Best 76 quotes of Johan Cruijff on MyQuotes

A counter-attack can only arise when you make a mistake. That's why there are rules. A horizontal pass? Prohibited. In my line-up there are as many lines as possible. Because you must have the option to pass the ball forward, even if it's a meter. Because then I can still make up for the loss of possession. After a horizontal pass this is impossible.

Actually I never make a mistake, because it takes a huge effort for me to make a mistake.

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.

Before I make a mistake, I don't make that mistake.

Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.

Coincidence is logical.

Every disadvantage has its advantage.

Eric Cantona is a great player, but he's not as good as Ryan Giggs

Every advantage has its disadvantage.

Every professional golfer has a seperate coach for his drives, for approaches, for putting. In football we have one coach for 15 players. This is absurd.

Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.

Football is about making mistakes. Who makes the most, loses the game.

Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.

Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.

Football is a simple game. It's just very hard to play it simple.

Football is simple. You are in time or too late. When you are too late, you should start sooner.

Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.

Football is simple, you're either on time, or you're too late. If you're too late then you have to leave earlier.

For the world of football, Messi is a treasure because he is role model for children around the world.

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.

He deserves ten out of ten for doing what he does. He is a sensation, but still he can improve. He must know when to move the ball on quickly and when to try the impossible mission. When he learns this, he won't win a single Golden Ball, but an entire collection.

He has been outstanding. [Manuel] Neuer is an extraordinary goalkeeper, who would deserve to win it.

However good an English team is, they will always have an additional advantage. It is that European players know that their English opponents will come at them in the belief they will win, and they can always be guaranteed never to stop fighting. They have a natural aggression that they are born with. If it ever goes, English football will lose its most valuable dimension.

I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.

I can be a new Di Stefano, but I can't be a new Pelé. He is the one that goes beyond the limits of logic.

I don't make a lot of mistakes, because it's hard for me to be wrong

I don't want to be a thief of my own wallet.

I felt sorry for the match ball - it came off the pitch crying.

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 meters with my left and maybe 20 with my right. My qualities technique and vision, are not detectable by a computer.

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

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.'

If you can't win, make sure you don't lose.

If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball

If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.

I look at Messi, and he makes me laugh. A beautiful footballer who is still like a kid. A world superstar, but still a kid. Innocent, you know. He just plays.

I'm ex-player, ex-technical director, ex-coach, ex-manager, ex-honorary president. A nice list that once again shows that everything comes to an end.

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 therefore end in a draw.

In a way I'm probably immortal.

In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.

In small space a player has to be capable of acting quickly. A good player who needs too much time can suddenly become a poor player.

I still have a lot of room for improvement.

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)

Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.

Italy cannot beat you but you can lose to Italy.

It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man's vision.

It's all very simple: if you score one more than your opponent, you win.

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.

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.

One trophy is good, but two are better. That way, when a hero wears his medals on his chest, at least his steps are level as he walks by.

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.