Ajaxtalk

Kowalczyk schreef:Having said the above...

The Purple Cow schreef:Cruijff was one of the top 10 best players of all time, and a reasonably successful coach, but let's not get carried away here.

... I have to disagree on this one.

As a player Johan Cruijff made Ajax and Barcelona huge out of absolutely nowhere in the 1970s. Some fifteen years later he did the same thing for both clubs as a coach, in both cases after a very, very long and bad slump that (at both clubs) pretty much started when he left as a player.

After 14 years of total European misery, Cruijff returned to Ajax and gave them European Cup Winners Cup of 1987, Ajax's first European trophy since 1973.

Then he moved on to Barcelona, his second love. The club couldn't even see Real Madrid from where they were at the time, but under Johan Cruijff they won the European Cup Winners Cup, the Spanish league and, finally, the Champions League. And off Johan went.

A very brief coaching career, but one that definitively made him a saint and a legend in both Amsterdam and Barcelona. He did it as a player, disappeared for fourteen (yup...) years or so, walked back into the door as a coach... and did it again. Magic.

It was, in fact, so magical and unique that Cruijff's sense of responsibility evaporated overnight. His reputation as a player and as a coach was now so mythical that he could only sustain damage in a new job. Ever since, he's been pulling strings at all three of his beloved teams (Ajax, Oranje, Barça) from a distance, in an unofficial, 'outsider' kind of way. He expects the people in charge of 'his' three teams to listen to him and do as he says, but whenever they offer him a real position he always turns them down.

Because of this he will - at the end of the day - end up below a man like Franz Beckenbauer on the list of all-time greats in football: their careers have many similarities (replace 'Ajax and Barça' with 'Bayern München' and 'Oranje' with 'Die Mannschaft'), but unlike Cruijff Beckenbauer has never walked away from his responsibility. He (succesfully) coached Bayern when the club needed him, and became their president. He coached the national team and won the World Cup again. He accepted the role of 'figure head' when Germany hosted the World Cup last summer.

Painful but true: Cruijff was perhaps more of a creative genius as a player, but Beckenbauer is a greater man in football, simply because Cruijff lacks the guts and always walks away (one of the reasons, if you ask me: Beckenbauer is a genuinely intelligent person, whereas Cruijff is 'streetwise' more than anything else).

But in my opinion you can't judge Johan Cruijff, as a coach, on the jobs that he did not accept. The only thing you can blame him for, is the fact that - as a coach - he was like a football player that scores three goals in his first game and another three in his second - and then quits his career, so that he can forever say that he used to net three goals per game on average...

Kowalczyk schreef:Interesting proposition. I agree 100%!

K.

aveslacker schreef:

aveslacker schreef:

Kowalczyk schreef:Interesting proposition. I agree 100%!

K.

Agree. I wouldn't mind seeing him coach Ajax again, not that this is going to happen. But if he has no official role with the club, then he should bugger off and be a tv commentator or something.

If he accepts an official role with the club, great. But he won't because he doesn't want to risk ruining his mythical status.

bryan schreef:These are they key Cruijff influenced club decisions I can remember off the top of my head:

- Getting Morten Olsen forced out.
- Getting Co Adriaanse forced out.
- Getting Danny Blind appointed.

All three were stupid.

De Dominee schreef:Next one is coming up: Van Basten as our new coach.

Manneken Pis schreef:

De Dominee schreef:Next one is coming up: Van Basten as our new coach.

Yup, after the "beautiful football" he's got Holland playing...

Manneken Pis schreef:Er ... technically speaking, is this J.C.'s "fourth" coming?

aveslacker schreef:

Manneken Pis schreef:Er ... technically speaking, is this J.C.'s "fourth" coming?

Truth be told, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is nice to see Cruijff actually put his money where his mouth his and do something instead of just yapping off from the sidelines. Also, it is nice to see Ajax taking action on the Coronel report's recommendations -- they're revamping their structure, putting clear lines of authority in place, and the board is resigning. That's a positive. And Cruijff does have managerial experience, as well as some concept of how to find talent.

On the other hand, it looks like he's going to bring MvB back with him as well. I have my doubts about MvB's ability to coach a team, to be sure. I'm sure Ajax fans will be so overjoyed with this move that they will be willing to put up with defensive football in a 442 formation. No matter what, MvB can't do it any worse than guys like Koeman, Blind or Wouters.

I can see it going either way: the two geniuses (and great Ajax men) combine to restore Ajax to something approaching its former glory, or their oversized egos attack one another and explode, destroying the entire city of Amsterdam, with nothing but a smoldering hole in the ground left behind.

bryan schreef:Cruijff is quoted in the Parool newspaper as saying that he doesn't want a position at the club at all, technical or otherwise, but that he just wants to tell everyone how things should be done.

Kowalczyk schreef:
As a coach of Barcelona he was talking to the Spanish press one day (in Spanish, obviously) and he suddenly used the expression en un momento dado, which is a very literal translation of that Dutch expression. It does not exist in Spanish. Everyone was fascinated by it, because it has some sort of a mystical sound to it: it means something like 'at a moment that is given to you'. So, without being aware of it, Cruyff accomplished the exact same thing he always accomplishes in Dutch: he invented a new expression that was actually a linguistic error, but somehow sounded like a kind of 'Higher Truth'. Students and intellectuals immediately adopted the expression and it is now a standard expression in Barcelona. Which is great, as a number of 'Cruyffisms' has also been 'officially' integrated in Dutch. The man's a wizard with words and a poet without even being aware of it.

:worshippy: ;)

K.

bryan schreef:Cruijff is quoted in the Parool newspaper as saying that he doesn't want a position at the club at all, technical or otherwise, but that he just wants to tell everyone how things should be done.

Cedric_AeF schreef:

bryan schreef:Cruijff is quoted in the Parool newspaper as saying that he doesn't want a position at the club at all, technical or otherwise, but that he just wants to tell everyone how things should be done.

This is not really surprising when you read that he was only "asked to give shape to the football-technical policy of Ajax". I do think it's only a short term job, or at best, a kind of "technical advisor"....