The Golden Era For Barça- Cruyff's Dream Team

FC Barcelona was organized by Joan Gamper, a Swiss national, at the close of the 19th century. Since its inception, the team, fondly known by its fans as Barça, has always been extremely popular; especially in Catalonia. Due to its popularity, the demand for FC Barcelona tickets has also been extremely high. But the period that is still held in the highest regard even after the club's resurgence as a force in European football was in the late 1980s. This was regarded as the "Dream team" period, following Johan Cruyff’s appointement as the manager; he used the experiences he had gathered in Holland to build his team.

Cruyff’s team won the moniker “Dream Team” only after the 1992 Olympics were hosted by Barcelona, after the US Basketball team. Cruyff's squad constituted Pep Guardiola who is the present Barcelona mentor, Txiki Beguiristain, Jon Andoni Goikoetxea and Jose Mari Bakero from Spain; he also added Brazilian Romario, Dutchman Ronald Koeman, Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov, Romanian Gheorghe Hagi and Dane Michael Laudrup to the team.

Cruyff lead the Dream Team on to win La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994; They vanquished Sampdoria in the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup finals and the last match of the 1992 European Cup at Wembley Stadium with an extremely popular Ronald Koeman free kick goal. They also won the Copa del Rey title in 1990, three Spanish Supercups and the 1992 European Supercup.

The reasons for the team’s success have come under the scanner many a times. The common belief is that though the players were a talented lot, they managed to keep their individual egos at bay, either with good common sense or by the dint of being under a careful and able management of Cruyff.

Barça fans have several reasons for loving Cruyff; besides being a first class player, he mentioned that he would never have played for Real Madrid which was supported by General Franco, the Spanish dictator. He had also refused to play for the Dutch national team in the 1978 World Cup which was held in Argentina, as the country was then ruled by a military Junta.

The choice of a Catalan name for his son -Jordi- also added to his popularity. Cruyff egged Barcelona on to their first Spanish League title in 14 years; a time when they also defeated Real Madrid 5-0 at the Bernabeu and Cruyff was named European footballer of the year.

Understandably, the best explanation behind Cruyff's good fortune- and undoubtedly, his greatest commitment to the club was in introducing "total football", which he had learnt while playing for Ajax. Total Football is a tactical style of play in which any player out of position can be substituted by another player, making the game a high adrenaline rusher.

Till date supporters look back to their Dream Team with affection. That era was the one of the best for the Barça supporters. For some time they thought they had a fresh squad under Frank Rijkaard; but their hopes were not met despite a few notable successes. Rijkaard was sacked and replaced by Pep Guardiola, who has not only met the fans’ expectations, but has also gone on to enjoy tremendous success as the Barcelona coach.

By: Mark Hazard

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