Napolean, Johann Cruyff and Design

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Three people walk into a conference room, Napolean, Johann Cruff and Joe the Designer.

No!

I’ve been a huge fan of Johann Cruyff since I was much younger…and what he helped to achieve in the annals of European Football. More on this in a moment.

I’ve come late to the appreciation of Napoleon. I will say this, the man had some amazing skills and achievements — and the recent Ridley Scott film makes a mockery of Napoleon, shameful in its lies about historical events and clearly intentional or outright ignorant propagation of old, tired false accusations. We’ll highlight an area of Napoleon’s genius here shortly.

And yes, how it can illustrate ways to help Joe, the designer.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands license [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en]. Source: Johan Cruyff in trainingspak Nederlands Elftal, kopCollection / Archief: Fotocollectie AnefoNummer toegang: 2.24.01.06Filenumber: 254–9362 [https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ad92ac7e-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84].

Cruyff’s Turn

Cruyff played for Ajax, Barcelona and his national team, the Netherlands. He and his colleagues, from their experiences in playing soccer, came to devise a method of play that changed the nature of the game. They called it total football, and in essence it was built on the notion that space, occupying it “fully” is critical to maintaining possession of the ball or for creating a strong defense when without the…