Johan Cruyff is probably the single most influential figure in the history of world football. He is one of the most celebrated players of all time and enjoyed a successful career on the coach’s bench after his playing days were over. From the sidelines, he reinforced or introduced fresh ideas about football. Without Cruyffismo, the precise outline of which can never be fixed because this blurred lack of definition is part of its dynamics, there would have been no Guardiola, no Messi, no Barcelona 2010/2011, no Argentine World Champions in 2022.
 
For almost 50 years, from his ascent to the throne at Ajax in the mid-1960s until his death in 2016, Johan Cruyff was one of football’s great public figures. Whenever he was playing, coaching, or thinking, he was also speaking, establishing a Cruyffian Philosophy. This philosophy is so much more than a system or a game model; it’s a football cosmography without equal, which provides support and underpinning to his system, which defines his style and provides answers to some of the most difficult questions about the game.
 
This philosophy has never been fully articulated in a single theoretical doctrine. The whirlwind that Cruyff unleashed on the pitch has been reproduced off it, a whirlwind that did not necessarily allow classification, systematization, or full categorization.
 
This book is driven by enormous ambition. For almost half a century, Cruyff spoke in public about his way of understanding the game, but also about technique, tactics, football pedagogy, and his preoccupation with player development. He praised other players and coaches, and he was praised much more than he was criticized. He left a fabulous legacy, but no one can point to any one book on the topic and argue that “Cruyff’s teachings are summarized here”. Despite this, his philosophy does exist. It is tangible and available to be studied and even immersed in. This book aims to systematize this philosophy through the statements Cryuff himself has made throughout his lifetime and invites the reader to come along on this adventure.