The Cruyff Way

SEASON 1

3.LIGA

Welcome to Dresden, And Dynamo Dresden The Double DD’s

We start our managerial journey In the 3rd tier of German football. Playing an attacking style brought to the world by Johan Cruyff.

Favourite to get automatic promotion, so the squad did not need any Tinkering with apart from sending good young prospects on loan.

A standard vision from the board, wage budget is healthy, looking to sell anyone at the age of 30 and promotion is always an aim, the cup is more about bringing more money into the club.

our stadium has a capacity of 32,249 with no senior affiliate, with average corporate facilities- this will need to improve as we move forward.

With great training and youth facilities, but need work on youth recruitment and junior coaching.

We started the season playing an attacking 4-2-3-1 narrow system.

next season we have are changing to a Johan Cruyff style 3-1-2-3-1.

We had a great pre- season but only team of our standard we played was Zwickau, who are in our league, but we dominated all the games and scored for fun, only concerning 3 goals in two of our games.

DFB Pokal cup was an easy win in the first round against Sandhausen in our league, and a tight game against Hamburg who are a quality team that we are striving to reach for, so a 1-0 defeat I am pleased with.

As you can see we dominated and won the majority of the games up to Christmas break with only 2 defeats and two Draws. scored 37 goals and conceded 13 in 17 games.

sitting top and very happy with how we are playing and looking forward to finishing the job of automatic promotion.

We started out great, but then in march we hit a spell of defeats but overall a great season and we won the league comfortably.

& points clear of Duisburg in 2nd place and the best goal difference in the league.

Ignore phil Harres, his goals came while he was out onloan, so looking to give him game time next season. The player of the season for me is……….

Such a versatile player, can play upfront or in the amc role, would love to sign him on a permanent deal, but maybe out of our reaches currently.

Going into pre-season for our 2nd season and our first season in 2.liga.

we have a balance of 5.4 mill which is good, and means we are heading in the right direction.

A war chest of 1.1 million and a wage budget of 215k which is 71k improvement, so gives us plenty of room to improve the squad.

If you have any player suggestions for season 2 cheap or freebies please put your suggestions in the comments or in my twitter account.

keith tacticalkeith

The Johan Cruyff Way

Born in 1947, A dutch footballer who won the Ballon D’or three times 1971,73 and 74, A player who is regarded as influential around the world, many regard him as one of the best players and managers in the history of football.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s dutch football rose from semi-pro to a powerhouse in the sport.

Played his last game as a professional footballer in 1983/84 for feyenoord and went in to management with his beloved Ajax following in the footsteps of his mentor Rinus michaels, coaching a young ajaax team to victory in the cup winners cup in 1987. In 1985 he lost the league title to a PSV side even though they finished the campaign with a +85 goal difference. in 1986-87 he won the KNVB cup.

This is where he implemented his formation of a 3-1-2-3-1, So successful was this system that Ajax won the Champions League in 1995  playing Cruyff’s system – a tribute to Cruyff’s legacy as Ajax coach.

he later moved on to Barcelona and created the dream team using his Total football 3-1-2-3-1.

an attacking style that looks to press high and hit the opposition hard as soon as I win it back.

GK- D left him on Defend to start with as I just want to keep it simple to start with until I work to the top Division in Germany, and then I will decide whether to change him to a sweeper keeper or keep him as he is.

WCB/R/L-D the wider of the defensive players aim is to keep a good balance at the back, but with the flexibility of able to move wider in defensive situations if needed.

BPD-D The central of the 3 defenders at times will be the spare man as well as want him to have the ability to bring the ball out or play a ball forward to unmarked more attacking players in the side.

DM-D Originally had this player as a Half back as I wanted it to be a back four in Defensive situations, but decided to change it to this role, so he can hold a position in front of the defenders and break up play and pass the ball on to the two CM’s.

Central Midfielders– This is the area of the pitch I want to control, I have gone with a BBM-S and a RPM-S The box to box will drift forward and back to support the the forward thinking players as well as drop back to help the Playmaker, who is the player I want to drift around the midfield picking up the ball in these areas and looking to open up the opposition in front of him.

AM-A A player That links the midfield to the solo striker and the two wider players, who will look to find them as well as being a danger himself as he moves into the box.

IF/R/L These are my wide players who will move inside to aid the lone striker to add extra attacking from wider areas.

AF-A Originally I had this role as a F9 But the F9 and the AMC Kept trying to find the same space, so as I wanted to keep the Diamond I would make him a AF So it would stretch the play wide as well as forward towards the opposition defensive line and beyond.

The philosophy of Johan Cruyff in 14 concepts:

1. Team player: “To accomplish things, you have to do it together”

 2. Responsibility: “Take good care of things as if it was your own”

 3. Respect: “Respect one another”

 4. Integration: “Involve others in your activities”

 5. Initiative: “Dare to try something new”

 6. Coaching: “Always help each other within a team”

 7. Personality: “Be yourself”

 8. Social Involvement: “Crucial in sports, and even more so in life in general”

 9. Technique: “The basics”

 10. Tactics: “Know what to do”

 11. Development: “Sports develop body and soul”

 12. Learn: “Try to learn something new every day”

 13. Play together: “An essential part of the game”

 14. Creativity: “The beauty of sports”

Using these concepts I will mould my squad for the future to build my own dream team, Still need to work on my own DNA, but use the philosophy he held with all his teams.

I used this system in the final game of the season, which will be in my next article.

Ths is how we done.

As you you can see we hit top ratings in every position apart from the DM, who got sent off in the 51st minute, We were already 4-0 up, so wanted to keep that but still be a threat, so I dropped Kade into the RPM role and Hauptmann into the DM role, Then the AF role I changed to A F9. We controlled the rest of the game and was still threat moving forward.

The above image shows how dominant we was in all areas- Possession, shots, XG and with 91% completed passes.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this, and more articles will follow as I move forward with the save and this tactic, please feel free to comment with any opinions on the blog, tactic that you feel would improve this system or my Blog in General.

Keith tacticalkeith