Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff was interviewed for the show Recorda Míster on Barca tv to be presented tonight 23:15 (Barcelona time). A program with three episodes which will look back on former coaches in Barca’s history. Among them is Cruyff who was interviewed yesterday. The part with Cruyff will be showed in a three part series. Cruyff was quoted to insist that there are two key elements in football:

“For me the basis of football is technique and possession. I always want to have the ball, dominate and do what I want on the pitch. I never adapt to others. This is the most difficult football to play. There are no stars that shine more than the others. They’re all stars and everyone has to carry out their obligations. Somebody will be better on one day and somebody else the next, but it all has to come together in a single team, never in a team of individuals. I’ve always put the team above the individual. If the team works , the star is on top of all.”

It’s true that football also has strategy. If I see that a team has a full back with certain characteristics, I’ll play a winger who can beat him. But all the decisions you can take before a match stay up in the air because you never know how the other team will play. You can apply the strategy as you go, after seeing how the match is going after five minutes and you make the changes you believe are appropriate. Reading the match as a player and then as a coach has been one of my best virtues.”

He also pointed out the importance of homegrown players to be implemented in the first team: “I’ve always considered youth football as a fundamental aspect to take into account. There are always cards, injuries and other setbacks and it’s important to know that you can count on the reserves.”
He added, “This encourages the reserves since you make them believe that if they make an effort and, above all, take their opportunities, they have a good chance of breaking into the first team. It’s the best way to manage a club. There were a lot of players, I think Guardiola was one of the first, who trained with the first team but played for the B team. He knew that he had to work hard and give 100% if he wanted to be part of the senior squad. In the whole teaching process it is important to go one step at a time and be patient so that things work out well. Step by step and patience.”

Cruyff also said he never would have thought he would become a coach, and revealed where he got the ideas from: “I’d always thought that I would never become a trainer. Though, logically, I was interested in a lot of things related to football, apart from being a player, I didn’t want to be a trainer at all. When I played in the United States during my final years as a player, I discovered a whole new world, beyond the football on the pitch. There, I learned everything about organization, I already knew about football and I didn’t need to know any more. But I did need to learn about other things. For example, how to manage a team, how the organization of a football works, day by day work of the offices with their corresponding departments etc. I learned things there that still didn’t exist in Europe and it was then that the interest in becoming a manager one day awoke in me. I don’t like office work so I thought that if I wanted to change something my place was on the pitch.”