The myth around Johan Cruijff has only grown stronger after his death

His first contact with the media was immediate. And not just right, but in a way that was probably never seen before in the Netherlands. The seventeen-year-old Johan Cruijff was “shy”, the reporter thought, “with downcast eyes”, but what he said showed his own view. It was the Monday after his second match in Ajax, November 1, 1964. Just like the week before, the skinny teenager had scored. After Cruijff had told something about his childhood, he pointed the surprised newspaper reporter to Feyenoord-Ajax next Sunday. Ajax had started very badly this season, but thanks to a surprising 5-0 victory over PSV, many spectators would still come to the Kuip, he knew. That was good for Feyenoord’s turnover.

The conversation took place in textile trade Litrico in the Nieuwe Hoogstraat in Amsterdam, where Cruijff worked as an apprentice salesman. Smiling shyly, he posed with folded pajamas in his hand, an oversized suit jacket over his narrow shoulders. And this first photo was also allowed to be there. The readers of newspaper The time (local edition) thus became acquainted with an engaging young footballer who looked beyond his nose. There was no cliche that afternoon.

Status of philosopher

An endless series of interviews, photos, films, analyzes and reports would follow. And whatever the reason, his lyrics were never boring. To the extent that they were incomprehensible, they somehow caught the imagination. Time and again what De Tijd reporter Koos de Boer had noticed in November 1964: it was as if Cruijff was being turned on by the questions. The interviews stimulated the goal getter cum playmaker, captain, trainer and analyst to think aloud. The early school leaver, better at math than at language, thus received help from outside, as it were. He rewarded the journalists with idiosyncratic ideas and took all the time they need. For example, the media gave the brilliant footballer, who read little and rarely wrote anything, the status of a philosopher. It was a fruitful, lifelong collaboration. “From the beginning I have seen the press as a necessary evil,” he says in the VPRO documentary JC, which airs Monday. “They need me as much as I need them.” When asked what he was going to do after his sports career, he said at a young age: “Public relations.”

Perhaps Hendrik Johannes Cruijff’s marriage to the mass media was even better than that to Danny Coster. The rise of the enfant terrible in the second half of the 1960s coincided with the growth of color magazines and human interest pages in the newspapers. Soloists do better than collectives, which suited Cruijff very well, because he soon claimed his role as “loner in the team”, as he called himself. That caused friction at Ajax, but Cruijffie, always looking to cash in on his market value, gave interviews and closed commercial deals as much as he wanted. He posed patiently in the clothes his fashion-conscious wife had laid out for him and with the long hair she liked. Cruijff, for example, seemed to fit in seamlessly with the left-wing zeitgeist, with which he, as a descendant of a family of market vendors and shopkeepers, actually had nothing to do with it. The individualism in society did the rest.

He would never leave both partners, Danny and the media, although he has arguably less wrangled with the media than with his wife, who was equally unruly. According to intimates, Danny from Amsterdam South was the only one who told him the truth. If a Hilversum or Catalan television interviewer ever wanted Cruijff to be sheepish when he had proclaimed abracadabra, after returning home the oracle could in such cases say ‘well, so there was no string to be tied to that!’ are welcomed.

‘John the Rebel’

Cruijff fought countless conflicts with his opponents through the media. In the eighties he even made an alliance with Jaap de Groot (The Telegraph), Frits Barend (New Revue) and Johan Derksen (VI) to make life miserable for what he sees as underhanded Ajax management. Also in Spain there were well-known journalists who did odd jobs for him in exchange for exclusive interviews. The widely publicized quarrels contributed to the myth of ‘Johan the Rebel’. The fact that Ajax and FC Barcelona (and the other clubs where he played) often had the patience of a saint with the sometimes unpredictable coach and his stream of ideas was less relevant.

The myth surrounding Cruijff has only grown stronger after his death in March 2016. So much so that, just to name a few, VI this week makes a defender of Inter Milan, who had put up a good resistance against Cruijff in the European Cup final of 1972, eleven years older in a hagiographic review. And a lot more helpless. The defender Gabriele Oriali, who was only nineteen in 1972, is portrayed as the ‘almost thirty-year-old Oriali’ who ‘had never experienced such an elusive figure as Cruijff’ in his long career.

The facts of that final – Cruijff had been on the ball half as often as usual; according to his journalist friend Maarten de Vos, he had only shown his class “only occasionally” – they lost out against the images. Especially against the images of his two goals; Ajax won 2-0. His goals were beautiful and because they have been repeated endlessly, it seems as if Cruijff played great in that final. He often disappoints in finals, see for example that of 1974 at the World Cup, but apparently that is not considered mediagenic.

On the occasion of his 75th birthday on Monday 25 April, the umpteenth coffee table book with beautiful photos will be published. Every day ‘unknown’ images are posted on the internet, many a talk show takes a look at it, there will be a four-part podcast and the NOS recently treated us to images of Cruijff for an hour. And now the VPRO is also broadcasting a long (and more coherent) documentary. Both without commentary: the images should speak for themselves.

In the VPRO documentary JC we see a nervous Cruijff walk onto the field of the Olympic Stadium for his farewell match in November 1978. At the same time we hear Jan Wolkers reading a poem. A goosebump moment. Well found. But then something very different from Cruijff’s life immediately follows. The horror of that farewell match, the unforgettable 0-8 against Bayern Munich, would have disturbed the intended intoxication of the Cruijff feeling.

inimitable artist

The media made Holland’s most fascinating sportsman of all time even stronger and more unapproachable than he was and they continue to do so to this day. The camera loved him whether he was holding folded pajamas or tricking a defender. In the clumsy play with the feet he always seemed in balance, due to his almost supernatural anticipation and spatial awareness, his alert jumping up and landing on his forefeet, so that he resembled a dancer, after which he hit the ball with both feet, and – very special – with both sides of those feet and if necessary with his heels and ankles, could move. He felt like an artist and he was, an often inimitable artist who left no one indifferent.

But where his creativity actually came from, what was the source of his urge to prove, his misty conflicts, his eternal lust for attack and stubbornly playful nature: it remains a mystery as long as the Cruijff myth is blown up and our view of the real Cruijff becomes taken away. With all those well-intentioned tributes, it just makes it less interesting. They do him short.

You can say, it would be something. That hassle with its sponsors and directors has evaporated, nothing that is crooked needs to be straightened out. His brilliance was directly related to his psychological and physical shortcomings, but they only complicate it. Let’s dream. Fortunately, we still have the images, and they never bore.

The marriage between Cruijff and the mass media was excellent. And as it should be, the media continues to behave like a widow who wants to know no harm.

Auke Kok is the author of ‘Johan Cruijff, De biography’.