Cruyff blasts back at Mourinho
Earlier this season Cruyff maintained that Chelsea's style of play was, at times, based on sacrificing entertainment for points.
Cruyff, the pivotal exponent of the art of total football in Holland's team of the 1970s, originally accused Mourinho of being 'a pragmatic coach who fails in his duty to entertain.'
His comments were cemented by his success when in charge of Barcelona between 1988 and 1996. He built a side that played free-flowing football and won four successive titles and the European Cup in 1992.
Mourinho, in his column in Portuguese sports magazine Dez Record, responded by inviting the Dutchman to teach him how to become a better manager.
Now the Holland World Cup star has told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper: "I am happy to hear that Mourinho would like me to teach him a few of the things I stand for.
"I could teach him how to play very well, just like at Ajax in the 70s or Barcelona in the 90s.
"I would happily teach him not just about winning and playing well, but also about winning respect from people, and that is more important than the titles you win.
"But it's better that I don't teach him how to lose a final by 4-0. This happens when you have a very long career, a career that began at the age of 17 and that continued until the age of 40 as a player and then other years as a coach.
"At his age, he has sufficient time to learn how to win and how to lose. To earn the respect of the whole world is a different story."
In his reply to Cruyff's original comments, Mourinho told Dez Record that the football world had waited for the Dutchman to step back into coaching since 1996 and that, in his opinion, there was little left that he could actually teach the Chelsea boss.
"Since 1996, he refuses to step into the new football reality," said Mourinho. "Football is waiting for him to be a teacher. I want him to come forward and teach me. I humbly ask for it. I want him to help me to be a better coach because I don't want to stop learning.
"But he cannot teach me to be national champion because I already am three times. He cannot teach me how to win cups and Super Cups because I already did. He cannot teach me to conquer the UEFA Cup because I also have it. He cannot teach me to become a European champion either."
Mourinho, who led FC Porto to the UEFA Cup and Champions League success in successive seasons, also reminded Cruyff of Barcelona's humiliating 4-0 defeat by AC Milan in the 1994 European Cup final.
"I don't want him to teach me how to lose 4-0 in a Champions League final because I don't want to learn that," said Mourinho.
"After leaving Barca, he manages to be remembered as a European champion and at the same time everybody forgets that, in every year he won the Spanish league, he only succeeded in the last round thanks to others mishaps and everyone has also forgot the sensational final against Milan who smashed him 4-0."
Mourinho has been careful not to become embroiled in rows this season and the Blues have shaken off the boring tag bestowed on them by their critics with 14 goals in the last four matches including four against Spanish side Real Betis in the Champions League, four against Liverpool and five at against Bolton in the Premiership.
Cruyff is adamant there is a difference between spectacular and results-based football and believes great teams should offer more.
"Between spectacular, controlled football, which I defend and will always defend, and results-based football there is a world of difference," he said.
"An inadequate team has to try to defend as it can, but a great team, with great players, always has to give something more. What's more, it has to for the good of football."
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