These Football Times
Icons: Johan Cruyff
(upbeat music) - Welcome to The Lob, your home of in-depth coverage and analysis by these football times, a movement of journalism you can trust. Each week, we endeavor to bring you the very best coverage of the game, exploring stories from the past and present, with analysis by expert guests from around the world. Find more about award-winning content online and in print. In the meantime, enjoy the podcast. - Hello and welcome to icons. A podcast brought to you by these football times in celebration of our new magazine of the same name. Across 12 captivating episodes, we'll dive deep into the lives, legacies and magic of football's greatest figures. Players who didn't just shape the game, but transcended it, becoming cultural icons of their time. So let's kick off with our first icons episode, the story of the legendary Johann Kreif, an icon in every sense of the word. And to tell you the tale of this Dutch legend is the man who wrote about Dutch masters and beautiful bridesmaids, it's Gary Thacker. Hi, Gary. - Hi, Rob. Thanks, sir. When I was asked to choose an icon, this was my first guy to get out of here, obviously. So yeah, the magic, the man himself. - Right, let's kick it off, Gary, because we listeners out there, we are going short, we are going sharp, we are going quick, 'cause we are rattling through some of these icons. Oh, it's gonna be fast-paced, but we've got lots of information to pack in about some of these brilliant players. So Gary, just give us a little bit of an overview, a little bit of a teaser, a little bit of an intro as to why Mr. Johann Kreif is so iconic. - Well, I guess it was a short explosion time with the early '70s with the Ix, when I had won the European Championship three times with a bounce, and Kreif went to Barcelona and transfer, then won the first title for, I think, for a decade. And obviously had the success in the 1974 World Cup with the Dutch as well. First time that qualified since 1938, I think it was. So, but it wasn't only on the field also, he was a must-detectician as well, off the field, became a coach at Barcelona later, the Ix as well. And top, basically, the Ix way of playing, and also the structure of the club to Barcelona in a situation that existed this day. And he's dream team, and the sort of iteration of the teams at Ix, it's so many players that have turned into top-class managers on Pep Guardiola to give just off the top head, but there's probably six or seven who were sort of chuted in the way he had the words of playing football. So, here's a guy who, all the way through his career from a young kid, bursting onto the scene with Ix. I think he's not the first or second professional player at Ix, and then the success he had with under Michels, and then under Stephen Kovacs, three European cooks. And then on to Barcelona, and obviously outside, there's an 1974 World Cup. I'm not sure if there's been a more influential player in football, in World Football. They learned European football, then, the iconic Johann Kreif. - I totally agree. - Gary, and I think when I think about someone like Kreif, my first interactions with him as a manager, at Barcelona, and kind of seeing him in his long trench coat and his cigarette on the sidelines at the new camp, playing a sort of football system that I hadn't seen before, which was different to sort of like a Pelle and Maradona type, I think. So, for me, as a fan growing up in the '90s, he became that kind of iconic figure with a dugout, and then you sort of look back, 'cause what was that era like, that sort of late '60s, early '70s era, in terms of kind of like the tournaments, the leagues, and that kind of, what did the global game look like, I suppose, at that point? - Well, I mean, it's fascinating. If Kreif had come through at a Spanish club, or Italian club, or even present English club, it would have been a little less amazing. Dutch football was broadly amateur, certainly an outlook, if not in definition, and very much a backwater of European football. And there was a game, at the year, like '67, '68, when they played Liverpool in the European Cup game, and absolutely murdered Liverpool, I think it was '61 or '51, '61, and then got two or two drawing room in the second leg of Liverpool, and it was like a coming out party, and all of a sudden, little Ajax, unknown Ajax, this little club, and everybody just called them Ajax, obviously, because, you know, we were putting on even those days, suddenly became something to notice, and Kreif sort of blossomed from there. As I say, the area division title was the one there, they came, maybe, Cubs, but the massive thing, the key seasons were, I guess, the '70s, '70s and '73 European champions, early European Cup trimes, where, you know, they were absolutely dominance introduced in a new way of playing football, a new dynamic paradigm that hadn't existed before. Well, certainly not in that format, although different versions of title football had perhaps existed, but that's sort of early '70s where a team from a little known backwater of European football became the dominant force in European football. And then, with the Oranges, the 1974 World Cup, and, you know, probably the best team, never to win the World Cup. Then, so, those four years, were probably the years that marked him out as a great player, but then, as you say, he became a manager afterwards in these other years. After going to Barcelona, when the title of Barcelona became a manager there, and actually went