All great things come to an end.
RIP.
My favourite player never to play for SFC
Also the most influential figure in my time as a fan. All the great teams Iāve known - Ajax of the early 1970s, Milan of the late 80s and Barca of 2009-date had a Dutch influence that was essentially derived from Cruyff
The Italians taught the world how to eat, black Americans how to sing and play music - but the Dutch us how to play football
And I was there - in the Barca end - for this:
RIP
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Top post there, SO5. One thing that stands out in the first video was the sheer number of tackles (many if not most of them fouls) that Cruyff simply rode. Nowadays a lot of those would be given as fouls (and rightly so, looking at those uncontrolled lunges), but itās clear enough that the only time Cruyff ever hit the deck was when he really couldnāt do anything else.
A personal (and shared, depending on your memory 
) recollection - the only time Iāve seen Cruyff play in the flesh. Itās said of certian players in team sports that people would pay just to watch them - this was certainly true of Cruyff, as I remember going to a UEFA cup match at White Hart Lane in 1983 purely because Cruyff would be playing for Feyenoord. Spurs were the better team by far, and won 6-3, but Cruyff, even at the age of 36, still showed more sheer class than anyone else on the pitch. He scored one of his teamās goals, shimmying through the Spurs defence before sending the keeper the wrong way and slotting the ball home. Genius. At 36 he couldnāt keep that up for a whole match, which was just as well for Spurs really.