Johan Cruyff

 Johannes Cruijff known as Johan Cruyff, is a former Dutch footballer and was until recently the manager of the Catalonia football team. He won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974, which was a record jointly held with Michel Platini, Marco van Basten and Lionel Messi until Messi won his 4th award in 2012. Cruyff was one of the most famous exponents of the football philosophy known as Total Footballexplored by Rinus Michels, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in football history. He led theNetherlands national team to the final of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and received the World Cup Golden Ball as player of the tournament. Through his career, Cruyff became synonymous with the playing style of "Total Football". Cruyff was known for his technical ability, speed, acceleration and dribbling but his greatest quality was vision, based on an acute sense of his team-mates' positions as an attack unfolded. The sports writer David Miller believed Cruyff superior to any previous player in his ability to extract the most from others. He dubbed him "Pythagoras in boots" for the complexity and precision of his angled passes and wrote: "Few have been able to exact, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric control on a match from one penalty area to another."