back to Ajax and played again, and then filled out with Ajax board, and then went to Feyanord, and won the double, I think, won the league, with Feyanord, the sort of hated royals because Ajax wouldn't play in the money he was due. So, this is a guy who was sort of, not only an iconic player, but iconic classic player as well, sort of fought against the regimes, or so often. And, as I say, he inherited to the system where Ajax played, that every team, from its first team down to the youth team, played the same system. And he took that to Barcelona with him. And, as I say to this day, that's still the Barcelona way. The creative influence of Barcelona was sold and lasted. But, you know, they've persisted with it, and at the success that they have. So, that first 1971, '74, '75 with Barcelona, were probably the years that made him as a player, but his talents extended beyond that, into the management and coaching as well. - For you, Gary, as a football fan, what did it feel like seeing someone like that in some of those European games? Obviously, you know, late '60s, early '70s, the European Cup wasn't probably shown as much as it is now. It's certainly not everywhere in our TV station, seemingly endless games in that European tournament. What was it like for you as a fantasy, someone like Christ? - Well, that was when sort of '71, I would be sort of 15, 16. That was sort of my sort of formative years of understanding the philosophy of football. And, as you say, when you look back, you realize the games weren't live. The finals were, but not sort of the group games, or the group games, the quarterfinals, et cetera. And it seems I look back and you sort of, you think that it's in the library, it didn't, but what it did say live was '74 World Cup, of course, and the Majesty of Cruyff in that tournament. I think it was just the right age. You know, when you're sort of growing up and you're standing with music and that sort of thing, there's a sort of period in your life where you catch onto something that sort of, that's gonna be your favorite forever. And, certainly, with Ajax playing and the RNG, it's the sort of World Cup. That's sort of hawked into me that this is the way to play football. You don't need a big center of a comp player. Don't need Nicki Winger, who's gonna go in three players and lose the ball. You can pick your best 11 footballers and put them in positions. And this was the ability that Ajax had where they could interchange positions 'cause they weren't locked into systems and when players came to the Ajax team, they were played, if it was a center half, they'd have to bag hots off when it was center half. It put him in with... Mickle's played him in with Phil for almost a season, so he could learn how to play, that's the system. And this was, I'd say, such an important thing, such an important thing for me, my football education and growth was sort of the leading light, of course. - So many moments you're gonna be able to choose from this next question, Gary, because obviously such an iconic figure is gonna have lots of define and seasons or performance as you hinted at that one. It's season at Firenord, where he was kind of the aging, wily veteran, still winning trophies. But if you were to kind of pick a season, or a performance, or a moment, maybe epitomized, who Christ was, whether that's his football and style, his attitude, what would you go for? - I think, I mean, it would be in the Arangi shirt in the '90s, and it would work for a World Cup against Argentina, and Hannigan'd love this ball through, almost over the back line, and Christ was there, and it caress the ball out of the, ballet, balance, poise, and the elegance, skip around the goalkeeper, and roll the ball to there. But it was, it was, it was, it was, it sounds weird to say, but it was almost musical. The flowing movement, and I think in that moment, you just epitomized, this is a guy who can, he can walk on water. I mean, many years after that, when he was later years of Barcelona, he was 1978, 77-78, Barcelona played Aston Villa in a Copernus Cup game, where you have a Copernus Cup, and I went, 'cause Aston Villa's got, oh, you know, had to do the Wall Street Birmingham. You've got to go, I've got to go and see Croiff, and you know, there's things, the sound like the Grand Canyon is one of the things that you never had disappointed at when you go, Croiff's the other one. This was a muddy pitching, novembering, coal, Birmingham, and the pitch was a right quagmire, and I'm still not sure to this dialogue, whether his feet actually touched the ground. It was like a bull of the whisper, other people plodding through this sort of quagmire, but it's got a bleed goal. And, you know, it was one of those sort of magical moments that sort of will live with me forever. That's, it's just magic, absolutely magical. - I think when I've watched Croiff and looked at old clips back, sort of you described the way you described him, it's like he's such a wiry sort of slight figure that, especially in, you know, in the '70s when it was maybe a little more cultured, shall we say, and there was so much that was about power and physicality and not really wanting to dominate the ball, but someone like Croiff, you know, when you look back, it was all about the ball, wasn't it? Was that, was that all from Mickles and Ajax where it was kind of like the ball was king? - A little bit, yeah. I mean, Croiff always said he grew up playing football in the streets in sort of uneven services and services