Article Cruijff (Van Hilvoorde & Stokvis Sport in History)

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Hilvoorde, I. van & Stokvis, R.

(2013) Pythagoras in boots:

Johan Cruijff and the

Construction of Dutch NationalIdentity.In: Sport in History,

33(4), 427-444.

ARTICLE in SPORT IN HISTORY JANUARY 2013

DOI: 10.1080/17460263.2013.850267

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2 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:

Ivo Van Hilvoorde

VU University Amsterdam

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Pythagoras in boots: Johan

Cruijff and the Construction of

Dutch National IdentityIvo van Hilvoorde & Ruud Stokvis

Published online: 20 Nov 2013.

To cite this article:Ivo van Hilvoorde & Ruud Stokvis (2013) Pythagoras in boots:

Johan Cruijff and the Construction of Dutch National Identity, Sport in History, 33:4,427-444

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2013.850267

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Pythagoras in boots: Johan Cruijffand the Construction of Dutch

National Identity

Ivo van Hilvoorde & Ruud Stokvis

Sporting icons perform a key role in the production and reproduction of

national identities. In the Netherlands, no one embodies this sentiment more

appropriately than Johan Cruijff, regarded by many as one of the finest

professional footballers ever to have played the game. Much of the early part

of Cruijffs career (during the 1960s and 1970s) mirrored an era of optimism,

(liberal) ideology, freedom, hope and, for the Netherlands competing in

international sport, unprecedented success across a range of sports including

football, ice skating and cycling. Only a very limited number of players (such

as Pele, Platini or Beckenbauer) manage to translate their status as sporting

icons onto their subsequent activities beyond the playing field. This article

focuses on this phenomenon by examining the case of Cruijff, from an icon

on the field of play to his status as a national leader capable of commentating

on a range of domestic issues. This analysis also considers the manner in

which Cruijff deployed his elevated status in the specific confines of a recent

power struggle within his former club Ajax of Amsterdam, the most well-

known football club in the Netherlands. The article argues that even in theevent of perceived failure and, with this, a possible loss of credibility, the icon

retains his prestige and notoriety.

Introduction

To become a sporting icon, the athlete must, according to Lenk, incorp-

orate a mythical ideal and be capable of extraordinary feats which can

Ivo van Hilvoorde, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam; Ruud

Stokvis, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, Amsterdam. Correspondence to:

[email protected]

Sport in History, 2013

Vol. 33, No. 4, 427444, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2013.850267

2013 The British Society of Sports History


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mailto:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2013.850267http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2013.850267mailto:[email protected]


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only be accomplished by complete devotion to the task at hand .1 Johan

Cruijff can be considered the greatest Dutch sports icon of all time.2 In

1999 the International Federation for Soccer History and Statistics

selected him as the European Soccer player of the twentieth centuryand, at the same time, he came runner-up on an all-time list of FIFAs

greatest players of the twentieth century.3 Previously, he was selected as

the UEFA European player of the year in 1971, 1973, and 1974 amid a

glittering career during which he had few peers.

Successes in elite sports are, in various ways, related to questions of

nationality, national pride, and international prestige.4 The identity of the

Netherlands is, in some ways, interwoven with Cruijffs life and the

achievements of Ajax as well as those of the Dutch national team. Formany, Cruijff represents the quintessential sporting hero who, at the same

time, has performed an important role in the social construction of Dutch

identity. His development as an icon, though, has unfolded in different

ways and at different time points.5 In almost all cases, sporting

achievements are crucial to the overall success of the process. Those

achievements and the myths and stories that accompany them are

required to exercise a far-reaching influence on the sport itself, to generate

international stature, to obtain prestige across the rest of the world, and to

remain part of the collective annals of sporting history.

Thus the lived experience of Cruijff as a sports icon can be subdivided

into three distinct periods: that of his time as a football player par

excellence; his career as a football manager; and then through his most

recent guise as something of a business guru/social commentator within

Dutch society. In each phase, his status as a national sports icon reveals a

different face and, with this, an evolving relationship with the construc-

tion of Dutch identity. There can be little doubt about the importance of

Johan Cruijff to the history of Dutch or, for that matter, internationalfootball. That said, there is some debate surrounding the precise influence

of his managerial career (at Ajax Amsterdam 19858 and Barcelona 1988

96). However, his most contemporary role, as someone with an elevated

social and political role and regarded as someone with a view on most

issues, has provoked much debate.

This last point is the most relevant in the context of this article as it

considers the importance, the impact and the limitations of a sporting

icon following his retirement from the sporting domain. After discussingsome of his influences in the history of Dutch and world football, this

article will further elaborate on Cruijffs role as a national icon. What does

it mean to be an icon in this context, what influence does his notoriety in

428 I. van Hilvoorde and R. Stokvis


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the field of association football exercise and how does all of this relate to

national identity construction?

