Johan Cruijff Quotes

YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY AND RESULTS. RESULTS WITHOUT QUALITY IS BORING; QUALITY WITHOUT RESULTS IS MEANINGLESS.

Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.

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.

I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.

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.

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.

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.'

In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.

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.

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.

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.

I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong

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.

There is only one ball, so you need to have it.

The ball is an essential part of the game.

In a way I'm probably immortal.

When you're playing against a team that has two great central defenders, the best option is to play without a striker.

I felt sorry for the match ball - it came off the pitch crying.

We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.

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.

Football is simple, you're either on time, or you're too late. If you're too late then you have to leave earlier.

Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.

Football is about making mistakes. Who makes the most, loses the game.

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.

The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.

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.

If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball

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.

Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.

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."

It's all very simple: if you score one more than your opponent, you win.

The most difficult thing about an easy match is to make a weak opponent play bad football.

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.