60 Fun Facts About Johan Cruyff

Cruyff was the first player to win which award three times?

Ballon d'Or. Cruyff took it in 1971, 1973 and 1974, the last only months after his Dutch side had lost the World Cup final.

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

Number 14. The Dutch numbered their 1974 World Cup squad alphabetically, which would have given Cruyff the 1, but he kept his own shirt while goalkeeper Jan Jongbloed wore 8.

In which city was Cruyff born in April 1947?

Amsterdam. His parents ran a greengrocer's in the east of the city, a short walk from Ajax's ground, and the club enrolled him on his tenth birthday.

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

Baseball. He played catcher in Ajax's own baseball section, and later credited the sport with opening his mind to how space could be found on a football pitch.

Before paying a world-record fee for Cruyff in 1973, Barcelona first tried to sign which German striker?

Gerd Müller. Talks with the prolific forward collapsed, so Barcelona paid Ajax about six million guilders for Cruyff once Spain reopened its borders to foreign players.

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

Rinus Michels. A gym teacher for deaf children when Ajax hired him in 1965, he turned a semi-professional neighbourhood club into full-time professionals and European champions.

Which coach's famously relaxed regime brought Cruyff's Ajax the 1972 and 1973 European Cups?

Ștefan Kovács. The Romanian gave the squad far more freedom than his strict predecessor, and Cruyff filled the gap, taking a growing say in tactics and team selection.

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

Inter Milan. The Italians defended with their famous catenaccio system, and Ajax's one-sided win was hailed as proof that Total Football had overtaken it.

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

West Germany. Cruyff was fouled in the first minute and the Dutch scored the penalty before the hosts had touched the ball, yet they still lost 2–1.

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

Sweden. Cruyff shaped to pass, dragged the ball behind his standing leg and spun away from defender Jan Olsson, yet the match itself finished 0–0.

Which Dutch teammate scored the penalty Cruyff won in the first minute of the 1974 World Cup final?

Johan Neeskens. His penalty put the Dutch ahead before the hosts had touched the ball, and later that year he followed Cruyff to Barcelona, where fans called him Johan the Second.

In 2008 Cruyff gave what reason for having skipped the 1978 World Cup?

A kidnap attempt on his family. He said he and his wife were tied up at gunpoint in their Barcelona flat in 1977, and police guarded the family for months afterwards.

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

Be sent off. The Dutch FA banned him from the national side for months afterwards, yet left him free to keep playing for Ajax.

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

Puma. The Dutch kit came from arch-rival Adidas, whose three stripes Cruyff refused to advertise, so the federation let him alone wear two.

In which northern Dutch city did the 17-year-old Cruyff score on his Ajax first-team debut in 1964?

Groningen. Ajax lost 3–1 to local side GVAV despite his goal and ended that season just clear of relegation, the low point before the club's golden era.

After Cruyff's sacking by Barcelona in 1996, his footballer son left to join which English club?

Manchester United. His son collected a Premier League winner's medal there in 1997, but injuries held him to 36 league games in four years before he revived his career in Spain.

The short-passing style Cruyff brought to Barcelona as coach later became known by which nickname?

Tiki-taka. Spain built their national side around it and won the 2010 World Cup by beating a Dutch team whose rough tactics Cruyff himself condemned.

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

Gerrie Mühren. His own shirt had gone missing, so Cruyff, back from injury, handed him the 9 and pulled on a spare; Ajax won, and he kept the new number out of superstition.

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

Piet Keizer. The vote so stung Cruyff that he went straight to the telephone to set up a move to Barcelona, completed within weeks.

Which Catalan name, banned under Franco, did Cruyff give his son, born in 1974?

Jordi, the Catalan form of George, the region's patron saint. The birth was registered in the Netherlands, beyond the reach of Spanish officials, and Catalans read the choice as a show of support.

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

5–0. Cruyff scored once and ran the game, and thousands filled Barcelona's streets that night to celebrate it as a victory over Franco's Spain.

Cruyff's first season at Barcelona ended the club's wait of more than a decade for which trophy?

