Johan Cruijff Quotations

You have got to shoot, otherwise you can't score.

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

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.

Sometimes something's got to happen before something is going to happen.

Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.

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.

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.

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

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

Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.

To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent

Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.

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

Before I made a mistake, I did not make that mistake.

I still have a lot of room for improvement.

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.

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.

There is only one ball, so you need to have it.

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.

Surviving the first round is never my aim. Ideally, I'd be in one group with Brazil, Argentina and Germany. Then I'd have lost two rivals after the first round. That's how I think. Idealisitic.

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

To play well, you need good players, but a good player almost always has the problem of a lack of efficiency. He always wants to do things prettier than strictly necessary.

What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster.

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

The most difficult thing about an easy match is to make a weak opponent play bad football.

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

Coincidence is logical.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

You know I don't think there will ever be a time when the English player is not respected, and feared, across the world of football. The English footballer is very brave and strong and committed and there is always enough high-class players in his team to cause concern in any opponent. It is a national characteristic.

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

Without the ball, you can't win.

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

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.

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

We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.

When you're playing against a team that has two great central defenders, the best option is to play without a striker.

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

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

The ball is an essential part of the game.

There are very few players who know what to do when they're not marked. So sometimes you tell a player: that attacker is very good, but don't mark him.

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.

Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United.

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.

Italy cannot beat you but you can lose to Italy.

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

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

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

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)

The fun part of golf is the variety of shots. In football you can do anything with a ball, but you can do anything with a golf ball as well. When you hit a shot and the ball does exactly what you want it to do ... that's wonderful. It's just great when you hit the ball well. You should always try not to make the ball cry.

Why couldn't you beat a richer club? I've never seen a bag of money score a goal.

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

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.

Playing against 10 is harder than playing against 11 players. You know why? The team with 11 will think "ok, we can take it easy now", while the team with 10 will think "We really have to work hard now."

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

YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY AND RESULTS. RESULTS WITHOUT QUALITY IS BORING; QUALITY WITHOUT RESULTS IS MEANINGLESS.

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.

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.'

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

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.

In a way I'm probably immortal.

Every advantage has its disadvantage.

The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.

The hardest thing about an easy match is making a weak opponent play poor. A poor player isn't poor because he tends to kick the ball in his own goal. It's because when you put intense pressure on him, he loses control. So you have to increase the tempo of the game and he'll automatically give the ball away.

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

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.

Every disadvantage has its advantage.

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.

When you play a match, it is statistically proven that players actually have the ball 3 minutes on average ... So, the most important thing is: what do you do during those 87 minutes when you do not have the ball. That is what determines wether you're a good player or not.

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

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

Football is a game you play with your brain

There’s only one moment in which you can arrive in time. If you’re not there, you’re either too early or too late.

Players that aren't true leaders but try to be, always bash other players after a mistake. True leaders on the pitch already assume others will make mistakes.

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 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.

There's not one club in Europe with an anthem like You'll Never Walk Alone. There's not one club in the world so united with their fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team. That's something not many teams have. For that I admire Liverpool more than anything.