As we continue our countdown to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil here at PST, each day from now until the tournament begins we will look back at a memorable moment from years gone by.
Here is number 2.
PST’s Top 20 World Cup moments – No. 2: The Cruyff Turn
It seems so common now: the feint one way to draw the defender’s momentum before the cutback. But when Dutch legend Johan Cruyff toasted Swedish defender Jan Olsson at the 1974 World Cup, it brought us a term that would live forever.
The Cruyff Turn is a thing of beauty, and it almost defines what soccer in the Netherlands was all about in the 1970s and forward: Total Football.
RELATED: Countdown, World Cup Top 20 moments
The 1974 final was the first of two-straight losses in the World Cup’s title match for the Netherlands, but those crushing defeats couldn’t take the shine off of what the Dutch brought to football in that decade.
Cruyff and his turn were the symbols of that beauty and arguably represented an entire culture, chronicled in David Winner’s captivating book, “Brilliant Orange.”