Top 67 Quotes & Sayings by Johan Cruijff
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Dutch soccer player Johan Cruijff.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
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.
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.
Why couldn't you beat a richer club? I've never seen a bag of money score a goal.
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.
Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.
If you can't win, make sure you don't lose.
Mourinho is a coach of titles, not football. Or rather, not a football coach if we understand the sport is a spectacle or entertainment for those who watch it, either at home or live in the stadium.
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.
What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster.
The ball is an essential part of the game.
I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong
YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY AND RESULTS. RESULTS WITHOUT QUALITY IS BORING; QUALITY WITHOUT RESULTS IS MEANINGLESS.
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.
I can be a new Di Stefano, but I can't be a new Pelé. He is the one that goes beyond the limits of logic.
It's all very simple: if you score one more than your opponent, you win.
In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.
We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.
I still have a lot of room for improvement.
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.
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.
Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.
Italians can never win from you, but you can lose to them.
(when asked about Ajax's chances in the 1995 Champs League final against AC Milan)
If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is only one ball, so you need to have it.
The hardest thing about an easy match is making a weak opponent play poor. A poor player isn't poor because he tends to kick the ball in his own goal. It's because when you put intense pressure on him, he loses control. So you have to increase the tempo of the game and he'll automatically give the ball away.
Italy cannot beat you but you can lose to Italy.
The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.
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.
Every advantage has its disadvantage.
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.
If my forward arrives in a one vs one situation, I always say: 'let him work it out.' Then my players say: But we can help him!'. My reply is: First, there's a good chance you'll only run in his way, and as a second attacker you're drawing a second defender with you, and two vs two is harder than one vs one.'
He has been outstanding. [Manuel] Neuer is an extraordinary goalkeeper, who would deserve to win it.
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.
In a way I'm probably immortal.
Football is simple, you're either on time, or you're too late. If you're too late then you have to leave earlier.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.
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.
Every trainer talks about movement, about running a lot. I say don't run so much. Football is a game you play with your brain. You have to be in the right place at the right moment, not too early, not too late.
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."
Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.
If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.
If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.
Often you see people who move there and then, once they have arrived, the ball moves here after which they also come here, but then the ball goes there again. I say: just stay where you are, then you are in any case at the right place half of the time.
I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
Football is about making mistakes. Who makes the most, loses the game.
When you're playing against a team that has two great central defenders, the best option is to play without a striker.
The most difficult thing about an easy match is to make a weak opponent play bad football.
It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man's vision.
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.
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.
To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent
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.
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