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60 free Johan Cruyff trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Johan Cruyff trivia covers a player who changed how football is thought about twice: once with his feet at Ajax and Barcelona, and again from the dugout, where his rondos, three-at-the-back and small, clever midfielders became the template for Guardiola's Barcelona and Spain's tiki-taka. He was a chain-smoking Amsterdam street kid who won three Ballons d'Or, invented a turn that still carries his name, walked out on the 1978 World Cup, went bankrupt on a pig farm, and then rebuilt his career in American soccer. This quiz runs from Betondorp and the De Meer stadium through the three straight European Cups, the world-record move to Barcelona and the 5-0 at the Bernabéu, the Cruyff Turn against Sweden and the lost 1974 final, the Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats, the passed penalty with Jesper Olsen, the Feyenoord double, and then his managerial years: the 1987 Cup Winners' Cup, the Dream Team, Wembley 1992, Athens 1994 and the chair-smashing sacking of 1996. It finishes with the asteroid, the Cruyff Courts and the aphorisms. Easy questions suit anyone who has heard of Total Football; the expert tier is for people who know who was wearing the number 9 shirt when he switched. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Cruyff, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many times did Johan Cruyff win the Ballon d'Or?
3
He won it in 1971, 1973 and 1974, a haul matched only by a handful of players before the Messi-Ronaldo era.
Q 02Which shirt number did Cruyff make famous at Ajax and with the Netherlands?
14
It was so unusual that a Dutch football magazine and a documentary were both later titled after it.
Q 03In which city was Cruyff born in April 1947?
Amsterdam
He grew up a five-minute walk from Ajax's old ground, where his mother later worked cleaning the lockers.
Q 04Which sport did the young Cruyff prefer to football until his coaches made him quit it at fifteen?
Baseball
He was a physically underdeveloped teenager, and Ajax coach Vic Buckingham sent him to the gym and improved his diet.
Q 05Cruyff's 1973 move from Ajax to Barcelona set a world-record fee of roughly how many Dutch guilders?
6 million
That was about US$2 million at the time; foreigners had been barred from Spanish league football from 1962 until that year.
Q 06Which Ajax coach, nicknamed 'De Generaal', developed Total Football with Cruyff?
Rinus Michels
He had been a sports teacher for deaf children and introduced three training sessions a day, which the chain-smoking Cruyff hated.
Q 07Which Romanian coach led Cruyff's Ajax to the 1972 and 1973 European Cups?
Ștefan Kovács
His relaxed regime let Cruyff become an even more dominant on-pitch 'player-manager', arguing with referees and dictating discipline himself.
Q 08Cruyff scored both goals in the 1972 European Cup final as Ajax beat which club 2–0?
Inter Milan
Dutch newspapers hailed the win as the death of Italian catenaccio at the hands of Total Football.
Q 09Which country beat Cruyff's Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup final?
West Germany
The Dutch led through a penalty before the hosts had even touched the ball, then lost 2–1; Beckenbauer later said 'Johan was the better player, but I am a world champion'.
Q 10Against which team at the 1974 World Cup did Cruyff perform the move now known as the 'Cruyff Turn'?
Sweden
The startled defender Jan Olsson lost his footing; Dutch reporters barely noticed because Cruyff had been doing it for years at home.
Q 11Which individual award did Cruyff collect at the 1974 World Cup despite losing the final?
The Golden Ball
He described the defeat for the rest of his life as a moral victory; in the Netherlands it became a national trauma.
Q 12In 2008 Cruyff finally revealed the reason he refused to play at the 1978 World Cup. What was it?
A kidnap attempt on his family
For decades the rumours were politics or his wife; the attempt happened at the family's Barcelona home a year before the tournament.
Q 13In only his second international, a 1966 friendly, Cruyff became the first Dutch player to do what?
Be sent off
Q 21In February 1974 Cruyff's Barcelona won away at Real Madrid's Bernabéu by what score?
5–0
A New York Times writer said Cruyff had done more for the Catalan spirit in 90 minutes than politicians had in years.
Q 22Barcelona's 1973–74 title, won in Cruyff's first season, was its first La Liga title in how many years?
14
Club membership jumped from 58,000 to more than 64,000 in that one season.
Q 23Cruyff made his competitive Barcelona debut in October 1973, scoring twice in a 4–0 win over which club?
Granada
Barça were 14th in the table at kick-off; four straight wins later they were top.
The KNVB banned him from international matches but not from club football, and he had scored on his debut the game before.
Q 14Cruyff's Netherlands shirt had only two sleeve stripes because of his deal with which brand?
Puma
Every other Dutch player wore Adidas's three stripes, and the odd shirt fed accusations of aloofness.
Q 15Cruyff's Ajax first-team debut in November 1964 was a 3–1 defeat to which club?
GVAV Groningen
He scored in his home debut in the next match, but Ajax then shipped nine goals in Rotterdam and drifted toward relegation.
Q 16How many times in his career was Cruyff voted Dutch Footballer of the Year?
5
The last came in 1984 at the age of 37, in his final season as a player.
Q 17In November 1970 Cruyff equalled an Eredivisie record by scoring how many goals against AZ Alkmaar?
6
It was the season Ajax won its first European Cup, beating Panathinaikos in the final.
Q 18Cruyff first wore his famous number in October 1970 because which teammate had his usual number 9?
Gerrie Mühren
He was returning from a groin injury against PSV, and simply never went back to the number 9.
Q 19In 1973 Ajax's players voted 8–7 to hand Cruyff's captaincy to which teammate, prompting his exit?
Piet Keizer
The humiliated Cruyff phoned his father-in-law immediately: 'You must call Barcelona immediately, I want to get out of here.'
Q 20Which of Cruyff's children was given a name banned under Franco because it belonged to Catalonia's patron saint?
Jordi
The apolitical Cruyffs had no idea; the name was read as a political statement and made him even more popular in Catalonia.
Q 24At which club in February 1975 was Cruyff sent off, refusing to leave until police escorted him?
Málaga
He was protesting a clearly offside goal; away from home he was being kicked and refereed very differently from his first season.
Q 25Which NASL club did Cruyff sign for in May 1979, going on to be voted the league's Player of the Year?
Los Angeles Aztecs
He had been expected to join the Cosmos and played a few exhibitions for them, but the deal never happened.
Q 26In Washington, Cruyff became ambassador for which body at Eunice Kennedy Shriver's request?
The Special Olympics
The experience turned him toward work with disadvantaged children, which became the Johan Cruyff Foundation.
Q 27Which Spanish second-division club did Cruyff join in February 1981, a career low point?
Levante
He was unfit, his wife was in hospital after a fall from a horse, and the club only paid part of the promised money.
Q 28Which English club spent three weeks in January 1981 trying to sign Cruyff before the deal collapsed?
Leicester City
Manager Jock Wallace was competing with Arsenal and an unnamed German club, and Cruyff said he wanted to come.
Q 29In 1982, Cruyff took a penalty by passing sideways to which teammate, who returned it for a tap-in?
Jesper Olsen
Rik Coppens had done the same trick 25 years earlier; Messi and Suárez famously copied it in 2016.
Q 30After Ajax refused to extend his contract in 1983, Cruyff won a league-and-cup double with which club?
Feyenoord
It was Ajax's arch-rival, and his new side had lost 8–2 to Ajax early in the season before he promised they would still win the title.