autobiografie, Johan Cruijff ( )

Total Football burst into the popular consciousness with the Dutch national team at the 1974 World Cup led by Johan Cruyff. In Cruyff’s posthumously published autobiography My Turn, the former player and manager talks about the course and evolution of his entire life in football as well after his time actively involved in the sport.

Cruyff is upfront from the outset that he won’t recount every big match, for him the important thing was the development of technique and the evolution of getting better by learning from successes and failures. However, Cruyff’s explanation of his development as a player as well as the style he both played and coached are a fascinating read in which the results of certain matches come in to play. Cruyff’s stories about growing up at Ajax from a ball boy then through the developmental system give a insight about how talent is developed over in Europe, especially once he explains what he took away from how talent was developed in the United States when he played in the NASL. Yet, the most interesting stories were Cruyff’s time at Barcelona and the politics of Catalonia and Spain were a literal culture shock to him and his family.

The latter part of the book covers Cruyff’s most “controversial” time in football, his managerial tenures at Ajax and Barcelona as well as the shakeups to both clubs that he was an advisor for to bring them both to prominence. Cruyff is upfront about his thought about his loathing of boardroom managing the pitch in place of the pitch dictating the boardroom. For Cruyff this direction from on high, especially at Ajax is one of the reasons that the style of Total Football that he advocates is no longer seen in Dutch football as both technique and fundamentals instilled at an early age are never truly developed because of the increasing change of trainers and development personal because of agendas of non-football individuals who have an agenda of their own. This critique of money interfering goes handed in hand with Cruyff’s explanation of his preferred style of football as well as a rather informative explanation of the tactics of football is easy to understand even for those uninformed about the game.

Although My Turn seems to have been cut short by Cruyff’s death in March 2016, it is still a wonderful read for anyone interest in football or sports biographies.

I received this book via Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Johan Cruyff – My Turn – Bitter Sweat Autobiography

I only just remember Johan Cruyff as a footballer, being a teenager in the 1980s and I certainly remember the Ajax teams, and the Netherlands team and how great they were. I do remember Cruyff the football manager though, his great teams of both Ajax and Barcelona, their attractive football, which brought home the beautiful game.

Cruyff through his teams, those he coached and influenced will live on, long after his death, was as well as a great player and coach was also a great thinker on how the game should be played. When he died in March 2016, he had not completed this long-awaited autobiography but was only half way through and hence it being bitter sweat. Because he died so early and was unable to finish this book we miss out on some of the interesting things he had to say about his career and football in general.

What I did learn that Cruyff puts his understanding of football down to playing baseball with the Ajax team as a child, and how it helped him to learn to be making multiple decisions during a game. When the Dutch team went to the World Cup finals in 1974, he stated that they did not know how good they were as a team. To any observer of 1970s international football would have said different, but then they are looking from the outside.

After Cruyff finished coaching he was often critical of football, coaching and directors, as well as those who had wronged him in the professional game. He was well-known for being well-balanced as he had a chip on both shoulders and in places that comes through in the book. There are some angry justifications of some of his actions in the book especially at Ajax in later years and comments he made towards Edgar Davids.

While the manager of my football club quote adorns the front cover, ‘I knew nothing about football before knowing Cruyff’, Pep Guardiola and Ronald Koeman are keeping his football legacy style alive in the way they coach teams. While youtube holds plenty of clips of Cruyff playing and his memory will live long after we are gone.

Like all sports biography it is not beautifully written, yes there are parts that seem like Cruyff is settling scores with those that crossed him. I enjoyed the book, it may not be to everyone’s taste, if you want a literary success this book is not it, if you want an insight in to Cruyff then this book is for you. ( )

Voetbalkunstenaar Johan Cruijff is een icoon. Hij was misschien wel de beste speler aller tijden. De invloed van zijn speelstijl en voetbalfilosofie was en is groot. Hij is een held, een voorbeeld, een leermeester. Zowel voor- als tegenstanders luisterden geboeid als hij het woord nam, op zijn onnavolgbare wijze.

Johan Cruijff is van ons allemaal en daardoor heeft iedereen zijn ‘eigen’ Johan: een mengeling van feit en fictie. Nu is dan het woord aan hemzelf, in deze meeslepende autobiografie. Hierin geeft hij zíjn visie op alles wat hem bezighield, op het voetbal en op het leven.

Johan Cruijff – Mijn verhaal is een heel persoonlijk boek, het enige met zijn éígen verhaal. Als je het leest, is het alsof hij zelf tegen je praat. Eindelijk leren wij de echte Johan kennen.