While Cruijff is famous as a footballing genius, his Cruyffesque quotes and phrases have become legendary in the Dutch-speaking world. Cruijff comments: ‘They say I don’t always formulate properly, but in general people understand what I mean.’
Some of Cruijff’s famous quotes
- ‘If it’s not going well, then it’s not going well.’
- ‘Football is simple. But it’s hard to play simple football.’
- ‘While we’ve got the ball, they can’t score.’
- ‘I speak better Spanish than any Dutch person, but worse Spanish than any Spaniard.’
- ‘Every downside has its upside.’
- ‘Before I’ve made a mistake, I won’t make that mistake.’
- ‘If you’re not there, you’re either too early or too late.’
- ‘Coincidence is logical.’
- ‘I never really make mistakes, because it takes me a lot of effort to get things wrong.’
- ‘You’ve got to shoot, if you want to score.’
- ‘Football is simple: you’re on time or you’re late. If you’re late you should have left earlier.’
- ‘I’m against everything. Until I make a choice, then I’m for.’
- ‘You’ve always got to make sure you score one more goal than your opponents.’
- ‘They may not hang beautiful goals in a museum, but it’s still art.’
- ‘He heard the clock strike, but he still doesn’t know what the time is.’
Cruijff and Spanish
Cruijff has lived in Barcelona for many years. Besides his inventive use of Dutch, he is also famous for his innovative Spanish. His Spanish neologisms include the following:
- Automaticamente
- Una contra uno
- Rondo
And his mistakes in Spanish are celebrated too:
- ‘Gallina de piel’ instead of ‘piel de gallina’: i.e., bump geese instead of goose bumps.
- ‘Una paloma no hace verena’: one pigeon doesn’t make a summer.
- ‘En un momento dado’: a literal translation of ‘at a given moment’.