Johan Cruyff

Hendrik Johannes "Johan" Cruijff (Dutch: [ˈjoːɦɑn ˈkrœyf] , April 25, 1947 - March 24, 2016), was a famous Dutch footballer. He won the European Footballer of the Year three times and led the Dutch team to a World Cup runner-up and a European Cup third place. After retiring, he became a football coach and also achieved extremely high achievements. He is one of the most legendary superstars in the world of football. He was voted sixth among the greatest Dutchmen in 2004, behind Erasmus who was ranked fifth. He had been a heavy smoker since his playing days, which caused him to have severe heart and lung function problems in his early forties. He finally died of lung cancer on March 24, 2016, at the age of 68. He was the first player to pass away in the 1974 World Cup finals. Another distinctive feature of Cruyff is that he often wore the No. 14 jersey that was extremely rare at the time: Until the 1990s, football players often did not use specific back numbers. Instead, jerseys No. 1 to 11 were given to the starting players when the lineup was announced before the game (and in Cruyff's position, he should be No. 9 or No. 11). And he did wear the No. 9 jersey in the early days of his debut (he later transferred to Barcelona. At that time, La Liga stipulated that starting players must wear Nos. 1 to 11, and he also wore No. 9 during this period). However, in the Eredivisie game against the archrival PSV on October 30, 1970, his teammate Gerrie Mühren couldn't find his No. 7 jersey before the start of the game. After Cruyff gave him his No. 9 jersey, he grabbed a No. 14 jersey used by the substitute players and went into battle. In the end, Ajax won a thrilling 1-0. After that, Cruyff began to use this lucky number with the acquiescence of the Dutch Football Association, and also brought this habit to the national team: when the 1974 World Cup During the World Cup, when the Dutch team wanted to allocate jersey numbers before the game and submitted the list to FIFA, head coach Michels originally planned to sort it by English letters, and Cruyff, who started with C, should be the No. 1 in the team in this order, but he insisted on choosing the No. 14 jersey, while the others were arranged in alphabetical order. However, at the 1976 European Cup, he was asked to wear the No. 9 jersey again. On Cruyff's 60th birthday, Ajax announced the permanent retirement of his iconic No. 14 jersey.