Number 5 : Johan Cruijff Not merely a great player , Cruijff was also a great thinker on soccer , as if he were Edison and the light bulb in one . Cruijff ( his real name , though foreigners generally call him “ Cruyff ”) was born in Amsterdam in 1947 a few hundred meters from the Ajax stadium . He began hanging around the club as a toddler . His father , Manus , a grocer , supplied Ajax with fruit , and after Manus died when Cruijff was twelve , Cruijff ’ s mother cleaned Ajax ’ s locker rooms .
The skinny waif debuted for the first team at 17 . Ajax was then a semi-professional club , barely known outside the Netherlands , but within a few years Cruijff and Ajax ’ s manager Rinus Michels turned it into the world ’ s best team . The duo invented a new kind of soccer , which foreigners called “ total football .” Players swapped positions at great speed , creating an unprecedented fluidity of play . In the midst of it was Cruijff , constantly changing position , pointing and shouting directions at others even while he dribbled past opponents .