stylistic:tone
Style of management and tactics

Cruyff is widely seen as a revolutionary figure in the history of Ajax, Barcelona, and the Netherlands. The offensive style of play Cruyff introduced at Barcelona later came to be known as tiki-taka —characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession—which was later adopted by the Euro 2008, 2010 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2012 winning Spain national football team. As a manager, Cruyff's tactics were influenced by the Dutch total football system in which he played a part during his playing career under his former manager Michels. Cruyff often used a fluid 3–4–3 formation at Barcelona, or occasionally the 4–3–3. He often favoured technical players with good movement over physical players, and used his players in seemingly unorthodox roles on occasion. For example, he made use of Spanish midfielder Pep Guardiola in a defensive midfield role as a deep-lying playmaker, who would dictate play in midfield through his passing; he would also occasionally drop deeper to act as an additional centre-back. Cruyff also deployed Danish playmaker Michael Laudrup in a free centre-forward role, due to his mobility, positioning, passing, and tendency to be involved in the build-up of attacking plays and create chances for teammates; Laudrup would often drop deep into midfield, which would disorient opposing defenders, allowing other midfielders, or offensive wingers, such as Stoichkov, to exploit the space he created, and get into good attacking positions from which they could shoot on goal. This role has retroactively been likened by pundits to the modern " false 9 " role, and has also been compared to Cruyff's own playing position. Cruyff did also use a genuine striker at times, in particular when Romário joined the club. Defensively, his teams made use of heavy pressing, a high defensive line, and the offside trap, and relied on the positioning of his players to recover the ball quickly, maintain possession, and reduce the possibility of facing opposing counter-attacks; as such, Cruyff's philosophy was based on defending by attacking. He also used Sergi and Ferrer as inverted full-backs, who moved inside to occupy central areas of the pitch, flanking an offensive sweeper – usually Ronald Koeman – who could carry the ball, start attacks or switch the play from the back, while he also favoured goalkeepers who were comfortable with the ball at their feet, and equally capable of building plays with their passing. Despite Cruyff's reputation as one of the greatest managers of all time, former Milan and Italy manager Arrigo Sacchi was critical of Cruyff in 2011, however, due to the fact that he did not pay as much attention to the defensive aspect of the game as he did to the offensive side.