Today it has been just a year that Bordalás celebrated for the first time a victory against the club for which he sympathizes since he was a child. Getafe beat Barça with a goal from Mata at the Coliseum. Nevertheless, Alicante still has the challenge of leaving the Camp Nou victorious. He has only drawn one draw (0-0) in 2018 from Can Barça. This time he wants it to be different because he also faces the most ‘cruyffista’ Barça in recent years, with a president who communes and professes from the four winds with a current that gave him successes in the past and with Jordi Cruyff, son of the idol of Bordalás, in the offices.
That Cruyff was the idol of Bordalás and tried to imitate him when he was a player is not surprising, since the years in which Cruyff reigned in Europe as a footballer coincided with the childhood and adolescence of the current Valencia coach. What is striking is when Bordalás expresses that the coach Cruyff has influenced him as a coach. At first glance, there is nothing further away than Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ in the style of the Bordalás teams. The technician has explained it in many interviews: “Cruyff was a leader. I agree with his idea of football. We remember the long possessions but I am left with the changes of orientation of Koeman, the races to the spaces of Stoichkov and Goikoetxea, the arrivals of Bakero … “.
Another of Cruyff’s influences reaches Bordalás through the Netherlands of 74, the so-called Clockwork Orange. “They were already pressing after loss, they suffocated the rival. They are the forerunners of what is today, “Bordalás assured in several interviews. But if there is one thing that, at first glance, Cruyff and Bordalás agree is to get the most out of footballers through motivation and tactical work.