Why Cruyff to Barcelona is the most important transfer in history

Paul Macdonald

Updated: 23 May 2023 08:55 CDT
5 min read

Johan Cruyff’s move to Barcelona in 1973 is the definitive, football-altering deal.

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The Barcelona of 1973 is not the modern, world-renowned giant that they are today and nor were Ajax when he began his journey. When he made his debut in 1964, Ajax had won just two of the first eight league titles in the newly-created Eredivisie.

But after Cruyff’s first season they would win six of the next eight, with the enigmatic forward finishing top scorer in two of those.

But it wasn’t just what he did, of course, it was who he was, and how he believed the team should play. It was Total Football, alongside Rinus Michels, a complete revolution and modernisation of the Dutch approach to the game.

By the time he left, he was holding aloft Ajax’s third European Cup in succession, and when Barcelona agreed to spend a world-record $2 million on him, they begged him to repeat the feat, this time in Catalunya.

When Cruyff arrived Barcelona hadn’t won a league title since 1960, an astonishing run exacerbated by the unbridled success of Real Madrid during that same spell, with European Cups reigning down to solidify their position as the best team on the continent.

But in his first season he delivered that elusive La Liga title, in a year where Real Madrid were also defeated 5-0, instantly endearing Cruyff to the Catalan locals.

📆| On this day in 1974: FC Barcelona, led by a brilliant performance from Johan Cruyff, defeated Real Madrid 5-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu. pic.twitter.com/2cxIxN58Ks
— Barça Buzz (@Barca_Buzz) February 17, 2021

There was a resonance between Cruyff, club, fan and playing style; skilful, thoughtful, but clinical. He made the Cules feel they were capable of competing with General Franco’s Real both athletically but also politically.

After all, Cruyff had turned down Franco to join Barcelona in the first place, saying that he ‘would never play for a dictator’, a position that immediately set him in opposition to the regime that had banned the Catalan language and virtually the concept of Catalunya itself. Cruyff’s stance moved far beyond football and to becoming their relatable spokesperson, an icon whom fans could cheer on a weekend, and during the week listen to, in his statements of resistance to Franco and the ideals of the capital club.

And yet, unlike most transfers on our list, his time on the pitch was largely unsuccessful. That first Liga title was also his last, while in three seasons he managed just five, six, and seven goals each. But he had already made his mark.

The Barcelona fans fell in love with his aesthetic, as well his cerebral approach to the game and to life. He was the progenitor of the football philosopher, and many who have followed him would style themselves in a similar fashion.

© ProShots - FootballTransfers chose Johan Cruyff as the most important transfer ever

And it was in that relationship, forged in a mutual understanding of all things that make a man, that they were destined to be reintroduced. It was in coaching what became known as the Dream Team from 1988 until 1996 that he was able to exact what emerged from Ajax, Michels and Total Football in the 1970s.

With that team he could profess his ideas. It would take far longer to understand exactly what Cruyff believed in than could be explained here, but just know that everything that Pep Guardiola’s team became - arguably the peak of club football, culminating in the 2011 Champions League final against Manchester United at Wembley - was borne of Guardiola spending two decades listening to Cruyff postulate on what football is and should be.

© ProShots - Pep Guardiola is Cruyff's greatest disciple

That thread from Cruyff to Guardiola is joined inexorably, with each boss in between and each success or failure measured by how much the club accepted Cruyff’s teachings, or how far they deviated from it. And the throughline extends to now, and Xavi, and the continuation of what started, in essence, 50 years ago.

There’s simply no modern club that has been impacted by one deal quite as seismically and successfully as Cruyff and Barcelona. It is the cause of what Barca is, what they are always striving for, and what has brought them such glory.

It led to Romario, and Ronaldinho, and Xavi, and Andres Iniesta, and Lionel Messi, and so much else. It fulfilled footballing fantasies, established a standard of expectation, and will still be central to Barcelona as a club long after Xavi or anyone else has gone.

This is Barca, this is Cruyff. Each is the other. And for that reason, no other football transfer will ever come close.

Read more about: La Liga, Eredivisie, Ajax, Barcelona