Johan Cruyff Trivia
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60 free Johan Cruyff trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Johan Cruyff trivia covers a player who changed how football is thought about twice: once with his feet at Ajax and Barcelona, and again from the dugout, where his rondos, three-at-the-back and small, clever midfielders became the template for Guardiola's Barcelona and Spain's tiki-taka. He was a chain-smoking Amsterdam street kid who won three Ballons d'Or, invented a turn that still carries his name, walked out on the 1978 World Cup, went bankrupt on a pig farm, and then rebuilt his career in American soccer. This quiz runs from Betondorp and the De Meer stadium through the three straight European Cups, the world-record move to Barcelona and the 5-0 at the Bernabéu, the Cruyff Turn against Sweden and the lost 1974 final, the Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats, the passed penalty with Jesper Olsen, the Feyenoord double, and then his managerial years: the 1987 Cup Winners' Cup, the Dream Team, Wembley 1992, Athens 1994 and the chair-smashing sacking of 1996. It finishes with the asteroid, the Cruyff Courts and the aphorisms. Easy questions suit anyone who has heard of Total Football; the expert tier is for people who know who was wearing the number 9 shirt when he switched. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Cruyff, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Cruyff was the first player to win which award three times?
Ballon d'Or
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.
Q 02Which shirt number did Cruyff make famous at Ajax and with the Netherlands?
Number 14
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.
Q 03In which city was Cruyff born in April 1947?
Amsterdam
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.
Q 04Which sport did the young Cruyff prefer to football until his coaches made him quit it at fifteen?
Baseball
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.
Q 05Before paying a world-record fee for Cruyff in 1973, Barcelona first tried to sign which German striker?
Gerd Müller
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.
Q 06Which Ajax coach, nicknamed 'De Generaal', developed Total Football with Cruyff?
Rinus Michels
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.
Q 07Which coach's famously relaxed regime brought Cruyff's Ajax the 1972 and 1973 European Cups?
Ștefan Kovács
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.
Q 08Cruyff scored both goals in the 1972 European Cup final as Ajax beat which club 2–0?
Inter Milan
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.
Q 09Which country beat Cruyff's Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup final?
West Germany
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.
Q 10Against which team at the 1974 World Cup did Cruyff perform the move now known as the 'Cruyff Turn'?
Sweden
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.
Q 11Which Dutch teammate scored the penalty Cruyff won in the first minute of the 1974 World Cup final?
Johan Neeskens
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.
Q 12In 2008 Cruyff gave what reason for having skipped the 1978 World Cup?
A kidnap attempt on his family
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.
Q 13In only his second international, a 1966 friendly, Cruyff became the first Dutch player to do what?
Q 21In February 1974 Cruyff's Barcelona won away at Real Madrid's Bernabéu by what score?
5–0
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.
Q 22Cruyff's first season at Barcelona ended the club's wait of more than a decade for which trophy?
La Liga
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.
Q 23Real Madrid twice handed Cruyff's Barcelona the title by losing on the final day at which club?
Tenerife
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.
Be sent off
Be sent off. The Dutch FA banned him from the national side for months afterwards, yet left him free to keep playing for Ajax.
Q 14Cruyff's Netherlands shirt had only two sleeve stripes because of his deal with which brand?
Puma
Puma. The Dutch kit came from arch-rival Adidas, whose three stripes Cruyff refused to advertise, so the federation let him alone wear two.
Q 15In which northern Dutch city did the 17-year-old Cruyff score on his Ajax first-team debut in 1964?
Groningen
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.
Q 16After Cruyff's sacking by Barcelona in 1996, his footballer son left to join which English club?
Manchester United
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.
Q 17The short-passing style Cruyff brought to Barcelona as coach later became known by which nickname?
Tiki-taka
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.
Q 18Cruyff first wore his famous number in October 1970 because which teammate had his usual number 9?
Gerrie Mühren
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.
Q 19In 1973 Ajax's players voted to hand Cruyff's captaincy to which teammate, prompting his exit?
Piet Keizer
Piet Keizer. The vote so stung Cruyff that he went straight to the telephone to set up a move to Barcelona, completed within weeks.
Q 20Which Catalan name, banned under Franco, did Cruyff give his son, born in 1974?
Jordi
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.
Q 24Cruyff's 1978 farewell match for Ajax was spoiled when which visiting club won 8–0?
Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich. The visitors, who felt badly treated by their hosts, played the testimonial in earnest instead of letting Cruyff bow out gently.
Q 25Long linked with the New York Cosmos, Cruyff instead signed in 1979 for which NASL club?
Los Angeles Aztecs
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.
Q 26Cruyff's acrobatic back-heeled goal in his first Barcelona season, dubbed the 'impossible goal', came against which club?
Atlético Madrid
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.
Q 27Which Spanish second-division club did the 33-year-old Cruyff join for ten injury-hit games in 1981?
Levante
Levante. Unfit and nursing injuries, he managed only ten games, the promotion push collapsed, and the club never paid him all it had promised.
Q 28Which relegation-threatened English club came close to signing the 33-year-old Cruyff early in 1981?
Leicester City
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.
Q 29In 1982, Cruyff took a penalty by passing sideways to which teammate, who returned it for a tap-in?
Jesper Olsen
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.
Q 30After Ajax refused to extend his contract in 1983, Cruyff won a league-and-cup double with which club?
Feyenoord
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.