when, you know, I've been tackled by kids five, six, seven years old and he was, and he always said that this is not falling down when you get tackled heavily on the concrete, so you get hurt, it was one of the things that helped to give you balance. And I mean, even afterwards, after retired and Mickles was working for the K and VB, they had this thing where as part of this, this dossier I produced, I can't think of it. It's called the Earth's Divista or something. It means that the view from V swear, kind of they were based. And it was, one of the ideas was to introduce these mini football, which is called Croiff courts, sort of trying to recreate that situation where players were playing on it, not on these perfect grust areas, perfect sort of, even sort of synthetic grust, but players had to learn to cope with them, even services, and the ball was sort of bouncing about. And you mentioned about how his appearance and in Spanish it's called a flaco, which means the narrow, thin person slights. And that was very much him. And it allowed him to have you see some players, like Maradona, had that low center of gravity that allowed him to sort of weird, but Croiff could avoid things. He never really had a trick. He wasn't going to be George Beston's three stepovers. It almost collided past people. And the other guy I'll remember, who had a similar with Michael Ledrop. He could do that as well. It was just a swear, the hips and just elegant, like water flying down a stream. For someone like Croiff who had such a cultural impact, as well as a football and impact, he wasn't a winger, you know, he wasn't really a winger, was he? I know he played out wide quite a little, but he wasn't a number nine, he wasn't sort of a ten. How would you describe how he sort of changed that sort of forward line or those four rules? I know that he did it in tandem with other players in the Dutch national team with Ajax, and it was a lot about the system. But he started to sort of change and mold those forward positions, didn't he? So that it wasn't just, you know, a big, bustling target man and a couple of dribbling wingers. He was a little bit kind of in between all of that, wasn't he? Very much so. I mean, you know, I suppose in Sun and Modern Pilots, you might call him more of a ten, than a nine, and he certainly dropped deeper. And this sort of, because he would reputation, he'd be offered quite heavily marked. But dropping back drew players, had a pretty crowded space for the players, like the Kaiser, the Mirren, who could sort of exploit the gaps that he created. But he would live left and Kaiser would come inside, or he'd live right and create spaces there. Very much mobile player. And classic example, 1974 World Cup final, when the Dutch got their first goal. The ball comes, coach gets the ball, and the only Dutch player behind him is the goalkeeper. That's how deep he come, and he sort of trotted forward, actually a little bit. Then all of a sudden hit the sort of gas, and he was away dancing through. And as he was bored down on the edge of the penalty area by Ollie Hernis, although it's often said he wasn't he was Ollie Hernis. And won the penalty, but he came from being the deepest out of field player in the side. You know, in the first 60 seconds of a World Cup final, that's the sort of freedom he had, the movement he had, the ability to appear on the pitch where he could hurt the opposition. Do you think he influenced players who came after him or almost directly after him in his style? Or was he sort of so unique in that, in what he could do with the ball that you can't actually really ever copy anyone like Cryve? You could take elements from him, but you could never kind of be that full package. That's a great question, Robin. I think the answer is yes, I know. Certainly players tried to play like him. And in the 1978 World Cup, and Cryve didn't go because his family had been attacked at home, Robert, at his house. And he was in one of the ladies family alone. And one of the coaches that had a guy called John Fries, white Chris, wanted Robert Renson being to take on the CROIF role, because he thought he could play, but Renson really didn't really want to do it, because he didn't think he could. And the rest of the players weren't sure. So they had to change the system. They had to play a new system, because they hadn't got Cryve, although Cryve had played in the qualification games. So I think, you know, you look at players, who have played a similar situation. You could say Messi played a similar sort of role there again, but not so deep as Cryve went, but certainly it's false nine. I mean, I would never say Cryve was a false nine, because he played a lot deeper than a false nine as well, and certainly moved a bit more. But yeah, I think he created, he redefined a role that hadn't really existed before, certainly going back to '53 in the Hungarian city, he played as a false nine, dropping sort of city back, but not as far as Cryve did, not to that same extent. So I think he redefined that role as a player, he could almost not pin down. It wasn't a ten, it wasn't a nine, it wasn't a four, it wasn't an eight. Sometimes it was a five or six. So, you know, I mean, put your maths together and go a lot of big numbers there. - It's interesting, isn't it? 