On March 24, 2016, the football clock stopped at full time for Johan Cruyff. He was –perhaps – the greatest player to ever grace a football pitch and certainly one of the most influential players of all-time. My friend Bill Goff wrote to me last Thursday morning after hearing the sad news. Bill shared a story with me I’d never heard and one that created an instant Minnesota connection to Cruyff. It’s a story well worth retelling.
Background
Cruyff was 68 years-old when he passed away in Barcelona, Spain after a long battle with cancer. You may have already read about his life history and his greatness, like the time between 1970-74 when he played 29 matches for the Netherlands and won every game but one – a heartbreaker – the 1974 World Cup final vs. West Germany.
You may have seen writers expound on the 19 championship trophies he accumulated in his career or the eight personal trophies he won for being the best footballer of his time among many other great footballers of his era.
There have also been plenty of pieces reflecting on Cruyff’s contributions to the game after his playing days where he won nine championships as a coach. This story instead focuses on a man who late in his career graced the atrocious ‘soccer’ fields of the NASL made up of green carpet and baseball infields, and still did so with elegance, skill, and class. It’s a story about one of the greatest goals ever to be scored at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota.
The Greatest Player I Ever Saw
Those were the words I first read when Goff reached out to me last week. He said he remembered a game in early August of 1980 when the Kicks were playing the Washington Diplomats where Cruyff was plying his trade. Though no one knew it at the time, the Kicks were nearing the end of their 5-year run as an outdoor team and even the league itself would be gone only a few short years later. According to Goff, Minnesota trounced the Diplomats at a game played at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, by a score of 5-1. Goff still remembers Ron Futcher scoring 4 of the 5 goals for the Kicks with the South African Ace Ntsoelengoe scoring the other.
“I was 15 and out of my mind that night for two reasons, the first is how amazing the Kicks played, the second was watching Cruyff,” explained Goff. “ He was a man amongst boys. He tormented [the Kicks] Gary Vogel on the wing all evening, only to have zero supporting cast to take advantage. With the game out of reach, he scored the greatest goal I have ever seen to this day. From the corner of the box [on the endline] in the dirt infield, he hit a slow, lofting volley from the outside of his right foot that froze [goalkeeper] Tino Lettieri in his tracks. When the ball settled in the net, all Tino could do was turn and applaud. I was there with some high school buddies and we went crazy! I can still see it so vividly. I wish that was somehow memorialized on video.”
“Only a guy like him could have pulled that off,” reflected Lettieri who was the goalkeeper for the Kicks outdoor team from 1977-1981. Lettieri, who currently owns a restaurant in Shorewood, Minnesota, was a fan favorite and used to bring a green stuffed parrot into the goal with him every game for good luck. “He was one of my idols growing up. Obviously, he was one of the top players in the world along with the Maradona’s, and Pele’s but Cruyff was the best in the world in his era.”
Congratulations in Order
Lettieri said as a goalkeeper you never want to remember a goal against you but that was clearly the most memorable. “That day – I’ll never forget it. He was at the corner flag coming out and the ball was literally on the [end] line. I’m thinking there’s no way can this guy…” His sentence trails off. “I wouldn’t ever have thought that somebody could score from there. I pulled up a little bit and all of a sudden I see the ball coming at me and curling over my head into the far post. As much as I was disappointed I just thought – unbelievable. That was one of the greatest shots that every went through me. I’m sure he practiced this all the time and he knew he could bend the ball like that. It was a perfect shot for him that’s all I could do was congratulate him afterward. I remember telling him that it was amazing and I had no idea how he did it.”
Lettieri said he watched the video of that goal many times afterward to try to learn from it but never figured out exactly how Cruyff was able to bend that ball around him from such an acute angle in so little time. “He just had that outside of the foot shot that rarely could anyone else do,” said Lettieri. “The Diplomats were an average team but he made everyone look good. Even with the additional pressure, he drew he would still find the open man, the open space and deliver the ball.
Another Minnesota Kicks legend, Alan Merrick was playing in LA in 1980, the year Cruyff scored the outrageous goal in Minnesota. It didn’t surprise Merrick that Cruyff chose the outside of this right foot. “He was extremely right footed,” said Merrick. “But he could cross the ball, pass, and shoot better with the outside of his right foot than most could hit with a good left foot.”
Cruyff: Prophet of the Goal
“For my generation, Cruyff was the most important player,” said AC Milan legend Mauro Tassotti who was in the Twin Cities last week. “When I was a little guy, I saw a film made by Sandro Ciotti who was an important journalist. It was called “The Prophet of the Goal.” It was about the history of Cruyff, of Holland… I had the honor to play against Cruyff in the Champions League [when I was] with AC Milan and he managed Barcelona … So I took it pretty hard this morning when I heard the news. He was not only very good, he was also very elegant in his moves on the field. He was very beautiful to watch.”
Merrick who played against Cruyff in the NASL, eloquently reflected on his influence on the game and agreed with Tassotti’s description. “His running and ease of movement, his cuts and the ability to zig-zag through the field were all features of his play. He used to dance with the ball. He was so in tune with his players but also with the ball. He knew where the ball needed to be and he got it there.”
Merrick says one feature that often isn’t talked about when describing Cruyff was his work off the ball which he says he did tirelessly to get to the places which allowed him opportunities.
But Merrick tells another side of the Dutch Master, one that other players who knew and played with Cruyff told him about. “He was an angry young man. He didn’t really want anyone to get to know him. He often seemed insular and lonely. But within that same group of teammates, they spoke highly of him in terms of his attitude on the pitch and in the locker room. He was certainly a ‘team player’ and made things happened for everyone around him. Players that played around Cruyff would start to shine. They just had to get into an empty space and he’d always seem to find them,” reflected Merrick.
Cruyff: A Thoroughbred
I mistakenly ask Merrick about Cruyff playing in the NASL in his sunset years and make a generalized statement that he no longer had his bursts of speed. Merrick quickly jumps in, “Yes, he did. Oh yeah, he did. Yes – he – did. He was still extremely quick and he had those delicate legs and strides. He didn’t look like he was running quick. Some players are small and move their legs quickly but he didn’t run like a hamster in a wheel. He ran gracefully like a race horse – a thoroughbred. His strides and his structure were elegant and graceful. That’s why we all liked him. We saw in him a grace that we just didn’t see in other players of his time.”
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