first season, was its first La Liga title in how many years?

Club membership jumped from 58,000 to more than 64,000 in that one season.

Cruyff made his competitive Barcelona debut in October 1973, scoring twice in a 4–0 win over which club?

Barça were 14th in the table at kick-off; four straight wins later they were top.

At which club in February 1975 was Cruyff sent off, refusing to leave until police escorted him?

He was protesting a clearly offside goal; away from home he was being kicked and refereed very differently from his first season.

Which NASL club did Cruyff sign for in May 1979, going on to be voted the league's Player of the Year?

He had been expected to join the Cosmos and played a few exhibitions for them, but the deal never happened.

In Washington, Cruyff became ambassador for which body at Eunice Kennedy Shriver's request?

The experience turned him toward work with disadvantaged children, which became the Johan Cruyff Foundation.

Which Spanish second-division club did Cruyff join in February 1981, a career low point?

He was unfit, his wife was in hospital after a fall from a horse, and the club only paid part of the promised money.

Which English club spent three weeks in January 1981 trying to sign Cruyff before the deal collapsed?

Manager Jock Wallace was competing with Arsenal and an unnamed German club, and Cruyff said he wanted to come.

In 1982, Cruyff took a penalty by passing sideways to which teammate, who returned it for a tap-in?

Rik Coppens had done the same trick 25 years earlier; Messi and Suárez famously copied it in 2016.

After Ajax refused to extend his contract in 1983, Cruyff won a league-and-cup double with which club?

It was Ajax's arch-rival, and his new side had lost 8–2 to Ajax early in the season before he promised they would still win the title.

How many goals did Cruyff score in his 48 appearances for the Netherlands?

The national team never lost a match in which he scored.

As Ajax manager, Cruyff won which European trophy in 1987?

His young side lost the previous league title despite scoring 120 goals and conceding 35.

Whose 111th-minute free kick won Barcelona their first European Cup under Cruyff in 1992?

The side was nicknamed the Dream Team after the US basketball squad at that summer's Olympics.

Cruyff's Barcelona beat which Italian club in the 1992 European Cup final?

Cruyff had already beaten the same Genoa club in the 1989 Cup Winners' Cup final in Bern.

Cruyff's Dream Team lost the 1994 Champions League final 4–0 to which club?

Cruyff's verdict afterwards: 'It wasn't that we played badly, we didn't play at all.'

What did Cruyff's 'Salid y disfrutad', said before the 1992 European Cup final, mean?

The final at Wembley was goalless until extra time.

Which drill did Cruyff elevate from a warm-up game to the centrepiece of Barcelona's training?

Players in a circle keep the ball with one touch while one or two in the middle try to win it; he often joined in himself.

Which future Barcelona manager did Cruyff promote from the B team though La Masia coaches thought him too slow?

Cruyff also scrapped the wrist X-ray test that weeded out boys unlikely to reach 1.80 metres.

Which Brazilian striker, signed from PSV in 1993, did Cruyff call his most talented ever?

He scored a hat-trick in a 5–0 Clásico that season, but was sold to Flamengo within eighteen months.

Which Danish playmaker, Cruyff's false nine, left Barcelona for Real Madrid in 1994?

Cruyff saw him as a reincarnation of himself; he then helped Real thrash Barça 5–0 at the Camp Nou.

Cruyff said which 1990 signing brought 'mala leche' (bad milk) to his cerebral Barcelona side?

The aggression was the missing ingredient: the next season Barça won the league by a clear margin.

Whom did Cruyff call 'Judas' in the dressing room on the day he was sacked by Barcelona in May 1996?

The vice-president was sent because, Cruyff said, the president lacked the courage to fire him in person; a chair got smashed.

After his 1991 heart attack, Cruyff appeared in a Catalan health advert doing what?

He had bypass surgery, quit, and fronted anti-smoking campaigns for the rest of his life.

At his peak, roughly how many cigarettes a day was Cruyff said to smoke?

He was rumoured to light up during half-time breaks and defended the habit vehemently until his heart attack.

In February 2016 Cruyff described his fight against lung cancer using what football scoreline?

By then the cancer had spread to his back and brain; he died the following month, and his ashes were scattered at his summer house.

In 2010 the International Astronomical Union ratified the name '14282 Cruijff' for what?

He was only the third footballer so honoured, after Josef Bican and Ferenc Puskás.

In the 2004 'Greatest Dutchman' poll Cruyff came sixth, finishing ahead of which two painters?

The poll was decided by public vote on Dutch television.

Cruyff's novelty single 'Oei Oei Oei (Dat Was Me Weer Een Loei)' peaked where in the Dutch charts?

When he arrived in Barcelona, Polydor's Spanish arm released it there too, where it did rather well.

Ajax's home stadium was renamed for Cruyff in 2018. What was it called before?

Barcelona's Estadi Johan Cruyff, opened in 2019 for the B team and women's side, also bears his name.

What are the 200-plus 'Cruyff Courts' the Johan Cruyff Foundation has built in 22 countries?

UEFA gave him its Grassroots Award when the 100th one opened in 2009.

Cruyff's father-in-law, Cor Coster, also acted as his what?

Cruyff married Danny Coster in 1968 at the age of 21, and she shaped his career decisions for the rest of his life.

Cruyff's Netherlands were beaten in the semi-final of Euro 1976 by which country?

The Dutch had treated the game as a warm-up for a rematch with the reigning world champions; Cruyff left before the third-place match for knee surgery.

The 1974 World Cup was the Netherlands' first appearance at the tournament for how many years?

Dutch football had been semi-professional and obscure until the Ajax generation of the late 1960s.

In his first match as Catalonia's manager in December 2009, Cruyff's side beat which nation 4–2 at the Camp Nou?

It was his first coaching job in 13 years; he also played for Catalonia himself in 1976.

Cruyff grew up in which neighbourhood, whose name means 'concrete village', five minutes from Ajax's old ground?

The area's architecture was described as brutalist; his father ran a vegetable shop and was an Ajax fan.

Which Ajax youth coach offered the ten-year-old Cruyff a place at the club without a formal trial?

He had noticed the boy playing on a neighbourhood playground.

After Cruyff's father died of a heart attack in 1959, his mother took what job at Ajax?

There she met the club caretaker Henk Angel, who became Cruyff's stepfather.

In the IFFHS World Player of the Century poll in 1999, Cruyff finished second behind whom?

The same body voted him European Player of the Century outright.

Which of these is a genuine Cruyff aphorism?

His sayings, known as Cruijffiaans, have filled bestselling books in the Netherlands.

Which Mexican club hired Cruyff as technical advisor in February 2012, only to sack him after nine months?

Owner Jorge Vergara had signed him to a three-year deal after a losing run in late 2011.