New musical puts late Dutch great Johan Cruyff center stage

Johan Cruyff’s tempestuous life is being made into a musical that reflects the “total football” style of play the Dutch soccer great pioneered

LEUSDEN, Netherlands -- Johan Cruyff’s tempestuous life is being made into a musical that reflects the “total football” style of play the Dutch soccer great pioneered. On the opening day of the pandemic-delayed European Championship, the cast and crew of “14 The Musical” on Friday raised the curtain on preparations for a new musical eulogizing the Netherlands' most famous soccer player. The show, which premieres on Sept. 25, tells the story of the rise of Cruyff from a scrawny kid juggling a ball on the sidewalks of a working class Amsterdam neighborhood to the mercurial attacker who led the “Clockwork Orange” team that narrowly lost the 1974 World Cup final to West Germany. It take its title from the shirt number Cruyff wore for most of his playing career. Cruyff died in 2016.