Johan Cruyff, the rising light in the darkness
This Tuesday marks ten years since Johan Cruyff died, and countless Barça fans are lighting a candle in his memory these days at the altar of our footballing devotions. Because Cruyff changed world football, but he performed the miracle in Catalonia. The two times Barça signed him, Agustí Montal as a player in 1973 and Josep Lluís Núñez as coach in 1988, he brought about (and may Espriu forgive me) a glimmer of light in the darkness.
Both times he came to Barcelona, he found that football here wasn't a game but a drama. Barça had lost the habit of winning titles and, therefore, had adopted the role of victim. It was a giant that had forgotten how to fight, and the Barça fans had convinced themselves that, in the end, due to one misfortune or another, they would almost always end up losing.
Cruyff's merit, then, goes far beyond the 5-0 victory or the Wembley final. His merit was taking a club that was afraid and turning it into one that wasn't.
Cruyff understood us immediately. In 1993 he told me: "For me, a glass is always half full, and the Catalans think: 'Oh no, we're going to lose!' And listen, to lose you have to play. If you don't play, you're not going to win. And what we want is to win."
The glass half full has never been our specialty, and when I remember Cruyff I think of that winning spirit, ambitious, optimistic, happy and at times audacious, which stood far above internal pettiness, adverse structures, and a troubled national psyche. That's why the candle of these days will remain lit forever.
