Johan Cruyff

Cruyff coached Barcelona from 1988 to 1996. His teams won four consecutive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994 and the 1992 European Cup, beating Sampdoria at Wembley, and the Guardian obituary counts eleven trophies in all.

As a player Cruyff won three consecutive European Cups with Ajax between 1971 and 1973 and moved to Barcelona in 1973. He played 48 times for Holland between 1966 and 1977 and was in the Dutch side that lost the 1974 World Cup final to West Germany.

Before the 1974 World Cup, Cruyff persuaded coach Rinus Michels to take Jan Jongbloed as goalkeeper instead of Jan van Beveren, whom David Winner calls the nation's best shot-stopper and with whom he says Cruyff had a long-running feud. Winner writes that Cruyff had noticed Jongbloed was good with his feet and could roam far from goal, and that a goalkeeper acting almost as an extra defender would let Holland press higher up the pitch.

Choosing a goalkeeper for his footwork and range rather than his shot-stopping offers one example of the profile's creative-originality score; the reasoning comes from Winner's account alone. Creative Originality

In May 1989, at half-time of a friendly against a third-division side, Cruyff told the 18-year-old Pep Guardiola he was "slower than my granny" and did not let him play the second half. Guardiola later recalled that Cruyff pushed players hard and then protected them once they were in his team.

Blunt, unsolicited feedback of this kind is consistent with the profile's social-assertiveness score; Guardiola himself frames the bluntness as one half of a push-and-protect method. Social Assertiveness

In 1973 Ajax's players voted for Piet Keizer rather than Cruyff as captain, and within weeks Cruyff had left for Barcelona. Winner and Kuper both tie the move to the vote; in his own book, as quoted by Andy Bollen, Cruyff recalls the ballot and says he was still being accused of being too self-serving.

Accounts differ on how much the vote alone explains the departure; leaving rather than accepting the outcome is consistent with the profile's conflict-tolerance score. Conflict Tolerance