Johan Cruyff:- An Inception of Greatness.
If we are to start a tale about Tiki-Taka, then allow me to take you to the late 1980s wherein an almost fairytale-like fashion a footballing luminary returns to his old club where he once lit up games with his fluid and awe-inspiring style of play and decides to take up the managerial reins and then goes on to save his club from impending doom. The man in question is the late Johan Cruyff.
Cruyff is arguably one of the best to don the famous red and blue stripes of the Blaugrana. He was transferred to the club for a world record fee of 2 million USD, which is quite paltry in today’s transfer market. His debut with the club came on October 28 1973, against Granada, and despite the two goals he netted in a 4–0 win that afternoon nobody could have predicted just how big an impact his decision to snub Real Madrid for the Catalans would have. Ajax president Jaap Van Praag had tried to sell the Dutch star to the Santiago Bernabeu. But Cruyff, as if he knew something us mere mortals would not dare to guess, chose Barcelona, and the history of the club and football itself was transformed for good.
“When players like Bale and Ronaldo are worth around €100 million, Johan would go in the billions! “— Franz Beckenbauer in an interview with Bild.de (September 2014)
In his first year, Barcelona broke a 14-season Liga drought with the title. It was quite an introductory season for the player. However, some pundits claim that Cruyff’s influence in Barça as a player may not have been as impactful. As a coach, it is a completely different story he built the FC Barcelona team of today from the ground up and led it to glory. Including managing it to it’s maiden European Cup victory in 1992. Cruyff redefined the philosophy with which Barça play football inspiring generations of players and managers which include the likes of Pep Guardiola, Arsene Wenger, Alex Ferguson and the list goes on
But all things were not easy for the Dutchman, when he took over in 1988, the club was in tatters. It was going through a major financial struggle with debt raking up. To make matters worse the board was fractured as it had just undergone a tumultuous period (Hesperia Mutiny) and attendance at the Nou Camp was abysmal. The club needed somebody to coalesce them all together and that factor proved to be Cruyff.
Tactics (Simplified)
Cryuff was an astute tactician of the ball with a very strong footballing mind and a solid philosophy at his core. Before Cryuff took up his position at the club. The preferred formation in European football at that point of time was a 4–4–2 (This simply put means four defenders in the back, four midfielders in the middle and two strikers up in front). However, Cryuff deviated from this formation and shifted to an unconventional 3–4–3 (three defenders in the back, four midfielders in the middle of the park and three in the front).
“He got a blackboard and drew three defenders, four midfielders, two out-and-out wingers and a centre-forward”. “We looked at each other and said: ‘What the hell is this?!’ — Eusebio Sacristán
Cruyff observed that the 4–4–2 formation would be counter-intuitive for two reasons. One, most sides adopted this formation and sticking to the same method would not create exciting football and he also felt that many passing lanes that could be exploited cannot be fully explored with the formation. Second, he felt that the team were at a numerical disadvantage when pushing up. As is visible in the black box (on the left figure), when pushing up it created a 6 vs 8 scenario. Furthermore, the presence of four in the back against just two attackers was a waste. With a 3–4–3, it created a numerical advantage with 7 vs 8. This also ensured that all the energies of the players are employed usefully.
Another reason why Cruyff shifted to a 3–4–3 was that he felt that this would create a diamond in the midfield, therefore, creating more passing options and fluidity when players moved up and shifted their positioning. By dropping the centre back a little deeper than a normal 3–4–3, Cruyff was able to create two diamonds in the midfield and the defence which offered a lot of mobility. The centre back who dropped back in his team was Ronald Koeman. Koeman would collect the ball from the goalkeeper maintain and push the ball up the pitch or spray high balls to the front three. He was great on the ball and would sometimes be the originator of attacks and therefore push high up in the pitch, this would create a pocket of space in the defence in-order to prevent such holes the Defensive Midfielder (the player ahead of him in the figure below) would drop into Koeman’s position. This position was usually played by Pep Guardiola.
Another very visible attribute of Cruyff’s Barcelona was that they practised a philosophy of football called Total Football which was a popularized by Rinus Michels, a former coach of Johan Cruyff during his playing days with Ajax. Total Football simply meant that players would fill up the shoes of other players to ensure maximum mobility. An example would be the case of Guardiola and Koeman where a player starting as a centre back pushes up into the midfield and a defensive midfielder plays as a centre back. Therefore the players were given the freedom to roam under this philosophy making it very hard to be man-marked. One can almost compare this to what happens with present-day Barcelona where Lionel Messi who starts on the right-wing, drops deep to collect the ball and therefore transitions from a conventional forward to a deeper playmaker role while the right-back (defender who sits on the right side of the pitch, think of a defender next to the throw in line) pushes up and almost functions as a winger. This is not an accurate analogy, but it should paint a well-grounded picture, as to how fluid Cruyff’s Barcelona was.
Pep Guardiola had a tremendous work ethic and great technical skills on the ball. If Barcelona could be compared to a train, then Pep would be the engine. Sitting as the bridge between midfield and defence. He would not push forward. He would simply collect the ball from his defenders and spread the ball upfield. Next to Guardiola, the two wide midfielders (Eusebio and Laudrup) pushed upfield. However both Eusebio and Laudrup had very different roles. Eusebio pushed high up and made incisive runs through the defence and would usually try to be picked out by the creative forces in the team. However, Eusebio never shied away from his defensive responsibilities and would drop deep to help out when Guardiola was under pressure. Laudrup at that time was arguably one of the best playmakers in the game and would try to create opportunities for his team-mates.
The attacking midfielder (Bakero) at the tip of the midfield would usually operate as a second striker interchanging with the striker (Romario) or dropping deep to support the midfield. Therefore there was extremely good co-ordination between the pair which allowed a lot of fluidity in play. The wingers usually played extremely wide, stretching the defence and creating spaces for the midfielders while cutting into the penalty area.
When defending one of the midfielders (usually Juan Carlos who played instead of Laudrup, if the team was being more defensive) would drop into the defence giving it a stable four at the back.
Another important thing to note is that because of the number of players pushed up. They could press the opponents effectively when they lost the ball and force them to play on one side of the pitch by blocking out passing options. This can be illustrated by the example in the figure above if the centre back manages to regain possession, the striker quickly presses him, blocking off the left side of the pitch, therefore he is forced to pass to the right-back which is being pressed by the central midfielder (in this case)and other Barcelona players move slightly to the right flank. Therefore they are forcing them to play towards the right side, which is being blocked out by 4 players effectively.
Impact
During his tenure in the club, Barcelona won 4 successive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994. It is interesting to note that before him the club had just won 3 La Liga titles in 30 years. Coupled with this, the club won a Copa Del Rey, 3 Copa de España, 1 European Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup and a UEFA Cup Winners Cup. Thus shooting the club into superstardom. Furthermore, the team that won their first-ever European cup is nicknamed the “Dream Team”.
La Masia
La Masia is Barcelona’s youth academy. Cruyff revamped things here as well to set the tone for future generations. Being a graduate from the Ajax youth academy he knew the importance of the right training and mindset that had to be imbibed into young talents to help them make a seamless transition into the first team. Therefore he inculcated his values of football into the youth system which then went on to create footballers of the likes of Puyol, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets.
There has never been such a great player who was also such a phenomenal manager. In this, he stands unique. For almost three decades he was the presiding genius of Barcelona.
“Winning is an important thing, but to have your own style, to have people copy you, to admire you, that is the greatest gift.”- Johan Cruyff
By his own terms, he could hardly have succeeded more emphatically. Nobody has ever been more influential: the whole of modern football is his legacy.
