The legend of legends
Cruyff played for several clubs during his career, but his best years were spent at Ajax and Barcelona. Winner of the Ballon d'Or in 1971, 1973, and 1974, he collected a huge number of trophies and became the symbol of so-called Total Football under the iconic coach Rinus Michels. Since his club achievements are well known to the public, the following lines will focus on his international career - a chapter that was far less dazzling.
The poor relative
Oranje have long been among the wider circle of favourites at World Cups and European Championships. They are a national team you can never count out. But that certainly wasn’t always the case. Before Cruyff’s generation, the Netherlands were not considered a football powerhouse and had only limited success at major tournaments.
The Dutch, for example, failed to qualify for the World Cup in 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, 1966, and 1970, and they also played no significant role at European tournaments. International football was dominated by countries like Brazil, Italy, Germany, and England, while the Netherlands were seen as an outsider.
Total Football
The situation began to change at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, when an exceptionally talented generation of players emerged around Cruyff. Under coach Rinus Michels, the team started playing a modern and highly dynamic style known as Total Football. This system was based on constant movement, positional interchange, and collective pressing. On the pitch, Cruyff was the main orchestrator - he could control the tempo, create chances, and finish attacks.
Cruyff’s influence also lay in changing the Oranje's overall mentality. With him as captain, they had a natural leader who demanded high technical standards and played with a confident, even audacious style, even against football’s giants. His contribution helped shape the identity of Dutch football, emphasising creativity and attractive play.
The golden age of this revolution came at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. With Cruyff, the Netherlands reached the final, where they fell short against the hosts. Nevertheless, the team won worldwide admiration. Cruyff scored three goals and provided three assists, earning him the award for the tournament’s best player.
He played a total of 48 matches for the national team, scoring 33 goals, and perhaps the most telling statistic is that the Oranjes never lost a match in which Cruyff scored. At Euro 1976 in Yugoslavia, they finished third, but their biggest star missed the final match as he was awaiting knee surgery.
The tournament, meanwhile, became a golden chapter in Czechoslovak football history, as Vaclav Jezek’s team first beat the Dutch 3-1 in the semifinals and then defeated West Germany in the final.
An end shadowed by fear
Although the title still eluded them, the Dutch were optimistic - the national team had become a nightmare for any defence. Yet in 1977, just a year before the World Cup in Argentina, Cruyff decided to retire from international football, even though he had helped the Netherlands qualify for the tournament.
Speculation immediately followed. Some said it was a silent political protest, since Argentina was under a dictatorship at the time; others claimed his wife persuaded him not to go. There were also rumours of a dispute with the federation over financial bonuses. Cruyff finally broke his silence in 2008, revealing in an interview that the real reason for his absence was an attempted kidnapping of his family in Barcelona a year before the World Cup.
Several criminals broke into his home and, at gunpoint, tied him and his wife up. Their children had to witness the whole ordeal. In the end, he managed to escape. The exact details of the escape are not well documented, as Cruyff himself never fully explained them. However, this incident changed his outlook on life, and he decided not to travel to the World Cup.
"The children went to school accompanied by police. Officers slept at our house for three or four months. I went to matches with a bodyguard. All these things change your perspective on many things. In life, there are moments when other values come to the fore," he revealed. He later left Barcelona as well.
What if?
Without their biggest star, the Dutch still made it to the final, where they again lost to the host nation - this time Argentina. To this day, many in the Netherlands believe that if Cruyff had played, the team would have returned home as world champions. By the way, the Netherlands are still waiting for their first World Cup win...
"If he had played, we could have won the World Cup. We would have been stronger with him. I think people were very disappointed he didn’t go," journalist Maarten Wijffels said years later.
The story of Johan Cruyff shows that even undying football fame does not guarantee a happy and peaceful life. On the contrary, it can bring its own challenges.
