The following is a translation of Johan Cruyff’s weekly article in El Periodico.  The original can be found here.

Johan Cruyff’s key points.

Barcelona took, in the last seven matches, a 31 to 1 aggregate and the truth is it conducts itself impressively, uniquely.

About a week ago I had lunch with Pep Guardiola. It’s been some time since we last met even though we spoke [on the phone] often. It was nice, a very pleasant encounter between two coaches who likes nothing more than to talk about what excite us the most; football. Without saying, we don’t have to look for a subject. And of course, obviously the main topic of our conversation ended up being, or rather, started out about Barca.

We did an elaborate review of the team, without being overly-zealous; everything from what it did well and that is a lot, a hell of a lot, and yes, why not, that small matter that also exists, yes, it is the mistakes made. There are always things to correct. But Pep already knows how to deal with them.

The crux of our discussion was talking about the particulars that made this group of players currently the best by far and the most exquisite in the world. How have they come to this point? We can assume that [by rectifying] all the errors [of the past] have finally resulted in this footballing excellence.

Remember Guardiola’s first year in charge. The decisions he made before the start the season and yes, those that were also made at the end of that that campaign.  How he went from Eto’o to Ibra and finally, Villa. I don’t want to delve deeper into the details of this succession of changes nor do I of our warm and cordial meeting, and I don’t want to pretend that – in a week as important as the one that just ended yesterday – this transformation is a reflection of my thoughts.

After the 1-5 sterling performance by Barca in the Cornella-El Prat, the best thing to do is to focus on the football played; there was a lot of it, and good. Indeed, one of the points that kept cropping up in our chat was: has the team from Pep’s first year changed so much with respect to the present one? If you analyse it, name by name, you won’t find the factor that makes you say: this is the determining factor.

The keeper is the same; the defence too. So are Xavi and Iniesta. So is Messi. Pedro and Busquets were already there. The foundation is the same, so what are the reasons for the transformation? Pep tried to explain it to me by putting into words the atmosphere that he noticed in the team in every training session: his men, worked harder than the first day that he set foot with them.

With each passing day, he can see Messi’s incessant hunger for football grows, for the win, to keep on creating, and to assist his teammates, or that Xavi is willing to put up with his muscle pains and over-worked tendons because that is just who he is; a unique kind of player. Or Iniesta, who is never satisfied with what he had achieved the previous day; he always wants to improve himself. That you’ll be hard pressed to score a goal past Valdes, not even when they are playing a joke on him, because for him, everything is serious. That Busquets will fight with anyone to defend his territory. And that Pedro runs, and runs, and runs, and runs, and able to read the play of others, just like the one he scored from a Messi rebounded shot on goal; when others stops running, he continues.

The over-riding factor is that this team now works better. Even though that seems unlikely just earlier this season with players just returning from the World Cup worn-out, further exhausted with more international duties, and since they are only human and not machines, they even lost to Hercules. And there were some who doubted them then, but all Pep needs (and he knew it) was for the season to enter into its full rhythm; with two games per week, including the day to day [workouts]. And by making each and every one of them see that Madrid, with Mourinho, is not going to deliver less than Pellegrini’s Madrid – which failed to deliver and catapulted against a great Barcelona team even though they managed to get 95 points. [Ed. Actually 96]

Doing it this way, we can comprehend everything that has happened in recent weeks. The eight goals at Almeria seemed like a gift, and someone very clever, I repeat, very clever, challenged them to put eight pass Madrid. And look what happened. They only managed five, yes, but it could have been eight because that hunger that Pep spoke of, is insatiable.

All this led to the Cornella. Probably the side that has embittered Pep and his team the most in the past two years. The derby was not a definitive test because this team has nothing to prove to the footballing world anymore but just in case, showed their game again and yet another rout. They repeated the feat, yes.

And best of all is that Espanyol, if you analyse them, not only played well and at times, better than well, but even so, in the presence any Barca side no one should be thinking that it would be enough to just try and avoid a defeat, especially not against these brilliant champions.