Peter Bosz has recalled an emotional meeting with his idol Johan Cruijff, revealing that he had no idea at the time how seriously ill the Dutch football legend was.

The PSV head coach was working at Maccabi Tel Aviv during the 2015/16 season, where Jordi Cruijff was serving as technical director. In March 2016, Bosz met Jordi's father, Johan, during a training session in Israel.

Those images would later become particularly significant. Cruijff was suffering from lung cancer and died in Barcelona on March 24, 2016. Speaking on Omroep Brabant's Masterclass: The Secret of Peter Bosz, the PSV coach looked back on the meeting and described just how much it meant to him.

Bosz recalled the moment Jordi informed him that his father was planning to visit the Maccabi training ground.

“He then quickly said: ‘Next week my father and mother will come’,” Bosz recalled, as quoted by PSV Inside.

The coach initially needed clarification.

“‘Your father is coming?’” Bosz replied.

Johan Cruijff subsequently appeared at a Maccabi Tel Aviv training session. For Bosz, the significance of the occasion was impossible to ignore.

“I didn’t sleep the night before and I did all the nice drills in one training session,” the current PSV coach said.

Cruijff was already seriously ill, but Bosz had no knowledge of the severity of his condition.

“I really didn’t know that. But it turned out to be the case,” Bosz said.

The encounter therefore carried a poignancy that Bosz could only fully appreciate afterwards. At the time, he was simply meeting the man he had regarded as his football idol.

The meeting did not end at the training ground. Cruijff subsequently invited Bosz and their wives to lunch together.

Bosz's wife needed some convincing to change her plans, but the PSV coach was determined that she should join him.

“I called my wife to tell her that she had to come along for lunch now. We’re eating at Cruijff!”

For Bosz, the memory remains one of the most striking encounters of his coaching career. What initially appeared to be a remarkable opportunity to spend time with one of Dutch football's greatest figures would, within weeks, become one of the final moments Johan Cruijff was seen alive.

Cruijff's influence on Dutch football remains enormous, and Bosz's recollection offers a glimpse into the personal impact the legendary No. 14 had on those who encountered him away from the pitch.