If you have to evaluate the weight of talent to distinguish the category of a player, Johan Cruyff was indisputably among the best. If we add to that consideration his influence as a coach on the evolution of the game, the sum leaves no doubt: Johan has no rival. A genius in practice and a genius in knowledge.
He was a very jealous coach of his independence, he did not want anyone to come between him and his players. He had plenty of prestige and imagination to protect his position and when things got ugly he was decisive. To Xavi, when he was just a coach project, he gave this advice in his approximate Spanish: “The only way to survive in that position is to tell the president to take the piss, not to get involved and, if not, say goodbye and good riddance.” nights”.
Although we came to develop the profession on opposite shores, he at Barça and I at Madrid, I admired him a lot. As a player I faced him once with no story other than a minor anecdote. As a coach we reached another level of complicity that was strengthened in the confrontations. He always at Barça and I first at Tenerife and later at Real Madrid. In my first season in Madrid we were champions. In the next one we started badly, we couldn’t find a way to straighten the course and since Madrid is one of the teams in the world that has the worst relationship with defeats, when in the middle of the year we reached the Clásico, my situation was weak. If in the previous season we had resolved the duel at the Bernabéu with an “unforgettable” 5-0. At that point that feat had been forgotten and they had to win to survive in office. The match was even and so was the result: 1 to 1. Not enough.
When, after the game, I was climbing the stairs of the tunnel like a lost soul, I saw that Johan was waiting for me at the top as if we had a date.
After greeting me with the usual affection, he went to the critical topic:
—You had to win and you tied.
I answered that everything was costing us a lot… But Johan was not there to analyze things, but rather as a friend and advisor.
—Do you know what you have to do?
It was difficult for me to understand what he wanted to tell me because I was still in a loop, thinking about the game. It was then that he gave me his infallible medicine, only in a stronger dose than the one he offered to Xavi.
—Go to the press conference and kill your president.
—For what reason?
-Any. Make one up, but kill it.
Johan was a genius at overcoming crises. On one occasion, they were about to fire him and he leaked to the press the ten conditions that he set for the managers to get out of the chaos, and he ended the note with a warning: “otherwise, I’m leaving.” He took center stage and changed the axis of the controversy as if by magic.
That wasn’t my profile. I didn’t even have the imagination to invent a media murder. But I appreciated that advice as if it were a generous act of friendship between two mafia friends. It’s even cute to be offered a knife to kill a president who is thinking about how to kill you. In legal terms it is justified, it is called self-defense. Since I am not very smart nor was Johan Cruyff, I appreciated the advice, but I did not carry it out. A short time later they threw me out on the street. Moral (for Xavi or for anyone who is in a bind): you have to listen to geniuses.
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