Cruijff the player and manager

Hendrik Johannes Cruijff was born in Amsterdam on 25 April 1947.6 He

was raised in a working-class neighbourhood close to the home of the

famed Ajax of Amsterdam. Officially he became a member of the club on

his tenth birthday.7 He played his last match for Ajax on 19 August 1973,

after which he moved to Barcelona in Spain. Cruijff first decided to retire

as a professional footballer in 1978, but after a few matches for clubs in

the United States and in Spain, he returned to Ajax in December 1981. At

the close of the 19823 season, Ajax did not offer him a new contract as it

was of the view that his very best days were now in the past. As a result,

Cruijff joined Feyenoord of Rotterdam. He played his last professional

football match on 13 May 1984 in the colours of Feyenoord, helping the

club secure the Dutch championship that year.

With Ajax, Johan Cruijff won the league championship no fewer than

eight times, the KNVB Cup five times, the European Cup on three

occasions, the UEFA Super Cup twice, the Intercontinental Cup once and

the UEFA Intertoto Cup once. With Barcelona, Cruijff won the La Ligaonly once, the Copa del Rey once, and during his last season at

Feyenoord, he claimed both the league championship and the KNVB

Cup titles. Over the course of 520 career matches, Cruijff scored a

remarkable 291 goals. Between 1966 and 1977, he played 48 matches for

the Dutch national team, scoring 33 goals. Cruijff was selected as the

player of the tournament at the World Cup finals of 1974, at which the

Dutch national team lost to West Germany in the final.8

After his career as a professional footballer had come to an end, Cruijff

became the manager of Ajax from 1985 until 1988 and in turn of

Barcelona from 1988 until 1996. Under his supervision, Ajax won the

KNVB Cup twice, the domestic league championship and the UEFA Cup.

With Barcelona, he won La Liga four times, the Supercopa de Espaa

three times, the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Cup, the European Cup and the

UEFA Super Cup. In 1987, Cruijff claimed the World Soccer Award as

manager of the year. Following the 19901 and 19912 seasons, he was

selected as the nations best coach by the leading Spanish football

magazineDon Baln. Finally, Cruijff was honoured as coach of the yearin 1992 and 1994 by the French magazine Onze Mondial. Later, in 2006,

Cruijff received the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award for his

contribution to football. He is also a holder of the FIFA Order of Merit

Sport in History 429


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(2010) award. After his resignation in 1996 as the then manager of

Barcelona, Cruijff remained actively involved in football as an analyst, as

an ambassador and as an advisor to both Barcelona and Ajax. In 2009, he

was appointed as coach to the Catalonia team (a position he only renegedin 2013), while over the course of the 201213 season he was also a valued

advisor with the Mexican football club, Club Deportivo Guadalajara.

Cruijff as an icon of Dutch soccer

As impressive as these figures may undoubtedly prove to be, such

statistics and their accompanying achievements fail to adequately capture

the status and importance of major sporting icons such as Cruijff in thelived experiences of a nation. Apart from their achievements, the impact

of an icon routinely depends on the stories and myths that accompany

these accomplishments. Nico Scheepmaker (193090), writer, poet and

journalist, was one of the first intellectuals in the Netherlands to pen

literary pieces on the subject of football, and thus bridge the gap between

culture and sports, between high and low culture. He raised football to the

level of high cultureand, with this, Cruijff to the level of an artist. He is

the author of a seminal book on Cruijff (published in 1972; reprinted in

2005). He was also one of the first to write without hesitation about the

international and indeed historical standing of Cruijff. In 1971 Scheep-

maker had already afforded Cruijff an important place among the

pantheon of great players:

As a personality off the field he can be compared with George Best ofManchester United, but on the field he not only displays far more self-control but is also, beyond all doubt, a better footballer and a moredangerous forward. He is, quite simply, the finest football player theNetherlands ever had: he belongs in the ranks of the Greatest Forwardsof All Time, together with Brazils Pel, Portugals Eusebio, SpainsAlfredo di Stefano, Englands Stanley Matthews and Hungarys FerencPuskas. Just now I predicted a certain raising of eyebrows andmuttering about chauvinism, but anyone who has seen both Cruijffand the other greatest forwards play more than a few times will nothesitate to place him on a level with them.9

The Dutch have often been proud of their lack of recourse to overt forms

of patriotism. In fact according to one commentator, The Dutch elitederived national pride from not being nationalist, to use the words of

Frank Lechner.10 However, this characterization relates only to a small

subsection of the Dutch population. It certainly does not reflect the



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significance that certain sports, particularly soccer, have acquired for the

greater majority of those living in the Netherlands.

