johan cruyff

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Saturday’s battle with arch-rivals Real Madrid at Camp Nou kicks off on Saturday, 2 April at 8.30pm CET. A stadium-wide tribute to Johan Cruyff, former Barça player and coach years later, will appear in the form of a mosaic made up of some 90,000 cards that will form the slogan 'Gràcies Johan' (Thanks, Johan). Saturday's La Liga match against Real Madrid will also be attended by the eight living FC Barcelona presidents who will all be sitting in the Josep Suñol Presidential Box at Camp Nou. In the sportive sphere, Cláisco will be the first managerial duel between Luis Enrique and Zidane. Of the 85 Clásicos that have taken place at Camp Nou, Barça have won on 49 occasions, while 19 have ended in Real Madrid wins and 17 in draws. In their last encounter, Barça scored 4 goals at Santiago Bernabéu.

Johan Cruyff, a Barça player during the early seventies and one of its most iconic coaches later on, died this Thursday at the age of 68. Born in Amsterdam in 1947, he joined the Catalan squad in 1973 and relaunched its prestige by winning La Liga in 1974. He played 184 matches and scored 51 goals in the blaugrana shirt and was voted, on three occasions, world player of the year. However, his most revolutionary role was played from the bench. He was Barça’s coach for nearly 10 years and his name will always be linked to the ‘Dream Team’, the name popularly given to the squad which won the first European Cup for Barça at Wembley in 1992 and four successive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994. Cruyff failed to overcome lung cancer and died after months of battling, surrounded by his family.