RIP TO THE CREATOR OF TIKI-TAKA PASS AND MOVE

God's gift to football: Cruyff was the supreme artist in the Dutch renaissance of Total Football... he helped re-imagine the game

• Dutch legend Johan Cruyff died on Thursday, aged 68, after cancer battle
• The Holland and Barcelona legend was a pioneer of 'Total Football'
• Cruyff enjoyed great success as a player and later as a manager too

Everything Cruyff did was deceptively languid. As Arsenal had discovered while being hung, drawn and quarter-finalled as he and Ajax began closing in on their first European Cup glory. The talk was of Total Football. Rudi Krol was standing with us and they were explaining the rudiments of the fluency of movement and fantasy of the intellect which was beginning to enchant us all.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF JOHAN CRUYFF 

Quality without results is pointless. Results without quality is boring.

Before I make a mistake, I make sure I don’t make that mistake.

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 metres with my left and 20 with my right. My qualities, technique and vision, aren’t detectable by computer.

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.

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

If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.

When you play a match, it is statistically proven that players actually have the ball three 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 determines whether you’re a good player.

Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1,000 times. Anyone can do that by practising. Then you can work in a circus.

I always took throw-ins because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.

If you have the ball you must make the field as big as possible. If you don’t have it, you must make it as small as possible.

The press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone, I seem faster.

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.

I’m not religious. In Spain all 22 players make the sign of the cross before they enter the pitch. If it works all matches must end in a draw.