Johan Cruyff, one of football's greatest players and most influential and visionary coaches has died after a five-month battle with lung cancer. He was 68.
His death on Thursday was announced on his website and soon after by the De Telegraaf newspaper, for whom he wrote a weekly column that was often controversial but always eagerly anticipated.
An ex-smoker who had heart surgery in 1991, Cruyff joined Ajax Amsterdam as a long-haired teenager before emerging as one of the world's greats in the early 1970s. He helped Ajax Amsterdam win three European Cups in a row from 1971-73 and also named European Footballer of the Year in 1971, 1973 and 1974.
Johan Cruyff 1947-2016 (RIP)
— Johan Cruyff (@JohanCruyff) March 24, 2016
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Born Hendrik Johannes Cruyff, he joined Barcelona for a then world record transfer fee of $US2 million, and it was Barcelona that would later define his coaching career, helping the Catalan club to win their first La Liga title in nearly 15 years in 1974.
He was also a key player in the great Netherlands team that reached the 1974 World Cup final when, for the first time, during the tournament a global audience saw him perform the now-famous "Cruyff turn" the movement in which the player with the ball plays it behind their own leg before swerving away in the direction of the ball.
The Dutch also got to the World Cup final but lost again in 1978, this time without Cruyff who had quit the national side, saying years later he walked away after an armed kidnap attempt.
Following stints at Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats in the old NASL, then Levante in Spain, Cruyff returned to Ajax before ending his playing career at their bitter rivals Feyenoord in 1984.
In 1999, he was voted European Player of the Century while he is often bracketed alongside Brazil's Pele and Argentina's Diego Maradona as the three best players ever to grace the sport.
The Barca 'Dream Team' Cruyff coached won four straight La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994 and beat Sampdoria 1-0 for the club's maiden European Cup triumph in 1992.
The possession-based playing style Cruyff promoted, with an emphasis on relentless attack, has been widely copied and is credited with underpinning Barca's subsequent successes, as well as those of the Spanish national team.
Former England captain Gary Lineker, who played under Cruyff at Barcelona, summed up the Dutchman's contribution by saying on Twitter: "Football has lost a man who did more to make the beautiful game beautiful than anyone in history."
Cruyff had announced last October that he was suffering from lung cancer but continued to write his newspaper column and earlier this month travelled to Israel to visit his son Jordi, who is technical director at Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Only last month he said he was "2-0 up in the first half" of his battle against lung cancer. Poignantly that turned out to be one of the last public statements made by the man whose footballing pronouncements were eagerly sought after by soccer fans around the globe.
He died surrounded by friends and family at home in Barcelona, his website added.
His death prompted Dutch radio and television stations to suspend regular programming, with Ronald de Boer, another Dutch international who played at Barcelona, declaring: "He was the best footballer we ever had."
'I still don't know where the ball went'
Decades after being on the receiving end of Johan Cruyff's most famous piece of outrageous skill, former Sweden defender Jan Olsson says he still wonders where the ball went.
The video of him performing his famed 'Cruyff turn' against Olsson at the 1974 World Cup immediately started circulating on social media.
It shows Cruyff feigning to cross with his right foot, before whipping the ball behind his standing leg and darting off in the other direction as a bemused Olsson, his eyes still fixed on where the ball had been, stumbled in his wake.
"A long ball came towards the corner flag and I was after him," Olsson told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
"I had his back and I thought I had the situation under control. He went to cross and I thought I'd go to cover it -- but the ball wasn't there... There were 25,000 Dutch fans in the section where I was fooled, and you can imagine how they shouted and cheered," added the 73-year-old.
Luckily for Olsson the ball was cleared and the game finished in a goalless draw, but the meeting left a lasting impression on the former defender.
"I didn't understand it, I just wondered where the ball was. It was a fun episode, and I'm glad to have met a player of that class.
"He was one of the world's best players and leaders, this is very tragic, it was far too soon."
