BY JAMES SIMONS
Spanish Radio Station RAC1 and the Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo have reported this morning that Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff has lung Cancer.
According to Mundo Deportivo, Cruyff will undergo further tests this week to see the extent of the disease.
Cruyff has had medical issues in the past having double heart bypass surgery in 1991 whilst he was still manager of Barcelona football club. Cruyff used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day before quitting in 1991. After giving up, Cruyff worked with the Catalan Regional Government on a number of anti-smoking programs.
The Barcelona and Ajax manager had a decorated career both as a player and as a manager, and was forced to undergo double heart bypass surgery in 1991. The 68 year old won 4 consecutive La Liga titles from 1990-91, and from 93-94. He won European cup 3 times as a player and once as a manager. Cruyff was known for his technical ability, speed, acceleration, dribbling and vision, possessing an awareness of his team-mates’ positions as an attack unfolded. In 1997, Dutch journalist Hubert Smeets wrote: “Cruyff was the first player who understood that he was an artist, and the first who was able and willing to collectivise the art of sports”.
DOMESTIC SUCCESS
Cruyff during his playing career had Dutch domestic success winning the Eredivisie with Ajax and Feyenoord nine times. Cruyff also had European success whilst at Ajax winning the European Cup three times as well as being part of the Dutch National Team that finished runner up in the 1974 FIFA World Cup. Also as a player, Cruyff won the La Liga title with Barcelona in 1973-74. He would go on to Manage Barcelona leading them to a further four La Liga titles and a European Cup success in 1991-92. Similarly he also managed his old team Ajax to success in the 1987 European Cup Winners Cup.
Personal accolades were plentiful in his career with Cryuff winning the Ballon D’or European Footballer of the year award a record three times, a feat he holds along with Michel Platini and Marco Van Basten. He is generally regarded as one of the best players of all time, and before last summer’s tournament in Brazil was ranked the 6th greatest player in a list compiled by the Guardian newspaper.
His death is a grim reminder of the dangers of smoking, although former actor, Roy Castle, also host of ‘record breakers’ among other appointments died of lung cancer caused by passive smoking, despite never having smoked a cigarette in his life. There are many who have lived a long life despite smoking all their lives, but this does not change the scientific fact that smoking causes lung cancer and affects the cardio vascular system immensely. It is therefore of crucial importance for all smokers to have quitting as a goal.