Although the Dutch also had their sporting heroes over the first half

of the twentieth century, sports-related nationalism gained particularmomentum in the early 1970s. Cruijff emerged as a soccer great during

what may be understood as the most successful period for Dutch football

in the international game.11 From 1970 until 1973 Dutch teams (Ajax and

Feyenoord) secured the Champions Cup, the predecessor of the Cham-

pions League Cup, four times in succession. Indeed the national teams

place in the final of the 1974 World Cup was a logical outcome of this

preceding period of dominance. Because of the justifiably high expecta-

tions held by the Dutch public, their disappointment following theirteams defeat in the final ran deep. Nevertheless, all these successes (and

indeed losses), understood in different ways, contributed to the wider,

social acceptance of soccer by the Dutch people at large and especially

amongst the intelligentsia. As Stokvis has acknowledged, it was during this

period that the former peoples game became a national preoccupation.12

Of course Cruijff was the most prodigious Dutch player of this, some

might say any, era. His style became a source of inspiration for artists,

dancers and writers. His status contributed to evolving connections

between football and pure art that had not been drawn previously. The

Dutch game of that period was associated with modern architecture and

painters, such as Vermeer and Mondriaan.13 In March 1969 Cruijff met

film icon Jacques Tati in Paris. According toDe Telegraaf, Tati remarked:

Monsieur Cruijff, we are colleagues. You are an artist. Your play looks a

lot like mine. We are both people that try to react instantaneously in

situations, that we usually did not invoke ourselves.14 According to

Smeets, Cruijff was the first player who understood that he was an artist,

and the first who was able and willing to collectivise the art of sports .15

Several authors have tried to link the so-called Dutch creation of total

football with peculiar aspects of Dutch society, such as its flat landscape

and comparatively dense population.16 This of course is very difficult to

establish in any convincing fashion. Total football was the natural

outcome of cooperation, experienced at that time, between a number of

exceptionally gifted players who were in turn overseen by a talented and

creative trainer, Rinus Michels. However, because the Dutch were the first

to practise and indeed implement total football, it naturally became mostreadily associated with Dutch society. Certain characteristics of total

football, such as the use of space and the need for cooperation, were used

to accentuate similar features present in Dutch society. In that way it



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contributed to a more refined definition of Dutch national identity.

According to Winner,

Total Football was built on a new theory of flexible space. Just asCornelis Lely in the nineteenth century conceived and executed theidea of creating giant new polders and altering the physical dimensionsof Holland by dike-building and exploiting the new technology ofsteam, so Rinus Michels and Johan Cruijff exploited the capacities of anew breed of players to change the dimensions of the football field.17

Rinus Michels was coach of Ajax from 1965 till 1971. Under his leadership

the club attained its dominant position within international soccer.

According to Murphy, Rinus Michels was the Dutchman who gave the

world total football a tactical vision which raised the game to the levelof great art.18 Although Michels is considered the godfather of Total

Football, Johan Cruijff played a significant role in the implementation of

this football style as well.19 His conception of space on the football field

earned him the nickname Pythagoras in boots.20 In turn Total Football

became associated with the unique Dutch relationship with spatial

awareness. Associations that were made between football, art, architecture

and engineering provided football with an elevated status among intellec-

tuals who, in contrast, had turned their noses up at sports of all forms inthe period prior to this period of Total Football. Suddenly sport was not

merely about winning and of achieving success, but was now about doing

so in a beautiful way, in an artistic manner and through promoting the

aesthetics of the game especially the beauty of its intricate movements.

Although the presumption that a specific style of playing reflects certain

aspects of nationality is again somewhat idealistic, the narrative of

nationality related to total football became a powerful metaphor and an

invented tradition that generated national confidence and self-belief.21

Why this concept became so dominant in the Netherlands is central to

the discussion unfolding in this article. It argues that merely winning

football matches is not in itself sufficient; rather it is primarily about

winning in a beautiful way. According to Winner, The Dutch are devoted

to their good football (a phrase with distinct Calvinistic moral overtones)

and also have an equally Calvinist urge to proselytise their beauty and

goodness to the world.22 During his relative long and very successful

period as a head coach of FC Barcelona, Cruijff was also able to introduce

his beliefs on how the game of football should be played to the approachadopted by the Catalan giants. In turn Total Football gained interna-

tional acclaim after it became the calling cardof what is revered as one of

the most well-known and successful club sides in the history of the world



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game. Cruijff certainly contributed to the prestigious standing that FC

Barcelona has acquired in the world of soccer, including up to the present

day. Dutch soccer history and its ideals thus, by extension, became

associated with the successes of FC Barcelona in a very pronounced way.23

The nature of this relationship was made visible in the documentaryEn

un Momento Dado [At a Certain Moment].24 This movie showed

Barcelona fans from all walks of life testifying about the sporting and

cultural influences of Cruijff right across Catalan society. Of course, this

merely strengthened a view held in the Netherlands that Cruijff was an

icon without compare and an exemplary Dutchman. This international

recognition attributed to such a famous Dutch figure contributed to the

fondness ordinary people demonstrated towards Cruijff as a person and to

the national pride that arose from association with his sporting legacy.Unquestionably, the influence of Cruijff is crucial as far as our

understanding of this urge to proselytize the world and embrace the

beautiful gameis concerned. Not only as a player, but also as a manager

and an advisor, Cruijff exercised remarkable influence on new generations

of football players, specifically with his views concerning youth training

and talent-spotting systems. The Dutch nation identified with Cruijff and

his belief that wedo not only (want to) play beautiful and good football,

but that we must send that message to the whole world as well.