La Liga. Barcelona sat near the bottom when he made his debut that October, then went more than twenty league games unbeaten to become champions for the first time since 1960.

Real Madrid twice handed Cruyff's Barcelona the title by losing on the final day at which club?

Tenerife. Real needed to win there in both 1992 and 1993 and lost each time, the first after leading 2–0, to a side coached by their own former striker Jorge Valdano.

Cruyff's 1978 farewell match for Ajax was spoiled when which visiting club won 8–0?

Bayern Munich. The visitors, who felt badly treated by their hosts, played the testimonial in earnest instead of letting Cruyff bow out gently.

Long linked with the New York Cosmos, Cruyff instead signed in 1979 for which NASL club?

Los Angeles Aztecs. He had even played exhibition games for the Cosmos before that deal fell through, and in his single season in California he was voted the league's most valuable player.

Cruyff's acrobatic back-heeled goal in his first Barcelona season, dubbed the 'impossible goal', came against which club?

Atlético Madrid. He leapt, turned his back to goal and flicked the ball in with his heel past Miguel Reina, whose son Pepe later kept goal for Liverpool and Spain.

Which Spanish second-division club did the 33-year-old Cruyff join for ten injury-hit games in 1981?

Levante. Unfit and nursing injuries, he managed only ten games, the promotion push collapsed, and the club never paid him all it had promised.

Which relegation-threatened English club came close to signing the 33-year-old Cruyff early in 1981?

Leicester City. Manager Jock Wallace wanted Cruyff to keep his young side up and thought the deal close, but a late Spanish offer won out and Leicester went down.

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

Jesper Olsen. Cruyff rolled the penalty sideways to the Dane, who drew the Helmond Sport goalkeeper and passed back for a tap-in, a trick Rik Coppens had pulled for his country in 1957.

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

Feyenoord. Ajax's arch-rivals lost 8–2 away to his old club early that season, yet with Cruyff pulling the strings they still finished as champions and cup winners.

The Netherlands never lost an international in which Cruyff did what?

Scored. All 33 of his international goals came in wins or draws, and in the lost 1974 World Cup final he won a first-minute penalty, but a team-mate took it.

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

The Cup Winners' Cup. His young Ajax side beat Lokomotive Leipzig 1–0 in the final while Cruyff, who held no coaching diploma, was officially only the club's technical director.

Whose extra-time free kick won Barcelona their first European Cup, under Cruyff in 1992?

Ronald Koeman. The Dutch defender's strike settled a goalless final, and the side that won it became known as the Dream Team, after the US basketball squad at that summer's Barcelona Olympics.

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

Sampdoria. Barcelona had lost both of their earlier European Cup finals, but Cruyff's side had beaten this same Genoa club in another European final three years before.

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

AC Milan. Cruyff had called his side favourites and told them 'you're better than them', but the Italians' pressing smothered Barcelona's midfield from the first whistle.

Cruyff sent his players out with the words 'Salid y disfrutad' (go out and enjoy it) at which stadium in 1992?

Wembley. Defender Miguel Ángel Nadal recalled that the words took all the pressure off before the European Cup final, and they have been tied to that night ever since.

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

Rondos. A ring of players passes first time while one or two in the middle hunt the ball, and Cruyff built sessions on the drill to sharpen his side's quick passing.

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

Pep Guardiola. Cruyff moved the slight teenager into the heart of midfield and fast-tracked him into the first team, where he became the side's pivot.

Which Brazilian striker did Cruyff sign from PSV in 1993 to complete his Dream Team's attack?

Romário. He hit a hat-trick against Real Madrid and thirty league goals in his first season, then came back from winning the 1994 World Cup out of sorts and was sold within months.

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

Michael Laudrup. Left out of the 1994 final by Cruyff, he crossed to Real Madrid and helped them thrash his old club the very next season.

Which 1990 signing gave Cruyff's cerebral Barcelona the 'mala leche' (bad milk), or mean streak, it lacked?

