The death of football legend Johan Cruijff dominates the front pages of all the main papers on Friday, knocking off any mention of the Brussels bombings or the jailing of Radovan Karadzic for 40 years.

Johan Cruijff ‘has lost his last match’ headlined the Telegraaf when news of the footballer’s death from lung cancer came on Thursday.

‘A fabulous player, original trainer and wonderful raconteur. Granted, perhaps he should have made the Dutch 11 world champions in 1974 or 1978. But we have never had a better player than Cruijff. Today FC Barcelona and Bayern München play the most attractive football. And they’re thanking Cruijff for it,’ the paper writes.

The paper, which like most other papers publishes a special supplement, loses one of its most popular columnists. It quotes a host of people including coach Guus Hiddink who praises Cruijff ‘as a very good friend and someone who taught me valuable football lessons’.

You play football with your head

In the Volkskrant former player and author Jan Mulder writes a playful tribute to Cruijff’s footballing technique: ‘Johan was usually right when it came to football but he wasn’t when he delivered this piece of wisdom: you play football with your head’. Johan played with his feet, the head followed. Amateurs think. Put the ball straight, try to view the situation, take aim, determine the strength of the kick, have another look at the distance and shoot.’

Johan Cruijff, of course, didn’t do all that, Mulder continued. ‘His gestures were a fraction faster than the thoughts in his head. His feet managed his brain. Not consciously, by means of a thread that came from a tiny space between the metatarsal bones via his shin and the groin up and underneath the shoulder blade into the frontal lobe where the command issued by his feet is executed but by means of an almost magical phenomenon, a motor mystery not described in any medical encyclopaedia.’

Extraordinary legacy

Trouw calls Cruijff an ‘icon’. He was ‘more than a football player, he was also an ambassador for this country’, the paper writes.  Elsewhere in the paper sports journalist Henk Hoijtink describes Cruijff as a man ‘who led a life full of conflict. But Johan Cuijff’s idiosyncratic vision, ideas and comments form an extraordinary legacy.’

The paper also quotes KNVB chairman Michael van Praag who calls him ‘the greatest player of all time. He had a completely different view on football, and not everyone understood what it was.He never let himself be distracted, not even by the fiercest critics. That was his great strength.’

In the NRC Hans Beerenkamp writes about the tone of adulation that ‘boys over 50’ have when they talk about Cruijff. ‘They can still reproduce his addresses: Akkerstraat 32, Scholeksterstraat 41. And they spend their lives dreaming about being Cruijffie.’

‘For many people Cruijff was a ‘kapsoneslijer’ (Amsterdams for arrogant, DN), Beerenkamp quotes journalist Auke Kok. He was always looking for a fight, and wherever he came he started to give people instructions. He always thought he knew everything about everything: pool, baseball, cycling, traffic jams, you name it. Trouble was: he was often right. That bossiness led to a change of the face of football, and a political revolution in Catalunia.’

El Flaco

All Spanish papers have multiple photos and homages to ‘El Flaco’ (the skinny one), El Salvador (the saviour) or simply ‘Dios’. Spain’s leading football magazine Marca’s  front page article is headlined ‘The legacy of a genius’. ‘It’s impossible to think of anyone who influenced football more.

‘His death deprives the world of football of an astute, brilliant and proud man. When he came to Barça the club was on its way down in the Liga. His arrival proved decisive: Barça didn’t lose another game.’