Archive for May, 2011

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We’ve seen one player this year challenge for the title of best player in the world, Messi, so this week languagecaster takes a look at one of the past greats of the game – Johan Cruyff. As always, on this week’s free pod you can also:

• Listen only to the main report here – complete with transcript and vocabulary
• Learners of English can review the footballing news from around the world in our good, the bad and the ugly section of the show
• Check out a new football expression in English for Football
• For learners of English check out our Football Language Resources page with:
• A page with all our Football vocabulary posts
• Football glossary (a huge collection of football vocabulary, football cliches and football phrases)
• Worksheets and transcripts from previous podcasts

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Continuing our series of the world’s best footballers, languagecaster.com takes a look at a player who would be in most people’s top five best players ever – Hendrik Johannes Cruijff. Check out previous posts on great footballers here.

The

Recently, a debate has started as to whether or not Messi is the best player ever, better than Pele or Maradona, the traditional choices of most people for that accolade. It’s probably too early to answer yes or no, but one thing is certain, he is a kindred spirit of Johan Cruyff (common spelling), perhaps the best proponent of attacking football, and close ball control, ever (watch a compilation of his dribbling skills here). he gives a name to a famous football move, ‘The Cruyff Turn’, and is forever linked with the term, ‘Total Football’.

Cruyff’s career can be divided into three broad periods: playing for Ajax, for Barcelona, and then his time as a coach.

First at Ajax. Cruyff joined the Amsterdam team as a youth player of ten-years old. The Ajax team of the late sixties and early seventies introduced the style of play known as Total Football, where players positions were fluid and interchangeable, and the focus was on quick passing, movement and attack. Cruyff was perfect for this style of football, as he could turn on a sixpence, continue