Top 60 Johan Cruijff Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Johan Cruijff

Featured in: Athlete Quotes, Football Quotes

2. “If you can’t win, make sure you don’t lose.”

— Johan Cruijff

Featured in: Loss Quotes, Football Quotes

3. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

Featured in: Quotes About Skills, Football Quotes

4. “Every disadvantage has its advantage.”

— Johan Cruijff

5. “It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man’s vision.”

— Johan Cruijff

6. “Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.”

— Johan Cruijff

7. “If you play on possession, you don’t have to defend, because there’s only one ball.”

— Johan Cruijff

8. “Coincidence is logical.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

12. “You have got to shoot, otherwise you can’t score.”

— Johan Cruijff

13. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

14. “Before I make a mistake, I don’t make that mistake.”

— Johan Cruijff

15. “Why couldn’t you beat a richer club? I’ve never seen a bag of money score a goal.”

— Johan Cruijff

16. “In a way I’m probably immortal.”

— Johan Cruijff

17. “Football is a game you play with your brain.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

19. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

20. “To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent.”

— Johan Cruijff

21. “Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.”

— Johan Cruijff

22. “Football is simple, you’re either on time, or you’re too late. If you’re too late then you have to leave earlier.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

24. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

27. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

28. “Sometimes something’s got to happen before something is going to happen.”

— Johan Cruijff

29. “I still have a lot of room for improvement.”

— Johan Cruijff

30. “Football is a simple game. It’s just very hard to play it simple.”

— Johan Cruijff

31. “Italians can’t win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.”

— Johan Cruijff

32. “For the world of football, Messi is a treasure because he is role model for children around the world.”

— Johan Cruijff

33. “Without the ball, you can’t win.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

35. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

36. “We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You’ll get it back in no time.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

38. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

39. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

40. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

41. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

43. “The ball is an essential part of the game.”

— Johan Cruijff

44. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

45. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

46. “I don’t want to be a thief of my own wallet.”

— Johan Cruijff

47. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

48. “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.”

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff

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

— Johan Cruijff