--- title: Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Dies At Age 68 description: He departed with one last head-spinning turn canonical: https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-24T15:05:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T16:11:38.194Z article:section: Sports og:title: How Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Changed the Game Forever og:description: He departed with one last head-spinning turn og:url: https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt331feeba6d32cab6/69888c610b72e378806e8abe/soccer-player-johan-cruyff.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Johan Cruyff dies of cancer at 68 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Changed the Game Forever twitter:description: He departed with one last head-spinning turn twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt331feeba6d32cab6/69888c610b72e378806e8abe/soccer-player-johan-cruyff.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Changed the Game Forever > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Geoffrey Smith / Fortune](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Geoffrey Smith / Fortune Mar 24, 2016 3:05 PM UTC  A file photo dated November 3, 2014 shows Dutch football coach Johan Cruyff delivers a speech during the presentation of the documentary named "The Last Match" in Barcelona, Spain on November 3, 2014. A file photo dated November 3, 2014 shows Dutch football coach Johan Cruyff delivers a speech during the presentation of the documentary named "The Last Match" in Barcelona, Spain on November 3, 2014.Anadolu Agency—Getty Images by [Geoffrey Smith / Fortune](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Geoffrey Smith / Fortune Mar 24, 2016 3:05 PM UTC What could be more characteristic? Dutch soccer legend Johan Cruyff, one of the world’s greatest ever players and tactical innovators, [is dead.](http://time.com/4270448/johan-cruyff-barcelona/) He departed the world stage that he had graced like few other sportsmen before him with one last head-spinning turn, an announcement of his death via his own Twitter feed. The tweet linked to the announcement that the former star of Ajax Amsterdam, Barcelona and the now-defunct Los Angeles Aztecs had died peacefully in Barcelona, “surrounded by his family after a hard-fought battle with cancer,” aged 68. Cruyff’s contribution to modern soccer is hard to overstate. The man embodied “Total Football”, the style that made Ajax European champions three years running and took the Dutch to two successive World Cup finals (even if he was off the team for the second of those). Before ‘Total Football’, teams would play in relatively rigid formations that limited their tactical options. Cruyff’s teams, by contrast, played with a collective fluidity in which each player was able, at least in theory, to play in any position. It demanded new levels of technical excellence and tactical awareness from individual players. When executed well, it was almost impossible to play against. It still is. The Barcelona team that dominates world soccer today is essentially Cruyff’s creation. As he transitioned from player to mentor and later coach, it was he who proposed setting up Barca’s now legendary academy to drill the precepts of ‘Total Football’ into young talent such as Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta. The original Dutch style may have morphed over time into a more distinctively Spanish one known as _‘tiki-taka’_, heavy on short passes and with an emphasis on ball retention, but it is still essentially Cruyff’s doctrine. Pep Guardiola, the architect of Barcelona’s latest spell of dominance and now coach of German champions Bayern Munich, is not so much a Cruyff disciple, as a chain in his apostolic succession. Few would argue with the conclusion of his biographer, Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling that the Dutchman is the single most influential figure in soccer history. But Cruyff was an individual genius more than just a one-man system, blessed with acceleration, vision and a technique so far ahead of its time that he was often, quite simply, untouchable. The clip below, from the 1974 World Cup finals, is seared into the memory of anyone who saw it at the time. Even his failures have gone down in popular history as successes. He pointed out with a characteristic lack of modesty that his Dutch team had been the real winners of the 1974 World Cup, even though they lost the final to Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany 2-1\. What people remembered was more important than the score, he said. And what all neutrals remember is how [Cruyff scored before a German player had even touched the ball](http://lionel%20messi%2C%20xavi%20and%20andres%20iniesta%2C/); if they remember Gerd Müller’s winner, then only for the sinking feeling that accompanied it. Genius, innovator, entertainer: it’s easy to see Cruyff as a sporting counterpart to David Bowie, who died earlier this year. Like Bowie, he was one of the first superstars of an era when television was becoming widely available in color, a medium that captured their extravagant gifts all the more vividly. Both stamped their respective arts (for Cruyff made soccer an art) forever, as creators of beauty and sources of delight. And both have left huge legacies, to inspire the generations that will come, and to comfort the ones that were lucky enough to see them. _This_ [_article_](http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/johan-cruyff-obituary-twitter/) _originally appeared on_ [_Fortune.com_](http://Fortune.com) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/"},"headline":"How Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Changed the Game Forever","datePublished":"2016-03-24T15:05:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:11:38.194Z","description":"He departed with one last head-spinning turn","url":"https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/","keywords":["Athletes","celebrities","Soccer","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt331feeba6d32cab6/69888c610b72e378806e8abe/soccer-player-johan-cruyff.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Geoffrey Smith / Fortune"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt331feeba6d32cab6/69888c610b72e378806e8abe/soccer-player-johan-cruyff.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Johan Cruyff dies of cancer at 68","caption":"A file photo dated November 3, 2014 shows Dutch football coach Johan Cruyff delivers a speech during the presentation of the documentary named \"The Last Match\" in Barcelona, Spain on November 3, 2014.","creditText":"Anadolu Agency—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/athletes/","name":"Athletes"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4270670/soccer-player-johan-cruyff-obit/","name":"How Soccer Legend Johan Cruyff Changed the Game Forever"}}]}] ```