The social construction of Cruijff as a national icon

It is interesting that the portrayal of Cruijffs iconic status achieved new

heights after his retirement from football. During this era he became an

icon of Dutch society in a much broader sense and a key adviser for

politicians and businessmen alike. This was not simply a spontaneous

process without direction. Instead it is possible to identify a number of

quite deliberate decisions around this process that contributed to an

enlarged national role for the former Dutch great. Amid this evolution sat

a number of key advocates, undoubtedly impressed, possibly seduced, by

Cruijffs earlier fame and continued popularity. Among them were

influential commentators within the national media and amongst the

body politic. They did this by acting as exegetes, as members of an

exclusive sub-class of people capable of exploiting and building upon the

notoriety of each other. Cruijffs remarkable use of logical paradoxes,

wisecracks and more often than not simple logic, delivered in theunmistakeable brogue of the Amsterdam working-class district in which

he grew up, was identified very early as a most valuable asset for

strategically minded politicians.25



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This pronounced transfer, from his status as one of the greatest soccer

players ever to play the game, to attaining a broader iconic standing

within Dutch society unfolded between 2004 and 2006.26 An important

advocate during this period was the popular Dutch management guru andpolitician Pieter Winsemius. In 1982, at a comparatively young age,

Winsemius became secretary of state for spatial planning and milieu

affairs in the Dutch government. He acquired the standing of an effective

and successful politician, capable of promoting a succession of progressive

laws through Parliament. After he had served as a secretary of state, he

remained in public life, holding a range of posts in which he continued to

advocate in favour of progressive ideas. His role as a well-known public

figure gained added agency through his authoring of books in which hedwelt on management lessons from the field of sports.27 In 2004 he

published a book with a title derived from one of the many well-known

phrases used by Cruijff: You Wont Get It until You Understand It. This

book became an instant success and was published in more than

40 editions. Based on interviews with people who were well acquainted

with Cruijff, as well as articles written by Cruijff himself, Winsemius

detailed in this book Cruijffs philosophy of management. Up to this

point, Cruijff was known solely as a capable football manager, having

proven his capabilities both at Ajax and Barcelona. However, now backed

by the prestige offered by a popular and well-regarded politician and

management expert, Cruijff was presented as a valuable source of

knowledge for managers operating in a whole host of different fields,

including commercial firms and state services. Eight years later Winse-

mius published a similar book based again on Cruijffs insights, entitled

Coincidence Is Logical. Not without irony Winner claims that Baruch

Spinoza was considered the greatest philosopher the Netherlands had ever

produced, until Johan Cruijffs arrival, that is.28

It seemed logical that Cruijff, as a management philosopher emerging

from the field of sports, should offer his name to a newly established col-

lege for sports management, The Johan Cruijff University, with depart-

ments in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Stockholm and Mexico. The college is

designed to cater for elite athletes who want to combine their careers in

sports with studying for a professional degree in marketing or manage-

ment. With the support of Winsemius, a long-standing philanthropic

initiative devised by Cruijff, the Johan Cruijff Foundation, which Cruijffbegan in 1997, also gained similar momentum. In 2003 it established its

first small, well-equipped soccer field in an underprivileged Dutch

neighbourhood, a so-called Cruijff Court. From that point forward the



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number of courts across the Netherlands has grown steadily, reaching

more than 140 in total at present.29

Cruijffs international status in soccer, as confirmed by the movie En un

Momento Dado, and his emergence within society at large as amanagement philosopher of some regard, probably contributed in 2006

to a request from the largest newspaper in the Netherlands, De Telegraaf,

for Cruijff to write a weekly column on soccer affairs. One of the

newspapers sportswriters assisted him in doing so in a ghost-writing

capacity. Cruijffs widespread prestige, combined with the circulation of

the newspaper, resulted in his views on soccer (and life generally)

becoming even more influential than ever before. Regularly, his column

managed to set the agenda for discussions on soccer affairs across a host

of other media platforms, especially television.

To appreciate further how Cruijff was framed as an icon of Dutch

society and how Dutch society was in turn shaped by Cruijffs increased

(and wider) public profile, it is important to consider Cruijffs quite

deliberate use of language. His wilful and inimitable use of language is in

fact crucial to our understanding of him as a national icon. His linguistic

approach has been labelled by some as both poetic and philosophical.

Indeed by 1996, it had already been analysedina major linguistic journal

by a number of well-known literary reviewers.30

It was the contents of thebooks published by Winsemius that particularly promoted this issue of

language to the level of philosophy. As has already been established, both

books Winsemius published about Cruijff contained titles derived from

commonly deployed Cruijff expressions: You Wont Get It until You

Understand Itand Coincidence Is Logical. Some other expressions used

by him, which became widely utilised in Dutch society, are Every

disadvantage has its advantage, Youve got to shoot or you cant score

and Football is simple, but the hardest thing there is is to play simple

football.

