Yet Cruyff’s legacy extends far beyond his playing days. Returning to Ajax and Barcelona as a coach, he revolutionised how modern football should be played, prioritising talent over size and setting in motion decades of football dominance which favoured artists over artisans.
“This is how you people have always done it,” he said. “But they were wrong.”


Johan Cruyff painted the chapel and Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it

- Pep Guardiola

When he arrived in the Camp Nou dugout in 1988, the club still persisted with the prueba de la muñeca, literally ‘the doll’s trial’ in which only the 15-year-old’s who would grow up to measure 1.80m (5ft 9in) would be kept on. By the end of his first season, Cruyff had abandoned that particular test.
Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi are all 5ft 7in tall.
“Johan Cruyff painted the chapel,” Pep Guardiola once said, “and Barcelona coaches since merely restore or improve it.”
That’s quite some legacy to have.



The Brazilian played his last game for Santos in 1974 and postponed his retirement plans to sign for the New York Cosmos. He was in debt and desperate to recover his finances, so chose to move to the North American Soccer League. After leading the Cosmos to the NASL title in 1977, he played his farewell game on a rainy New York day. But how many days he'd brightened before that.
Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-100-greatest-footballers-ever-no3-pele#jjlfM7IySs5gSJ2g.99



Aged 30, he’s broken all-time records while lifting a host of personal and club awards – yet it’s only in watching Messi you can appreciate a one-off genius



by
Thore Haugstad



Published
28 July 2017

One way to try to express the greatness of Lionel Messi is to list his records and awards: the unrivalled five Ballon d’Ors, the 30 club trophies, the 91 goals in one calendar year, his status as top scorer of Argentina, Barcelona and La Liga.
And then conclude that this method is entirely unsatisfactory.
The history books will laud Messi, and yet their limitations will do him a disservice. In 20 years, young football fans will read about a messianic figure whose brilliance stunned the world, shattered a litany of records and started an era of dominance – but not until they watch the videos will they get an idea of what they have missed.

Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-100-greatest-footballers-ever-no2-lionel-messi#AdDDwOkO1fbIL6Qm.99



In true anti-hero style, the controversies only serve to heighten the legend. In 1991, he went to play in a friendly organised by Pablo Escobar within the walls of the notorious drug baron’s prison. “Later that evening, we had a party with the best girls I’ve ever seen in my life. And it was in a prison!”
The end
Maradona faded from view at Sevilla, Newell’s Old Boys and Boca Juniors, his career effectively over when he failed a drugs test for ephedrine at USA 94. Even then, he claimed that FIFA had reneged on a promise to let him take the weight-loss drug so he could play at the World Cup.
People don’t wear Che Guevara t-shirts because the Cuban Revolution led to communism becoming the world’s dominant political philosophy in the 1950s. They celebrate a flawed human being, who as a medical student became so appalled at the exploitation of South America that he resolved to overthrow governments by any means necessary.

Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-100-greatest-footballers-ever-no1-diego-maradona#v4b0SEIBsxRP3cq8.99