Customer Reviews

Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff

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Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff is one of my favourite football books. It's fascinating to read Cruijff's opinions on football. They're so clear - he gets across in a sentence more than you'll ever hear from most footballers. Some of it is so simple, but it really makes sense. Just as an example, he says that the real indication of a good footballer isn't what he can do when he's got lots of space, it's what he can do with none. When I read that, Jack Charlton's "put 'em under pressure" tactics with Ireland, and images of Denis Bergkamp doing things with his first touch that most footballers can't in three come to mind. He says that a good footballer needs just two things - first touch and passing. Everything else is finesse. Think of how the Dutch at their best, or the Brazilians, or Barcelona play - they can all pass a team to death.

The book is written by a couple of Dutch journalists. Cruyff wasn't too generous with interviews - he would charge for them when he did them at all. He trusted the guys who wrote the book though, and they had more access to him than any other journalists. The material in the book comes from interviews with Cruijff over the years, and it makes for fascinating reading.