As we can see from the title of the film En un Momento Dado, another

aspect of this use of language was his framing as a plain, ordinary Dutchman

who was nonetheless prepared to learn and speak Spanish (during his

time with FC Barcelona), even if he did so by retaining his Dutch idiom. The

title of the aforementioned film is a word-for-word translation of a typical

Dutch expression that is not used at all in Spanish. Through Cruijff, many

people living in Dutch society saw themselves represented in wider society

in similar terms as plain but intelligent people.Not only the language used by Cruijff as an individual but also that

employed by others about Cruijff contributes to a form of religious

elevation. During his years at Barcelona, Cruijff was often referred to as



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El Salvador.31 However, the parallels go further than simply this. Just like

God, Cruijff is regarded as almost inaccessible, but at the same time omni-

present, almighty and omniscient. The exegetes are there to interpret the

oracle. Pfeijffer, a well-known Dutch literary writer and poet, expressesthis view when he describes how

Cruijff appears when, according to himself, the time has come to orderthe state of the world for the best. His epiphany is a manifestation ofmercy.Criticism is a form of ingratitude in his view.In theexperience of Cruijff, he has always left as soon as people refused toacknowledge that he was the truth and the ultimate way to go.32

Not all Dutch intellectuals admired Cruijff as much as Winsemius and

others did. However, no one could deny Cruijffs national and interna-

tional prestige. As such he remained a crucial source of national pride for

a great many Dutch people.

The sports icons ability to divide a nation

Great sports icons have the unique capacity to unite an entire nation and,

at times, to throw it into unbridled ecstasy. However, the more readily the

icon gets involved in disputes concerning practical affairs, the greater therisk of him splintering a country into fans, followers, believers and zealots

on the one hand, and sceptics and critics on the other. In the case of

Cruijff that risk became manifest when he began to criticize not only the

way the game was being played in the Netherlands, but also the manner in

which his old club Ajax was being organized and managed. Already

during his career as a player and then a manager, there had been other

players and managers who felt damaged as a result of Cruijffs actions and

the stance he was adopting. And as befits many exceptional sports talents,

there have been a lot of conflicts with sports organizations, club directors

(both at Ajax and FC Barcelona) and sponsors over this period too.

Indeed the polarizing capacity of Cruijff is exceptionally pronounced.

Earlier in his career Cruijff had already demonstrated a high degree of

independence from the games authorities and a capability to negotiate

with them on his own terms. After his marriage in 1968 to the daughter of

the owner of an important diamond trading firm, his father-in-law helped

him with the business side of his career. This individual, Cor Coster, is

considered by many as the first players agent to have emerged withinDutch soccer. His role in bringing first Cruijff and then later coach Rinus

Michels and midfielder Johan Neeskens to Barcelona was not especially

welcomed by Ajax fans.33 However, through the cooperation with his



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father-in-law, Cruijff helped to promote a more businesslike relationship

between the players and their clubs. At an early stage, Cruijff already

revealed the ability to look after himself and to accept the help of others

who, in turn, could be useful to him.Much has been written about this quarrelsome aspect of Cruijffs

character. Conflicts were, in his view, always necessary to enhance

sporting performances. In fact this conflict model was embraced by

Michels as well during his own coaching career. Often the directors or

journalists were the ones who served as his prime target, as occupiers of

another world, a world of non-sportspeople, with little or no understand-

ing of the spirit of the athlete. This is also evident from the sensational

and much publicized power struggle that Cruijff pursued against club

directors between 2010 and 2012 at his own club Ajax.34

This kind of conflict that is, the opposition between the traditional

supporters and players of the club and the officials who have to manage

the clubs financial and business interests can be witnessed in nearly all

leading European clubs. The officials find it necessary to defend and

promote the long-term aims of their policies. In contrast, the tendency

among supporters and even many players is to pursue the short-term

interests of the team and take to the field of play in pursuit of instant

gratification. More often than not, supporters want a successful team,even if this is not financially prudent from a business perspective. Within

Ajax of Amsterdam, this conflict of interest was framed in terms of the

opposition between club Ajax and Ajax Ltd. Club Ajax represented

policies based on the insights of former players and other long-term club

members; in contrast, Ajax Ltd stood for the modern structure of

professional management, which defines club governance across the

continent of Europe. This framing emerged originally in 2000, two years

after the club had transformed itself from a voluntary association into a

public limited company. In 2000 the central issue was the modern

professional type of management that the new directors, now in charge of

the club, had introduced.35 In contrast, Cruijff became the major

representative of club Ajax. His primary objection was that when it

came to the decision-making process surroundingon-fieldaffairs, former

players and real club members had been excluded. It did not take long

before the new board of directors gave way to the mounting criticism

being generated by one of the clubs greats and were forced to resign.

Notwithstanding this, the conflict was seen by many as aninternal affair(to Ajax) and thus caused little reaction outside of the club.36

In 2010 the public became aware of a new source of discord. That year

the Ajax team was playing reasonably well under its new manager, the



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Dutch national Martin Jol. Interestingly Jol did not show much respect for

Cruijff, claiming that according to the teaching of Johan Cruijff total

football is that you score one point more than your opponent.37 In his

right to reply, and via the medium of his widely read column, Cruijffbegan to criticize the policy of Ajaxs new trainer. According to Cruijff, Jol

had deviated from the principles of total football and, because of this, the

Ajax team did not play like an authentic Ajax side should perform. This

was again linked, just as in 2000, to the fact that former players still had

no say in the affairs of Ajax.

