Comment on When Ajax didn't want Johan Cruyff he left for Feyenoord... and won the double by Behind the badge: how Ajax became Ajax
As featured on Guardian Sport
It was with a fit of anger, revenge and a winning double that Johan Cruyff ended his remarkable playing career. He also crossed the biggest ditches in football to do so.
Cruyff was 36 in the summer of 1983 and on his second spell at Ajax, having helped the club clinch the league and cup double. It was a feat that was rewarded with the news that he was to be pushed aside by the powers that be in De Meer. A new contract was not to be offered to the man who had brought so much power, status and prestige to the club, not to mention a host of sparkling trophies.
With a point to prove and a high level of anger, Cruyff went for the previously unthinkable. The Dutchman signed for Ajax's increasingly bitter rivals Feyenoord, a club that had worked for much of the previous decade since winning the league and UEFA Cup double in 1974. Rotterdam giants, the first club from the Netherlands to win both the European Cup and the Club World Championship, had only managed to add one KNVB Cup success to their tally since the league and European double glory nearly a decade earlier.
You could say that Feyenoord needed Cruyff more than Cruyff needed Feyenoord. They weren't in a position to simply be overwhelmed by an all-out Ajax; it was a bit more complex than that. PSV Eindhoven had risen strongly in the second half of the 1970s, winning three titles in four seasons to add to their own UEFA Cup success in 1978. AZ Alkmaar also emerged in the early 1980s to win his first title. play in the 1981 UEFA Cup final against Bobby Robson's Ipswich Town. By 1983, Feyenoord had been overwhelmed by newcomers as well as their old enemy Amsterdam.
The somewhat difficult union between Cruyff and Feyenoord took a long time to get used to, not only for the fiercely partisan fans of both clubs, but also for the players themselves, as well as to the stunned representatives of the national media and beyond. Over 30 years later, the sight of Cruyff in a red and white split-cut Feyenoord shirt is still one that has the power to make you look twice, just to make sure your eyes aren't deceiving you.
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As featured on Guardian Sport
It was with a fit of anger, revenge and a winning double that Johan Cruyff ended his remarkable playing career. He also crossed the biggest ditches in football to do so.
Cruyff was 36 in the summer of 1983 and on his second spell at Ajax, having helped the club clinch the league and cup double. It was a feat that was rewarded with the news that he was to be pushed aside by the powers that be in De Meer. A new contract was not to be offered to the man who had brought so much power, status and prestige to the club, not to mention a host of sparkling trophies.
With a point to prove and a high level of anger, Cruyff went for the previously unthinkable. The Dutchman signed for Ajax's increasingly bitter rivals Feyenoord, a club that had worked for much of the previous decade since winning the league and UEFA Cup double in 1974. Rotterdam giants, the first club from the Netherlands to win both the European Cup and the Club World Championship, had only managed to add one KNVB Cup success to their tally since the league and European double glory nearly a decade earlier.
You could say that Feyenoord needed Cruyff more than Cruyff needed Feyenoord. They weren't in a position to simply be overwhelmed by an all-out Ajax; it was a bit more complex than that. PSV Eindhoven had risen strongly in the second half of the 1970s, winning three titles in four seasons to add to their own UEFA Cup success in 1978. AZ Alkmaar also emerged in the early 1980s to win his first title. play in the 1981 UEFA Cup final against Bobby Robson's Ipswich Town. By 1983, Feyenoord had been overwhelmed by newcomers as well as their old enemy Amsterdam.
The somewhat difficult union between Cruyff and Feyenoord took a long time to get used to, not only for the fiercely partisan fans of both clubs, but also for the players themselves, as well as to the stunned representatives of the national media and beyond. Over 30 years later, the sight of Cruyff in a red and white split-cut Feyenoord shirt is still one that has the power to make you look twice, just to make sure your eyes aren't deceiving you.
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