How Cruyff left a full KLM plane waiting for NOS

• Thierry Bean

  Editor in Qatar

The eyes of the football world on the Qatar World Cup. On the heels of divorced world stars and on the margins of big news, NOS editor Thierry Bon writes daily about what he’s going through in Doha.

Sometimes, in these three weeks that we are now in Doha, beautiful stories from the World Cups of the past come to light. Stories that would be a shame not to tell.

Like this story about the power of Johan Cruyff, told by soundman/editor Bart Jan van der Tuen, who is in Qatar for NOS. We are talking about the 2002 World Cup (Orangelis) in Japan and South Korea.

Johan Cruyff was an analyst for Sports studio. He lived in Spain and was in no mood to keep coming to Hilversum. That’s why we went this way several times during the World Cup. to his holiday home on a mountain near Barcelona.

“Jack van Gelder did the interview. He watched the game with Cruyff in the living room and then we recorded the analysis in the garden. I had to adjust it.”

Watch one of Cruyff’s analyzes during the 2002 World Cup in the video below.

“We then came back with editing for the early matches. That tape was still at the time, which we brought to Hilversum, where the evening broadcast could then begin. For the late game we used a local TV station, where we could then send the item through.”

“After this early game, I quickly got up and we’re going back to Amsterdam with KLM. So we headed to the airport, and we just got stuck.”

“Jack was behind the wheel and said, ‘Guys, that’s going to be a problem. We’re not going to catch the plane and our item won’t get into the broadcast. But one thing I can do is call Johan and ask if he can help.'”

“So we call Cruyff in traffic. Jack explained the situation and Johan just said he would call KLM and then call us back. So after a few minutes Cruyff called.”

“Everything was arranged, Cruyff said, we had to drive a little bit, but the plane would be waiting for us. We could just park the car in front of the door, and he would also arrange that.”

“And we didn’t have to check our stuff in. Camera, tripod, etc., we had to take it with us as a carry-on. That was hardly said.”

“So we arrived and someone from KLM was already waiting for us outside. She immediately took us to the plane, as we were the last on the plane with all our luggage.”

“I think they waited for us for about twenty minutes. So we arrived, locked the doors and walked away immediately. Nobody could have pulled it off, but Cruyff apparently could.”