Cruyff didn’t like the Dutch tactics in the World Cup Final

When people talk about the greatest soccer (futbol) players of all time, the names of Pele and Diego Maradona always come up. George Best might as well. But one guy that gets overlooked too often is former Dutch legend Johan Cruyff.

Cruyff was an unmitigated stud and he has no problems stating that he didn’t care for his country’s tactics in the World Cup Final against Spain. The Dutch were given nine yellow cards and Johnny Heitinga even got a well-deserved red.

“Sadly, they played very dirty,” Cruyff told Spanish newspaper El Periodico.

“This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style… If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they lost.”

Wow. That’s some harsh criticism, but we agree. The Dutch made hard tackle after hard tackle and racked up yellow cards the way Cincinnati Bengals players rack up DUI’s. For a team with such talent, they certainly didn’t need to resort to such tactics.

They also don’t need to be rolling around on the ground in agony every time another player comes within five feet of them. It’s a disgrace to the game and we expected better from the Netherlands.

Cruyff also agrees with us that De Jong should have been sent off for his cleats-up hard foul.

“They should have been down to nine immediately, then they made two [such] ugly and hard tackles that even I felt the damage,” said the 63-year-old, who probably isn’t as good as he used to be.

“It hurts me that Holland chose an ugly path to aim for the title.”