Nation reeling over death of legend who took it to great heights on the world stage

Flags were flying half-mast across the Netherlands on Thursday as it mourned the death of arguably its greatest sporting icon, Johan Cruyff, called the 'Rembrandt' of Dutch soccer who lost his long battle with lung cancer.

"We've lost our best-ever footballer, our No 14, our greatest football friend," Royal Dutch Football Federation chairman Michael van Praag said.

"Johan took Dutch football to new great heights, and we will forever be in his debt at the KNVB," van Praag said in the statement, posted on the federation's website.

"We are devastated, and personally I'm going to miss Johan, my friend, enormously," he said.

"The Netherlands has lost a unique and big-hearted sportsman," Dutch King Willem-Alexander said on his Facebook page.

"He enriched our football and gave it a new face. He truly was a Dutch icon," the country's top royal said.

The Dutchman "died peacefully in Barcelona, surrounded by his family after a hard-fought battle with cancer", said a statement on Cruyff's official website.

"It's with great sadness that we ask you to respect the family's privacy during their time of grief."

Cruyff is considered one of the best four players in history, alongside Pele of Brazil, Diego Maradona of Argentina and France's Michel Platini.

He won three European Cups as a player with Ajax Amsterdam and Ballon d'Or titles in 1971 with Ajax and 1973 and 1974 with Barcelona, where he starred from 1973 to 1978.

Cruyff started his coaching career with Ajax in 1985 but moved again to Barcelona three years later, leading the Spanish side to four consecutive league titles and its first European Cup in 1992.

Meanwhile, flags were flying half-mast at the Amsterdam ArenA with employees at the Ajax fan shop changing all jerseys on mannequins to the well-known "Cruyff Number 14".

"I don't know what to say. I'm devastated," Ajax fan Rodney Rijsdijk told popular daily tabloid De Telegraaf, telling the paper he had met Cruyff twice.

Elsewhere in the scenic Dutch capital, a shopowner where Cruyff is believed to have bought his first pair of soccer boots as a young boy, said the Netherlands has lost one of its greatest players.

"Johan is a piece of us all. It's incomprehensible," Guno Reingoud told the NOS public broadcaster.

"He was a great human, an example for one and all. The Rembrandt of Dutch football," Reingoud said drawing the comparison to one of Amsterdam's other most famous sons, the 17th-century painter.

(China Daily 03/26/2016 page12)