'Cause that's probably, as our series progresses, through the icons, it's probably one of the things that's gonna come out, isn't it, about a lot of these players, that modern players or players that came after them, might have had that little bit from him, or that little bit from another player, but never could kind of piece that together, 'cause they're just so unique and so different. And I think, obviously, there was a lot around Cryve, as we said before, not just off the field. What was some of the more controversial, I mean, with a Dutch team, especially at tournaments, there's always something that's gonna be a little bit controversial, or there might already be a little bit of tension in the camp. What was the sort of things that Cryve was involved in terms of sort of controversies or setbacks that he might have had during his career? - I'll pick you, I'll just pick you two with three of us as well. We could be here for an hour otherwise. Well, firstly, when he's first going for the Dutch national team, he got sent off, and the K&V decided to ban him, I think, for 12 months, and he sort of fell out, and ever since that time, and he got reduced at the end, but ever since that time, there was this, I would say love hate, it was a hate-hate relationship between the K&V being Cryve. Cryve was never one to tell the line. It was never gonna be a company man, and a lot of things he did, people would say, he was selfish and arrogant, and he watched some, 'cause everybody also, the things he did helped the other players' team success as well financially. In the 1974 World Cup, before the tournament started, the famous occasion about the K&V beards, sold a shirt, sponsorship to Adidas and Cryve, and was signed up to Puma. Obviously, this is the ongoing conflict between the two German brothers, the Dassna brothers, and so part of the crop's contract is he couldn't wear any of his stuff. So basically, he said, I can't wear these shirts. If you're gonna have the shirt, I can't play. And the K&V beards said, well, it's our shirt, we'll do what we want. And Cryve said, well, it's your shirt, which my head come into with that makes it valuable. And at the happiest thing, and in the end, he played with the shirt with two scrubs, rather than three, and that was a compromise that came to. But if I'm, I've nailed it whatsoever, if they had to come to a compromise, he wouldn't play. I mean, he was that steadfast in his decision-making. And he's also, he fell out with the AX team on a number of occasions when Stephen Kovacs took over. Compared to Mikkel's Kovacs, was very much a more laid-back coach. And Cryve decided he was gonna have to be the guy to tell the hard truth to some of the players. And he became quite sort of authoritarian in the way. Mikkel's had done it and Kovacs wasn't as sort of a manager. So he sort of upset a lot of players there. And when they, at the end of the 1973 season, headed to the tournaments, they saw the new season, they had a vote to elect the captain, proof of being the captain for the previous season. And assumed he would get it on the nod as it were. But there was a vote that new guy taking over, George Knobble, who was never up to the job of managing a team like Ajax. Basically said, "Oh, yeah, let's have a vote." And Stephen was saying, "Oh, well, let's leave it at Cryve." And basically, Cryve lost the vote. And Ruma has his, Harry Hahn tells a story that he was a young player coming through at the time. And it tells us that the Ajax directors had suggested to some of the younger players to vote against Cryve just to bring him down a peg or two, as it were. But he lost the vote, and Cryve was elected. And basically, as soon as he lost the vote, he went upstairs, Rung is far from Rung's age and said, "You need to get me out of here." And hence the move to Barcelona. And this was how this was very much how Cryve was. - It's crazy, isn't it? All these things unfold to have someone who was, you know, the absolute top of his game. And Ajax had won European trophies and League trophies. And yeah, it could still come down to that kind of battle of the Eagles off the pitch, isn't it? - Absolutely. And of course, the thing is, I mean, when you left, Ajax, I mean, perhaps with the reasons well, certain novel wasn't up to the job of coaching the team, but they fell apart. Three-time European champions, that season, they'd beaten Bayern Munich, I think of the quarterfinals, destroyed Bayern Munich, Amsterdam beat them four-nil, beat Real Madrid, beat U Bayern the final. So they beat the champions of Germany, the champions of Spain, the champions of Italy. And then the followers here, they got knocked out by of all guaranteed. And that's the head of the mighty, we're full of the COVID gone and all the sudden things were the part of it. And it's fortunate to speak to really crawl. It was a peak by the time as well. And they've met the situation. They said, you know, it was a massive loss. It was a crop as a massive loss. It's not the only reason, but it's certainly one of the main reasons. - And that's huge, isn't it, as it just shows, that sort of lasting impact that Cryf has. Are any icon really, when they leave a team, what's left, what comes next? And I suppose thinking about Cryf's legacy, not just as a player, but as sort of a coach and off the field. He had a huge impact at Barcelona, as you said at the sort of start of the episode about Lamazia and how they set up the sort of youth system. Was that system in place at Ajax when Cryf was a young player? 