After Cruijffs increasingly regular interventions, former players began

to assume leading positions in the youth department of Ajax. The director

and the new trainer subsequently departed, and Cruijff became a member

of a board of trustees alongside four other appointees. The first task of this

newly established board was to appoint a new director. In response Cruijff

proposed an old friend of his, former Ajax player Tscheu La Ling. Ling

was rejected by the other trustees because he was associated with

fraudulent activities as the former owner of a Slovakian football club.38

After several months the four other members of the board of trustees

announced that they had nominated Louis van Gaal as the new director.

Cruijff had not been informed about this decision. This was a full-scale

attack on the position of Cruijff. Louis van Gaal had been a very successfulinternational trainer (with Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich). Under

his lead Ajax had won the Champions League in 1995, as well as the world

super cup. It had been the last great international success of Ajax. Many

people judged it as a most astute move by the four members of the board

of trustees. However, Van Gaal and Cruijff had not been on harmonious

terms since the time when Cruijff had criticized van Gaal during his spell

as manager of FC Barcelona. In November 2011, in a popular talk show

broadcast on Dutch television, Cruijff defined the situation at Ajax andhis relationship with van Gaal as follows (it also gives a feeling for his

typical use of language):

INTERVIEWER: But could you imagine because it is also about largeegos of course, Johan Cruijff and Louis van Gaal, that you just think:

you know what, perhaps its not so bad for Ajax at the moment, lets justgive him a call.CRUIJFF: Nowadays you can see a revolution in soccer in almost allaspects. First we had, say, hobby trainers, lets call them this way, wehave to give them a name somehow. Then we had trainers who wereobliged to obtain a licence, so you get a different kind of person, adifferent kind of trainer that is just a very normal course of events.These people can communicate more easily with directors and



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members, because they have a different kind of education. Perhaps Ishould mention in between that soccer players, they are creativepeople and in general they use the right hemisphere. At school and ifyou learn in different ways, your left [hemisphere] will eventually be

filled. When the left [hemisphere] goes over the right [hemisphere],you will of course get collisions. Therefore there are always collisionswith all kinds of directors and members in sports.INTERVIEWER: But your intelligence should then be at the same locationas Van Gaal he is an elite athlete as well.CRUIJFF: Yes, but he never competed at the elite level. At a sub-elitelevel, not the elite level. This is not meant in a bad way at all. He hasnever reached, say, the level of Jonk, Bergkamp and so forth, he hasnever reached our level, but that is not a problem at all. He has been ateacher. When you are a teacher, you are being educated in a very

different way. And then you automatically get these kinds of anti poles,lets call it that way. At this moment we have a very large amount ofplayers, ex-players, who do have that intelligence: again Bergkamp,Jonk and so forth. So they can easily take this over. Therefore, now isthe time to take it over again, so the next generation should just haveits turn.39

The full-scale attack on Cruijff (by appointing one of his greatest enemies,

Van Gaal) divided Dutch society. Of course, De Telegraaf, the popular

newspaper in which Cruijff penned his column, supported his stance. Hewas also backed by many regular commentators on television. However, a

large part of the more educated public supported the decision of the

majority of the board of trustees. They were further encouraged in their

view by the liberal newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Indeed, it was not an

easy choice for all who cared for the future of Ajax. Nobody could deny

that Van Gaal was a good choice. The choice was also supported by some

other well-known club icons of Ajax. For a while, it seemed that Cruijff

had been dealt a severe blow. However, in time he recovered. In a juridical

procedure it was established that the four members of the board oftrustees had been wrong in nominating Van Gaal without informing

Cruijff about their decision. In the end Cruijff won the case. It was a

Pyrrhic victory. His iconic status was damaged after it became known that

he had used racist and sexist language against his colleagues in the board

of trustees. According to Cruijff, a black member of the board (former

Ajax and Dutch team player Edgar Davids) was nominated to the board

only because he was black. In his opinion the female board member

Marjan Olfers (also a professor in sports law) achieved her place solelybecause she was a woman.

Most people agreed that it was necessary to find an approach for Ajax

in which the interests of both the club and the public limited company



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were best represented. In spite of all these upheavals and organizational

chaos, Ajax became national champions in successive seasons, 2011, 2012

and 2013. These successes contributed to the gradual softening of the

conflict as described here.

Cruijff the icon?

The careful construction of Cruijff as a more general icon of Dutch society

after the period 20046 was unquestionably damaged in light of the

conflict surrounding the appointment of van Gaal. Cruijff had shown

himself not as a philanthropist, linguistic virtuoso or management

philosopher but as something of a street fighter who would not hesitate

to verbally attack people who failed to accede to his iconic status. As such,

he was still valued highly by many people, including an emerging support

from those who admired the ferocity with which he expressed his views.

