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

Johan Cruijff

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Johan Cruijff
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More quotes by Johan Cruijff

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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
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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.'
Johan Cruijff
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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
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Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.
Johan Cruijff
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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
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He has been outstanding. [Manuel] Neuer is an extraordinary goalkeeper, who would deserve to win it.
Johan Cruijff
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Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.
Johan Cruijff
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I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong
Johan Cruijff
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Johan Cruijff
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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
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Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.
Johan Cruijff
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Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.
Johan Cruijff
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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