'Cause obviously, Cryf brought that into Barcelona. But did he grow up as part of that? It's not indoctrination of a certain way of playing football, but it's certainly kind of, this is our way. This is the way that we do it. You're gonna grow up playing this way. And if you can see, you'll succeed. Was he brought up through the likes and moved that to Barcelona when he became sort of coach? There's two aspects of this. I mean, first that the origins of total football are a bit sort of like, you know, the philosopher's stone and, you know, Atlantis, difficult to find out where they originally started. But there's a guy called Jack Reynolds, these are called in Amsterdam, Uncle Shaq, who was a coach at Barcelona, a major Barcelona. I would say three or four different periods, but in total for about 15, 20 years. And it was him who bought the system in of all the teams in the club playing the same system. And I've got a sort of video of it, one that I actually, historians who said, even under the late years of Reynolds, that we're playing what you could describe as total football, certain elements of it, and then Mikkel's built on that. And crew was very much in the right place at the right time. The system that Mikkel's wanted to play was tailor-made for a guy of crew's intelligence, as well as his ability. What I actually been as successful without Croif, probably not. Would Croif have made it any of the club? Yeah, but perhaps not as well as that system suited him. So it was a wonderful meshing of time where Croif and Mikkel's came together after he got the job. And it was a sort of period time where you could think, well, the gods have smiled on this little, little Northern European country in the capital there, and poured in this little mixture into a bowl, stirred it up and a lot of the starders came out of it, a lot of starders came out of it. And that starders, when he went to Barcelona, not as a player, but as a manager, it produced Pep Guardiola, that youth system, and then a Croif played a man who, at the time, as a young kid, they thought he was too skinny. They thought he wasn't strong enough for La Liga, Pep Guardiola, but Croif persevered with him. And obviously, the legacy of Croif lives on through Guardiola. But that time at Barcelona as a manager, Croif was incredibly successful, won four consecutive titles, won the European Cup for Barcelona. Would you say that that was equal to his playing career in terms of impact and how he shaped a club? Is it something that we shouldn't really compare, manage the other management career to the playing career, or is it just something that we can enjoy and love both periods of such a great player and great manager's life? - I think it's probably a little bit of all three. Strangely enough, Croif and Magic made the difference of both those situations. I think a Barcelona, Barcelona were a top club when he went there. Ajax weren't a top club, well, they were relative within the Dutch system. But as I said, you know, at that time, very few people would have heard of Ajax outside of the Netherlands. But what he did with Barcelona was perhaps even bigger thing, he transformed the club. Not the manager and him. He was the guy who transformed that club and made it what it is. And, you know, they're on a Croif. So many times there and on his birthday, there's always a celebration there that we make a big fuss on the game on his news his birthday. So I think, yeah, it's probably the success he had with Barcelona was different. Was it better? I think it was more, it was less revolutionary, but perhaps a more difficult task to achieve because he was trying to take over the established system and did so. He sort of arrived at the club basic saying, you're doing this wrong guys. Now, when you go to a club like Barcelona and say you're doing it wrong guys, it's a massive thing to turn around. But there again, it did. And of course, being Croif, being Croif, even then, you know, it would only last so long. And I think that had lost the European Cup far to Milan to Propella's Milan. And he didn't want to change the team. You know, every man destroys the things he loves and a brave man does it with a sword and a field does it with a kiss. But he loved that team too much to change it. He sort of there again, he fell out with the authority as he was to walk away. But yeah, there were sort of for those years of Barcelona's coach might such an impression on the Barcelona fans, the court's coach of Barcelona. And the system as I say, they used to exist this day. - Yeah, I remember that Barcelona side and that Champions League final especially. And it's very interesting that two of the players that didn't get on within Stauchcoff and Romario were probably very Croif-like in their sort of attitude as in, you know, they were the stars of the team and they wanted to sort of dictate some of the things that went on. And I always found it interesting that there was such a big clash with Croif, especially with someone like Romario who was phenomenal. But people forget he was at Barcelona for such a short period of time because it just sort of didn't work. And Croif never really probably recovered from that, even though they reached some brilliant heights domestically. He never quite tipped them over the edge with sort of this ever-growing European game where competition was sort of increasing and increasing. In terms of his legacy with fans and with other players. You know, he's often held up by footballers and football fans as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to quite a lot of people, maybe not just for his on-field display, but actually for his management for creating that culture at Barcelona, of developing from