Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.
Born a corner kick from Ajax's old De Meer stadium, Johan Cruyff played football the way philosophers wish they wrote: simply, and therefore with immense difficulty.
As the axis of Rinus Michels' Total Football he made positions negotiable and space the only currency that mattered. As a coach he rebuilt Barcelona in his own image — the academy, the passing, the arrogance of beauty — and modern football has been quoting him ever since, whether it credits him or not.
The moments
1971
Europe belongs to Ajax
The first of three consecutive European Cups (1971, 1972, 1973), alongside the first of his three Ballons d'Or. Amsterdam, briefly, was the centre of the footballing universe.
1974
The Cruyff Turn
Against Sweden in Dortmund on 19 June, he dragged the ball behind his own standing leg and vanished, leaving defender Jan Olsson marking a memory. A goalless group game gave the sport one of its most copied moves.
1974
The most influential runners-up ever
His Oranje scored in the World Cup final before West Germany touched the ball, and lost 2-1. Nobody remembers the winners' football; everybody remembers Holland's.
1992
The Dream Team's coronation
As coach, his Barcelona won the club's first European Cup at Wembley on 20 May, Ronald Koeman's free kick beating Sampdoria in extra time. The blueprint for everything Barcelona became.
He died in Barcelona in 2016, in the city he'd redrawn. Every team that presses high, plays out from the back and refuses to clear its lines is, knowingly or not, reciting him.