Top 55 Johan Cruijff Sayings
#1. Italy cannot beat you but you can lose to Italy.
Johan Cruijff
#2. The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.
Johan Cruijff
#4. If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.
Johan Cruijff
#6. Football is a simple game. It's just very hard to play it simple.
Johan Cruijff
#8. I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
Johan Cruijff
#9. Football is simple. You are in time or too late. When you are too late, you should start sooner.
Johan Cruijff
#10. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#11. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#12. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#13. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#14. I felt sorry for the match ball - it came off the pitch crying.
Johan Cruijff
#15. What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster.
Johan Cruijff
#16. When you're playing against a team that has two great central defenders, the best option is to play without a striker.
Johan Cruijff
#17. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#18. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#20. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#21. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#23. 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)
Johan Cruijff
#24. Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.
Johan Cruijff
#25. Football is about making mistakes. Who makes the most, loses the game.
Johan Cruijff
#26. If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball
Johan Cruijff
#27. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#28. Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.
Johan Cruijff
#29. Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United.
Johan Cruijff
#30. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#31. Eric Cantona is a great player, but he's not as good as Ryan Giggs
Johan Cruijff
#32. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#33. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#34. He has been outstanding. [Manuel] Neuer is an extraordinary goalkeeper, who would deserve to win it.
Johan Cruijff
#35. Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.
Johan Cruijff
#36. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#37. It's all very simple: if you score one more than your opponent, you win.
Johan Cruijff
#38. I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong
Johan Cruijff
#39. There is only one ball, so you need to have it.
Johan Cruijff
#40. We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.
Johan Cruijff
#41. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#42. Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.
Johan Cruijff
#43. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#44. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#45. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#46. 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."
Johan Cruijff
#47. It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man's vision.
Johan Cruijff
#48. Why couldn't you beat a richer club? I've never seen a bag of money score a goal.
Johan Cruijff
#49. Actually I never make a mistake, because it takes a huge effort for me to make a mistake.
Johan Cruijff
#50. The most difficult thing about an easy match is to make a weak opponent play bad football.
Johan Cruijff
#51. 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.
Johan Cruijff
#52. YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY AND RESULTS. RESULTS WITHOUT QUALITY IS BORING; QUALITY WITHOUT RESULTS IS MEANINGLESS.
Johan Cruijff
#53. If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.
Johan Cruijff
#54. In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.
Johan Cruijff
#55. Football is simple, you're either on time, or you're too late. If you're too late then you have to leave earlier.
Johan Cruijff
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