Johan Cruyff reveals rescuing Pep Guardiola for high-level competition in his autobiography

The supplement of the newspaper "L'Équipe" gives a preview today of several excerpts from the book "Memories" that Cruyff wrote before he died last March at the age of 68, together with "Sunday Times" journalist David Walsh, and which will be released in France on October 6th.

Footballistically, Cruyff does not hide one of his achievements, like turning Guardiola into a player for Barça.

"Barça wanted to get rid of him. They considered him skinny, bad at defending, and useless in aerial play. What no one saw was that he had the basic qualities to reach the top: game intelligence, quick execution, technique. If I hadn't been at Barcelona, he would have probably been sold to a second division club," he recalls.

When Guardiola was offered to take charge of Barça's first team, the Dutchman gave his great spiritual heir his "golden rule": "First and foremost, I wanted to emphasize that he should be the boss, make the decisions and take the consequences (...) In that sense, Pep is in the same line as me."

In the book, he also remembers the glorious "Clockwork Orange" defeated by Germany in the 1974 World Cup final, a defeat that, despite what may seem, Cruyff was able to overcome quickly.

"With the final whistle, we were disappointed, obviously. However, I recovered quickly. And in the end, it affected me very little, practically nothing. I think it's because of the enormous positive energy that surrounded us, the universal admiration for our game," he says.

From then on, in his opinion, the Dutch game "opened the door to all players who were neither big nor robust. The trend shifted towards quality and technique, while before it was mainly about commitment and work."