Susila Cruijff (50) was in the Netherlands last weekend. Her father would have turned 75 this Monday. In the Johan Cruijff Arena she tells about her life and that of her father. Next to a life-size picture of him, because, she says, “I have the feeling that he supports me and is close to me”.
Washing a car
“My father could be very strict. We sat down to dinner at nine o’clock in the evening, not a minute later. We had to get good grades. And once when I asked for 15 euros to go out to dinner with friends, he said: ‘You get 20 euros if you wash my car.’ At times like that I could get angry. Why so difficult? One day – I was a bit older – he took me aside. He taught me the most important lesson of my life. “It’s easy for me to give you 100 or 200 euros,” he said. “But I learned the hard way what it’s like not to have a father. When I lost my father when I was thirteen, I was lost. My job is not to make life easy for you, but to teach you to take care of yourself.’ Money doesn’t grow on trees, my father knew from experience. He was not well off as a child. Even though he earned good as a football player, that did not mean that his children could and should do everything. I don’t have any children myself, but if I had them, I would do it exactly the same.”
locker room humor
“One of the best things about my father was his positivism. I know he could come across as tough if he wanted to get the most out of something, but that was work. At home, he was the father and husband who fried eggs and bacon on Sundays. He sang out of tune in the shower. Who secretly pushed my mother’s golf ball into the grass. Who pulled my hair when I took the ball from him while playing soccer. ‘Dressing room humor’ he called it. Even when he became ill, he remained optimistic. He called chemotherapy ‘my great friend’, because yes, that chemo was going to help him against cancer. Just before he died he said, ‘Su, it’s not a drama. I’ve lived as if I’ve turned a hundred. It’s a drama when you die when you’re twenty.’ My father believed in life, not survival. He didn’t want any more chemo when he felt it was a lost cause. Then he would rather go on holiday one last time, he said.”
money wolf
“My father is often portrayed as a moneylender, but he is the most generous person I know. After his first professional contract – he was eighteen – he already gave money to a hospital. We used to go to orphanages at Christmas. I don’t think we as a family know half how much he has done for others. That money wolf image is probably because he was more famous and brash than many of his fellow players. He demanded things where others dared not, but he didn’t do it just for himself. My father realized that as a professional football player without education or work experience you are vulnerable. Just look at finding a job if you stop playing at 35. Who are you then? That is why he championed the foundation of the Johan Cruyff Institute. Wherever in the world you are engaged in your sport, you can always combine that with an education.”
Bad news
“My father found out by accident that he had lung cancer. Since his heart attack – he was 44 at the time – he went for checkups every year. He was there again six months before his death. The X-ray of his heart showed something on his lungs. “I’ll refer you to another specialist,” the heart doctor said on the phone. “I think it would be good if you take someone with you.” My father asked me to come with me. I almost always did, because like my father, I am strong in difficult moments. He felt perfectly healthy, but assumed it would be bad news. Why else such a phone call? We’re not stupid are we. The first thing my father said when he heard he had lung cancer was, ‘I quit smoking 25 years ago. Was it all for nothing?’ We were in shock, but the doctors were positive. “You are young, you are strong and in good shape,” they said. “You can live a normal life for at least another four years.” Unfortunately, it was an aggressive form of cancer that quickly mutated. If we had found out sooner, the lung cancer surgeon said to my father, you might have survived, we would have removed a small piece of the lung. Reason why my father would have liked to participate in an information campaign† If it had been up to him, everyone with an increased risk would receive a lung x-ray every year.”
Also read: The media loved Cruijff, and Cruijff loved them
Fame
“Sorry to say it, but I’ve always hated journalists. When my father had surgery on his heart, I was nineteen. I waited in a small room for the results, together with the assembled press. And they just joke, it drove me crazy. ‘It may be work for you,’ I said, ‘but we are talking about my father. Get lost!’ I didn’t understand how my father handled all that attention. It was not normal, sometimes I was literally run over as a child. “It’s part of my job,” he said when I once asked him about it. “If you’re known, it’s your duty to give back.” It is, of course, also true that he has benefited from his fame. When he needed donors, he didn’t ask for money, but demanded he it. “You have to donate so much,” he would say. “Otherwise you’re looking like an asshole.” When my father passed away, my brother and sister decided that I should lead his Cruyff Foundation. I’ve always been involved in that in the background – I’m quite shy – but that new role put me in the spotlight. And yet I did it, because my father would have wanted to. And because I feel close to my father when I speak on his behalf. He would be proud to see me sitting here.”
kidnap attempt
“In 1977 a man broke into our house in Barcelona. Jordi, Chantal and I were sleeping upstairs, but my parents got a gun to their temple. While the man tied up my father, my mother ran away. She alerted the neighbors and that’s how he got caught. According to the police, the man had a car ready to kidnap my brother, sister and me. It was a traumatic experience and it gave us months of police protection. Reason why my father did not go to the World Cup in Argentina the following year. His family was the most important thing to him. What if another madman kidnaps his wife or children? At the time, the press made the point – very silly – that my mother had prevented my father from traveling to Argentina. That is really nonsense, because my mother never determined when my father played football. My father has a lot of character. She determined what time we got up, ate and which school we went to. But football? no way†
golf
“I think my father was happiest after he retired from football. He has had many happy moments at Ajax and Barcelona, but they are also difficult clubs. It was there that he experienced his heaviest moments. My father can seem harsh, but it always came from the heart with him. He wanted to improve processes, make clubs better. That didn’t always go well. In that sense he felt misunderstood. He revived after his football career. Playing golf, on holiday, doing and letting – and saying – what he wanted. I think he is honored in a fairer way now that he is dead than when he was alive.”
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