JOHAN CRUYFF

1964- 73, 1981- 83 GAMES 369 CLUB AJAX

BEFORE Ajax were a founding member of the Eredivisie in 1956, but a pretty scruffy, semi- professional club almost a decade later. The Netherlands had never won a match at the World Cup, let alone come close to offering a side capable of winning the European Cup.

LEGACY Cruyff was the talisman of Total Football and one of football’s first genuine superstars. Ajax don’t just owe three European Cup triumphs to him, but their identity as a whole. There’s a good reason their home is now named after the Amsterdam native.

There was no Dutch style before the gangly forward first took to the field: back then, the Oranje were a third- rate footballing nation. But there were eccentric Englishmen with lofty ambitions. Ex- New Brompton ( now Gillingham) winger Jack Reynolds brought the idea of fluid movement to Amsterdam in three spells as manager, Keith Spurgeon taught Cruyff English, while former Tottenham defender Vic Buckingham gave the talented 17- year- old his debut against GVAV ( now Groningen) in 1964.

AJAX DON’T JUST OWE THREE EUROPEAN CUP WINS TO CRUYFF, BUT THEIR WHOLE IDENTITY

Under Rinus Michels, however, Cruyff fully realised his extraordinary potential and led Ajax to six league titles in just eight seasons. He was Michels’ general on the pitch: dictating play, motivating team- mates, but also by far the most gifted footballer.

“He was my childhood hero, at the heart of a revolution,” Eric Cantona once told FFT. “Ajax changed football and he was the leader of it all. If he wanted, he could be the best player in any position on the pitch.”

Cruyff left Ajax for Barcelona in 1973 and won La Liga in his first season. He wasn’t the inventor of Total Football, nor the coach who perfected it – but he was its enduring, influential icon. Both Ajax and Barça’s youth academies still educate their starlets in his image.

BEST MOMENT In one of his last appearances for the club, Cruyff captained Ajax to a third successive European Cup win. “The most abiding image is not of him scoring,” David Winner notes in Brilliant Orange. “It is of him pointing. He seemed like a conductor directing a symphony orchestra.”