CRUYFF, the incarnation of 'Total Football'

It was during a group stage match against Sweden at the 1974 World Cup in Germany that Johan Cruyff unveiled the move that would come to bear his name.

Finding his route blocked by Swedish rightback Jan Olsson on Holland's left flank, Cruyff made as if to play the ball infield, only to drag the ball behind his standing leg with his right foot and race off towards the touchline, leaving his bewildered opponent floundering in his wake.

"I played 18 years in top football and 17 times for Sweden, but that moment against Cruyff was the proudest moment of my career," Olsson told British writer David Winner in the 2000 book Brilliant Orange.

"I thought I'd win the ball for sure, but he tricked me. I was not humiliated. I had no chance. Cruyff was a genius."

An idea that had sprung from Cruyff's imagination left observers open-mouthed and like so many of the things that he introduced to the game, the 'Cruyff Turn' became a soccer staple.

Cruyff, who died from lung cancer aged 68 on Thursday, was a balletic, dazzlingly elegant player who came to embody the brilliant Ajax and Dutch teams of the mid-1970s.

Together with visionary coach Rinus Michels, he popularized the concept of 'Total Football' - a fluid playing system based on aggressive pressing, swarming attacks and positional interchanging that seemed to depend on an almost telepathic understanding between players.

Cruyff, given licence to roam from his nominal position as center forward, was the on-pitch conductor, calculating angles, cajoling his teammates into position and launching vertiginous dribbles into opposition territory with the ball at his feet.

The former Times sportswriter David Miller dubbed him "Pythagoras in Boots".

The 1974 World Cup was Cruyff's finest hour and although the Dutch fell short in pursuit of glory, losing 2-1 to West Germany in the final, he took immense solace from the plaudits his team had earned.

Number 14

"I don't go through life cursing the fact that I didn't win a World Cup," he once said.

"I played in a fantastic team that gave millions of people watching a great time. That's what football is all about.

"There is no better medal than being acclaimed for your style."

A child of the 1960s, Cruyff also boasted a personal style that transcended soccer, with his long brown hair and irreverent pronouncements turning him into the game's first counter-cultural icon.

He insisted on wearing the No 14 shirt, despite starting players usually wearing 1-11.

He was no less distinctive as a coach, firstly with Ajax and then Barcelona - a beige trenchcoat cloaking his slender frame, a cigarette dangling from his lips (to be replaced by a lollipop after he underwent open-heart surgery in 1991).

He met with only moderate success as a player at Barcelona, but as coach he sparked a revolution, creating the club's feted La Masia youth academy and laying the foundations for the modern superclub we know today.

"Johan Cruyff painted the chapel and Barcelona coaches since have merely restored or improved it," said Pep Guardiola, the midfield fulcrum of Cruyff's Barcelona 'Dream Team' and later the coach of the club's finest ever side.

(China Daily 03/26/2016 page12)