Johan Cruijff

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

Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.

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

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.

Someone who has juggled the ball in the air during a game, after which four defenders of the opponent get the time to run back, that's the player people think is great. I say he has to go to a circus.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.