within. How do fans of, you know, I mean, you've mentioned about Barcelona already, but Ajax, you know, the name of the stadium after him, you know, he's such a huge legendary figure, everywhere, isn't he? - Oh, God yeah, I mean, yeah. Well, I'm not standing in the Netherlands generally, although perhaps not so much in Rotterdam, although, I'd say we're defamed, or we're not, and certainly in Barcelona as well, but I think it's the iconic players we've been talking about in this series. A lot of the way people look at them, the perception of them, depends on how you were, where you were, when you saw them. I mean, as I mentioned, Cruyff was very much my sort of my era of football, where I thought, "God, this is wonderful football. This is where I play football." I know this might look at different players at different eras and have a similar sort of attachment, but for me, any body of my sort of generation, Cruyff was certainly one of the, I mean, it's always difficult to compare players over time, that, you know, who's the greatest player is it? This definitely, was it Maradona? Is it Messi? Is it Ronaldo? Is it the Ronaldo? Is it Cruyff? Well, Cruyff's in the argument, in any argument of that, Cruyff's in there. And then, on top of that, you look up what he did as a manager, and then all of a sudden, the Pellet's and this, oh, that's definitely not a manager as well for a while, but certainly not the success that Cruyff did, you know? And Maradona, not the success that Cruyff did. And you think, well, yeah, there's got something extra as well. It's got that extra X factor as well. So, to me, as I said earlier, you know, I mean, in my mind, Cruyff is the most influential football of all time. Mark, people might argue with you as a best player, as an influencer, as a guy who left a legacy on the game. It's difficult to argue that this wasn't, the icon of football. - I have to agree, Gary, I think we're seeing now at all levels of football, that Cruyff influence has passed through Guardiola, and spreading all across the game, but it's huge, isn't it? Just to kind of look into our imaginary crystal ball, or looking into the future, or bringing Cruyff into the present now, can you imagine him playing for Barcelona right now, on that left-hand side, dribbling inside? It would be an incredible sight, because what I found really interesting about someone like Cruyff, he would still be one of the two or three best players in the world in whatever era he played, wouldn't he? - Well, you have to ask yourself, here's a guy who played on pitches, and if you want to go and watch Cruyff on YouTube, pick any Cruyff thing on YouTube, you'll see the pitches playing, especially in the Netherlands. I mean, they were like a potato field. And, you know, players were sort of fairly robust in their challenges, shall we say? Compared to what they're allowed to do these days. So this is a guy who sort of, and I mentioned the game against Villa, when he sort of played that much patch there, and he excelled in there, can you imagine what he would do on these billion table surfaces now, where the skilled players are so much more protected than they were. I mean, I mean, I forget Barcelona. Come on, play Stanford and Bridge, you know what? He actually wore, he did wear a Chelsea kit once, he played a testimonial at Chelsea. I couldn't believe his testimonial was four, but he played a testimonial at Chelsea kit, and I'll put it in like the blue color zone, which you could have stayed. I mean, but any team, any team in the world, any time, I don't care who they are, it would be the star player in that scene on Saturday. I mean, just a little point, two big Guardiola at Barcelona. But there was six or seven players there, Coumen was another one there, and there was five or six players there who went on to be successful managers, and that legacy that spread down from players like what, from people like Guardiola through who they'd coached. I mean, you look at players like a Prince of Company, who's now gone into his arms, because in many of Bayern, the generations, this is where the legacy you get from, from Crofe, and these are the guys who are sort of perpetuating the legacy of Crofe, and they're not playing like him, but it's also inspired that the inspiration is still there, not a legend, what a legend. - Yeah, and I think a legend, and if we're talking about icons, we've got to talk about their impact now, so even seeing all those players coming through and playing that star is quite incredible. But from me and Gary, talking about the incredible Johann Crofe to open our icon series, I'm not sure we could have picked someone as good as Crofe to start us off with, an incredible player, incredible manager, legacies at two huge European Cups, impact at World Cups, impact in the European Cup as a player, and as a manager, totally transforming two football clubs in Ireland, and Barcelona, and producing some absolute incredible football. Gary, it's been a great chat about Johann Crofe, and I'm sure, as we go through the rest of the icon series, they can all, they'd be battle it out, to see who is the ultimate icon at the end of it. - That will come second though. They did battle who will come second to Crofe. - Well, that's great, thanks for the chat, Gary, and thank you all for listening to our first episode of the icons series, we will see you in the next one. - Many thanks for joining us today on the LOB, at these football times production. 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