Most people saw him as a wonderful player and soccer manager, but no

longer as an example of a modern, creative managerial approach

appropriate for the twenty-first century. This degradation of the iconic

stature of Cruijff as a person followed the somewhat disenchanting

performance of the Dutch team during the World Cup final in 2010 held

in South Africa. After the World Cup final against Spain many interna-tional media commentators drew attention to the contrast between the

somewhat robust, industrial play of the Dutch and the now increasingly

redundant memories of total football. The Independent characterized the

teams style of playing, with a primary focus on achieving results, as

almost non-Dutch:

It is hardly the stuff of David Winners Brilliant Orange we aredescribing here; nothing like the total voetbal perfected by Johan

Cruijff under Rinus Michelss leadership in 1974 in which all theDutch players were so completely gifted that they could interchangepositions in th e 43-3 formation which the side displayed to theworld.40

Although a contrast is being drawn here, the power of the sporting icon

reveals itself as well. In 2010 Dutch players and managers wanted to rid

themselves of the image of just falling short of achieving success and

perish in beauty.41 During the 2010 World Cup final the Dutch national

team appeared aware of the fact that the connection between playing styleand nationality was just a constructed identity and that securing success

was the currency by which modern teams are judged. That does not take

away the fact that all new generations will always be overshadowed to



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some extent with that source of identity, which has been outlined to every

Dutch football player since the 1970s.

Conclusion

A sports icon has the power to mobilize enormous amounts of positive

energy within a society. The success of Ajax and the Dutch team during

the 1970s led to periodic euphoric responses. Those successful years have,

until today, particularly in the embodiment of Cruijff, exercised an

enormous influence on football in the Netherlands. Such performances

constitute the foundation of mythical memories, which in turn have a

symbolic meaning for the construction of Dutch identity and the role that

sporting success plays in it.

Remarkably in the case of Cruijff and a small number of others that

achieved notoriety through international sport he has maintained the

iconic status that he acquired as a player in the 1970s to the present day.

He has not only maintained this status, but has also managed to embellish

it. This article has outlined this enlargement by documenting how a

number of high-profile people, with strong influence in politics, literary

circles and the media have promoted Cruijff as an icon, not just for those

interested in soccer but for the Dutch people as a whole. This involved inparticular his way of thinking and the manner in which he expressed

himself. These views enjoyed an elevated status and represented forms of

wisdom from which the Dutch people at large could appreciate how to

conduct themselves in a vastly changing world. Of course in promoting

Cruijff these individuals were also able to promote themselves and the

interests they represented (see, in particular, De Telegraaf).

Ajax was floated on the Dutch stock exchange in 1998 and was, in

Cruijffs opinion, placed under the charge of managers who lacked any

credible understanding of the game of football. He took the side of the

ordinary supporters, who were seemingly crying out for European

success just like they had experienced in the 1970s. He thereby employed

a nostalgic identity discourse and contrasted it with the hard-nosed

businesslike approach being pursued by the clubs board of directors.42

The we in his rhetoric referred to the real sports fans, the true

connoisseurs or, when the battle took place at boardroom level, to the

brilliant athletes at the club themselves. On the other side of this

dichotomy, in the mind of Cruijff, are the businesses, the directors, orthe academics. In his view, a director can never be a good administrator

if he has not played football at an elite level. In this way Cruijff appealed

to the peoples uncomfortable lack of understanding about the intricacies



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of soccer management. Within this idiom, the thinking and acting of an

elite athlete is unique, creative and inimitable to the ordinary person.

In a similar way Cruijffs capacities and achievements as a football

player were used to characterize the identity of the whole country. Thisbattle transcends that of the football player against club directors.

Whether or not induced by others, Cruijff was acutely aware of how to

appeal to societal sentiments, utilising his linguistic tools and polarizations

in a subtle and efficient way. The arguments and the language have

changed, however, in a way that again seamlessly fits with the mood music.

The man who could unite a country like no other, who made the Dutch

proud by the mere mention of his name, could also deride others who

opposed his position on certain matters in a wholly primitive manner.

Notes

1. Hans Lenk, Herculean MythAspects of Athletics,Journal of the Philosophy of

Sport3, no. 1 (1976), 16.

2. David Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round. A Global History of Soccer (New York:Riverhead Books, 2008), 465.

3. Seehttp://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/iffhs-century.html#worldpoc; alsohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_Player_of_the_Century(accessed 3 March 2012)

4. See Lincoln Allison and Terry Monnington,

Sport, Prestige and InternationalRelations, Government and Opposition37, no. 1 (2002): 10634; Tom Gibbons,

Contrasting Representations of Englishness During FIFA World Cup Finals,

Sport in History30, no. 3 (2010): 42246; Ivo van Hilvoorde, Agnes Elling and

Ruud Stokvis, How to Influence National Pride? The Olympic Medal Index as a

Unifying Narrative, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 45, no. 1(2010): 87102; Barrie Houlihan, Sport, National Identity and Public Policy,

Nations and Nationalism3, no. 1 (1997): 11337; Grant Jarvie and Irene A. Reid,

Sport, Nationalism and Culture in Scotland, The Sports Historian 19, no. 1

(1999): 97124; Mojca Doupona Topic and Jay Coakley, Complicating the

Relationship between Sport and National Identity: The Case of Post-SocialistSlovenia,Sociology of Sport Journal27, no. 4 (2010): 37189; Lloyd L. Wong andRicardo Trumper, Global Celebrity Athletes and Nationalism. Ftbol, Hockey,

and the Representation of Nation, Journal of Sport & Social Issues 26, no. 2(2002): 16894.