Hristo Stoichkov. The Bulgarian was banned for two months for stamping on a referee's foot soon after arriving, yet still ended his first season as a league champion.

Which Barcelona vice-president did Cruyff call 'Judas' when he came to the dressing room to sack him in 1996?

Joan Gaspart. Cruyff raged that the president had not dared come himself, and the row grew so fierce that Gaspart threatened to call the police unless he left.

After heart surgery in 1991, Cruyff the coach swapped his touchline cigarettes for what?

Lollipops. A smoker since his teens, he quit after a double bypass, sucked Chupa Chups in the dugout instead and fronted a Catalan health campaign against tobacco.

Which future Arsenal forward did Cruyff hand an Ajax first-team debut as a 17-year-old in 1986?

Dennis Bergkamp. Cruyff sent him on against Roda JC that December and, five months later, brought him off the bench in a winning European final.

In February 2016 Cruyff said he felt '2–0 up in the first half' of his match against what?

Lung cancer. He added that he was sure he would win in the end, but the illness had already spread, and he died in Barcelona the following month.

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

An asteroid. Astronomers spotted the main-belt rock on Palomar Observatory plates in 1960, and the naming citation, half a century later, honours his charity work as well as his football.

In the 2004 'Greatest Dutchman' poll Cruyff came sixth, with which two painters completing the top ten behind him?

Rembrandt and Van Gogh, ninth and tenth. Pim Fortuyn was declared the winner on the night, but once every vote was counted William of Orange turned out to have had more.

Cruyff's Ajax won their first European Cup in 1971 by beating which Greek club in the final?

Panathinaikos. Coached by Ferenc Puskás, they lost the first leg of their semi-final 4–1 to Red Star Belgrade, then won 3–0 at home to reach the final on away goals.

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

Amsterdam ArenA. Calls to rename the ground began within days of his death in 2016, an agreement followed a year later, and the new name took effect for the 2018–19 season.

What are the 'Cruyff Courts' that the Johan Cruyff Foundation builds in neighbourhoods around the world?

Small street-football pitches. The Foundation builds them to give children a safe place to play outdoors, and UEFA gave Cruyff its Grassroots Award when the 100th opened in 2009.

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

Agent. Dutch players used to accept whatever the chairman offered, until Cruyff shocked Ajax by bringing Coster, a wealthy jeweller, into his pay talks.

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

Czechoslovakia. They won 3–1 after extra time against a Dutch side reduced to nine men, then took the title when Antonín Panenka chipped his famous penalty in the final.

Cruyff's Netherlands reached the 1974 World Cup, their first since 1938, by edging out which country on goal difference?

Belgium. Both meetings finished 0–0, so the Belgians went out on goal difference without conceding a single goal in the whole qualifying campaign.

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

Argentina. Catalonia, not a FIFA member and limited to a friendly or two a year, gave Cruyff his first coaching post since 1996, and he never lost a match in charge.

Cruyff grew up in which neighbourhood of 1920s concrete houses, five minutes from Ajax's old ground?

Betondorp, or 'concrete village', built in the 1920s as an experiment in cheap housing. When Cruyff died, mourners laid flowers at his childhood home there.

Whose header won Cruyff his first European trophy as a coach, against Lokomotive Leipzig in 1987?

Marco van Basten. The 22-year-old captain's header in Athens gave Ajax a first European trophy in fourteen years, and that summer he left for Italy.

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

Cleaner. The family greengrocer's could not survive without his father, so his mother cleaned at the stadium, where she later married one of the ground staff.

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

Pelé. Diego Maradona came only fifth in that vote, yet in 2000 FIFA split its own award between the two after Maradona won the internet poll and Pelé the jury's vote.

Which of these football sayings is Cruyff's?

'Every disadvantage has its advantage' is Cruyff's. His paradoxical one-liners, known as Cruijffiaans, have passed into everyday Dutch speech; the other three sayings here are Sepp Herberger's.

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

Guadalajara. The club known as Chivas, which fields only Mexican players, hired him after a winless run, but he rarely visited the city and was dismissed when results failed to improve.