Johan Cruyff Quotes

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.

Someone who has juggled the ball in the air during a game, after which four defenders of the opponent get the time to run back, that's the player people think is great. I say he has to go to a circus.

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

I would prefer to play for and against an attacking team, but I am now used to playing against defensive teams.

I like to control the ball and analyse the game.

I like playing just outside of my own penalty box, the player who receives the ball and organises the game.

At Tottenham, we are just bombing on as wing-backs, but sometimes on the international stage, where there is so much quality, you need to be more careful about the distance between yourself and the right-sided centre-half.

When I've watched teams that play with five at the back and wing-backs, I've looked at their starting positions and positions out of possession because that comes a little bit more unnaturally to me.

For me it's more difficult to play against the quicker wingers, but for the team it's perhaps more difficult to face players that are good passers, because one through ball can take the whole team out of the game.

As I'm growing up, going into holding midfield, I'm watching Busquets quite a lot for Barcelona. The way he controls the game, his reading of it, technically, defensively - everything about him cuts him out above the rest. I'm really enjoying watching him.

To be useful in defence, to win back the ball, you don't always have to go sliding into the tackle. It's also about your positioning; sometimes all you have to do is take a step back.

When I used to play against Bayern, Xabi Alonso always used to give me a really hard time. He was so experienced... he made me suffer. The way he'd keep switching play just meant that you could never stop running. He was very intelligent.

I like attacking football, but that's not the only thing the game's about.

What features in a midfielder am I after? Players who have the mindset to win every game - then we can start to talk about the technical quality.

Tactically, I know how to play on one side even though I remain convinced that I can play better through the middle.

Jorginho is really suitable to the way I like to play. He is a player that has many good sides to him. He wants to work hard, and he's very fast in moving the ball, which is important for us, although there is also Cesc Fabregas, who has the same potential as Jorginho.

Centre-backs with good technique can move the ball forward, even when under pressure.

I do not know if we play the most beautiful or attractive football, but we certainly play more intelligently, more functionally and more precisely than anyone else.

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.

Good players win you games, good formations stop you losing them.

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.

When you play a team with as much attacking power as Barcelona and you restrict them to one shot on target in the second leg, you are doing something right. Have the best football team gone through? Yes. Have the best organised team gone through? No.

When you control the ball you control the score

The best illustration I can give of his talent is that at Manchester United there was always a possession drill in training designed to develop our passing ability, which might be three players against another three players, or six versus six, or nine versus nine. But no matter what the numbers were, the side with Paul Scholes on their team would always win by keeping the most possession.

I prefer getting a lot of the ball.