5. See also Steven J. Jackson and Pam Ponic, Pride and Prejudice: Reflecting on

Sport Heroes, National Identity, and Crisis in Canada, Sport in Society4, no. 2

(2001): 4362.

6. For this information on Cruijff we used Nico Scheepmaker,Cruijff, Hendrikus

Johannes, fenomeen(Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1972/2005); Mik Schots

and Jan Luitzen, Wie is Johan Cruijff. Insiders duiden het orakel (Amsterdam:

Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers/Het Sporthuis, 2007); David Winner, BrilliantOrange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football (London: Bloomsbury, 2010).

7. Goldblatt,The Ball is Round, 464.

8. Ibid., 478.



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9. Scheepmaker,Cruijff, Hendrikus Johannes, fenomeen, 142.

10. Frank J. Lechner, Redefining National Identity: Dutch Evidence on Global

Patterns, International Journal of Comparative Sociology48, no. 4 (2007), 360.

11. Goldblatt,The Ball is Round; Menno de Galan, De trots van de wereld. Michels,

Cruijff en het Gouden Ajax van 19641974 (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 2006);Auke Kok, 1974. Wij waren de besten (Amsterdam: Thomas Rap, 2004); Udo

Merkel, The 1974 and 2006 World Cups in Germany: Commonalities,

Continuities and Changes, Soccer & Society7, no. 1 (2006): 1428.12. Ruud Stokvis,Sport, publiek en de media (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2003), 101.


14. De Telegraaf, March 7, 1969, cited in Scheepmaker, Cruijff, Hendrikus Johannes,

fenomeen, 178.15. Hubert Smeets, Hard Gras, 1997, cited in Winner, Brilliant Orange, 25.


17. Winner, Brilliant Orange, 44.18. Alex Murphy, The Independent, March 4, 2005, online at http://www.independ-

ent.co.uk/news/obituaries/rinus-michels-6151472.html. Rinus Michels (1928

2005) was coach of Ajax Amsterdam (196571; 19756), Barcelona (19715;

19768) and the Netherlands national team (1974; 19845; 19868; 19902).

With Ajax he won the European Cup and the Spanish league with Barcelona.

With the Dutch national team, he reached the final of the World Cup in 1974

and in 1988 he won the European Championship. In 1999 he was named coach

of the century by FIFA.

19. Goldblatt,The Ball is Round, 468.20. The phrase Pythagoras in boots was first used by David Miller, former

sportswriter ofThe Times (London).21. Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O. Ranger, eds,The Invention of Tradition(New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Hugh Dauncy and Geoff Hare, World

Cup France 98. Metaphors, meanings and Values, International Review for the

Sociology of Sport 35, no. 3 (2000): 33147; Frank J. Lechner Imagined

Communities in the Global Game: Soccer and the Development of Dutch

National Identity, Global Networks 7, no. 2 (2007): 21529.

22. Winner, Brilliant Orange, 149.

23. Goldblatt,The Ball is Round, 726.24. Johan Cruyff. En un momento dado, directed by Ramon Gieling (Pieter v.

Huystee Films/Humanistische Omroep, 2004).

25. Guus Middag and Kees van der Zwan, Utopien wie nooit gebeuren. De taal van

Johan Cruijff, Onze Taal11 (1996): 2757.

26. Schots and Luitzen,Wie is Johan Cruijff; Winner, Brilliant Orange.27. Pieter Winsemius, Je gaat het pas zien als je het doorhebt. Over Cruijff en

leiderschap (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 2004); Pieter Winsemius, Toeval is

logisch (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 2012).28. Winner, Brilliant Orange, 212.

29. http://www.cruyff-foundation.org/, accessed 21 February 2012.30. See note 25.

31. See the movie cited in note 24.32. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, JC, een hagiografie,Vrij Nederland, April 14, 2012, 207.



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33. Marcel Maassen, Betaalde liefde. Voetbal, van volkssport tot entertainment-industrie (Nijmegen: Sun, 1999), 180.

34. Menno de Galan, De Coup van Cruijff. Hoe Johan de macht greep bij Ajax

(Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Thomas Rap, 2011).

35. Ruud Stokvis, Ajax Isnt Ajax Anymore: On Power, Rhetoric and Identity,Soccer and Society9, no. 4 (2008): 497508.

36. Ibid.37. Schots and Luitzen,Wie is Johan Cruijff.

38. Menno de Galan,De Coup van Cruijff.

39. Johan Cruijff, interview by Jeroen Pauw and Paul Witteman,Pauw en Witteman,

November 18, 2011.40. Ian Herbert, Holland: Brotherhood is Why the Futures Orange, The Independ-

ent on Sunday, July 4, 2010.

41. Winner, Brilliant Orange.

42. Stokvis, Ajax Isnt Ajax Anymore.



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Article Cruijff (Van Hilvoorde & Stokvis Sport in History)

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