Month: April 2015

Congratulations to Phillip Cocu!

I have never been a PSV fan. And I have shared it many times here. But… I do like and have liked many of their players… What is not to like… Romario, Wim Kieft, Willy van der Kuylen, Luc Nilis… Awesome players. And I am a big Phillip Cocu fan. From creative left winger to midfielder and leader. I liked him at PSV and admired him in his 6  years at Barca and all his games in Oranje.

It seemed he would be a good coach. Good mentality. Tactical intelligence. Great skill. Gentleman personality.

He decided to go through the phase of coaching youth team after youth team, while also assisting Bert van Marwijk with Oranje. He started his career at PSV with a young squad and started that season (last year) with tremendously sexy football. Attractive, attacking, fast, many goals… But somehow suddenly that team choked. And Phillip got pressure and flak. And when he asked Hiddink for council, the media ate him up claiming he was vulnerable and weak. In the meantime, he also battled with cancer while just been gone through divorce.

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Not too happy times but Phillip turned it around. He was able to use a couple of new players coming in (Guardado, Luuk de Jong) and could count on the strength of two players who just starred at the World Cup Brazil, Depay and Wijnaldum. On top of that Adam Maher, the prodigal son, started to develop himself and find a spot in the team.

So this season, it all clicked. They started the season in winning form and kept on going. I don’t think they ever played as good as last season but they never played as bad as in the second half of last season. Consistent. Smart. Focused. With Wijnaldum in a leadership role and Depay as the miracle man and Willems as provider and Guardado guarding the balance.

Ajax simply was not good enough. Consistent in grinding out results, but not good enough.

Feyenoord started with 4 or 5 new players and lost points in the start of the season and lacked PSV’s consistency, although they probably played better football on the highs. But lacking scoring power a la Pelle, they could never challenge Ajax or PSV.

So after 5 years of drought, the trophy returns to Eindhoven.

On starting his career with AZ Alkmaar….

Cocu: “I got my first break as a first team player at AZ under Hugo Hovenkamp. He was stand in care taker manager when Eijkenbroek was ill and he used me. I was 18 years old. I had had three stints on the bench before that. The clock was ticking agewise. The club didn’t want to use me in the first team as they would have to pay a significant sum to my amateur clubs where I started. So they pressed Hugo to not use me for another couple of months. But Hugo said “nope, forget it, results come first” and he put me in. That was a whole thing, back then. I was very inconsistent back then, but AZ played first division so no one noticed hahaha. I could play 20 minutes great football and then I would invisible for 30 minutes… But I was driven, wanted to learn and had talent. I was already playing for regional rep teams and by then Young Orange came into view for me as well. We wanted to go to the Olympics in Barcelona but were beaten by Australia in the play offs. Ned Zelic scored the winner for them late. Was a disappointment, I remember. We had a tremendous generation. Taument, Ronald de Boer, Arthur Numan, Marc Overmars, but no Games for us….”

rijkaard cocu

On his Vitesse spell…

“Roda JC wanted to sign me but I wasn’t impressed with their story. My parents wanted me to finish high school in case football didn’t work out. Roda wasn’t too supportive of this. It didn’t feel good to me. And as I was good at studying, I decided to do some more school work. At the end of my first year as a starter, Vitesse came. I lived in that area before with my family and it felt like home a bit. I wanted to study marketing and combine it with football but the uni didn’t cooperate! In this day and age, that would be unheard of. When I came to Vitesse, they just finished fourth! Was a top team, with Van den Brom, Laamers, Eijer, Latuheru, Sturing and Bos. In my first week I broke my leg. That was rough. But it allowed me to work on my foundations. Bert Jacobs was the coach. He was an amazing coach. He was a pretty weird sort of guy, but a great coach. We would kill for him, you know. And it was all about football with him. When Jacobs left and Herbert Neumann came, he put me in midfield. That was a big one.  I think I could have had a good career as a left winger too, but never as good as a midfielder. Neumann was a good coach too by the way, but a bit more German discipline. As a midfielder, you cannot be inconsistent. You have to take care of the balance in the team and that helped me a lot as a player.”

cocu young psv

On his step up to PSV.

“I was 24 when I left for PSV. I had 5 years at Vitesse. Ajax wanted me earlier on but Vitesse asked a lot for me. I signed a new deal with a limited fee for a transfer. When PSV came, I was ready to go. Vitesse chairman Aalbers gave me a blank check to sign, but I didn’t do it. I wanted to play top flite football and Vitesse was not making that final step. Today, players of 24 make the step abroad but I was born in Eindhoven, my family is from Eindhoven. I love PSV, the club values, the atmosphere.  I still have that bond with Vitesse as well. That is important for me. I won my first trophy with PSV in 1997. That moment, I can still feel. A tremendous orgasm of joy and release. I have made that trip on the flat trailer a number of times now. It’s special. What a team we had: Wim Jonk, Ronaldo, Luc Nilis, Jaap Stam. We actually didn’t even win that much. Just one cup and one title.  But Ajax had a pretty good generation too, so… it was good times.”

ronaldo cocu no logo

Playing with Ronaldo:

“He is definitely the best player I have ever played with. There is no category for that lad. He came to PSV 17 years old and simply scored 30 goals in his first season. I recently saw this compilation of him, he was unbelievable. Really passionate about football. He and I spent a lot of time together. We were good mates. He enjoyed going out for a drink or spending some time socially. The pressure he had to endure at a young age. And every couple of years he’d go to another club, bigger and better, and he never succumbed under the pressure. A phenomenon..”

On missing a penalty against Brazil, WC1998…

“That has haunted me for quite a while. I am telling you…missing like this… that is really bad. I suffered from these sorts of situations much longer than I enjoyed winning something. This was after 120 minutes of top football against Brazil and I was done for. I was empty. I didn’t strike it hard enough, really. It could have gone a bit more in the corner too. Simply not good enough. This was my favorite tournament. The Euro2000 was good too, but this one… Everything clicked. We were staying outside of Monaco. The vibe was so good. So different to the 1996 Euros. We started with 0-0 against Belgium and we lost Pat Kluivert in that match. The pressure was on for the South Korea game and we won 5-0. Here I score the first and Edje Davids is almost tearing my jersey off my back, hahahaha. All that passion and drive. I love that.”

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On friendships in football:

“The football world is a bit shallow. Someimes one or two friendships is all you have left. Weird. But the pace is constantly high. Lots of games with the club and then the international games with the country. Whenever you have time off you want to spend it with real mates or family. I still hang with my old buddies from school. I value that. Going out for a bite to eat. They know me for who I am, not because I’m a cool football player. I do have real friendships in football, by the way. Frank de Boer and I are very close. We met at Oranje and played together in Barcelona and became close. We would go on holidays together and play foot-volley tournaments together. We are both extremely fanatical about winning. But he is a real mate.”

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On playing against the best of the best:

“This is against Zidane. Man, what a gifted player. One of the best ever. Very elegant and skillful. On this pic I am captain of Barcelona. I was and still am so proud of that. I also skippered Holland. Also something I was very proud of. I played six seasons in Spain. Barcelona is as warm as PSV. A real family oriented club. I still go back to watch a game every now and then. I was there recently to see Barca play Real Madrid. The people always treat me very warmly and respectfully. I have gone through highs and lows in Spain, but at a certain point we had an amazing team…. Kluivert, Figo, Rivaldo, Ronald de Boer, Luis Enrique… ”

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On his exit from Barcelona:

“My last season was the first one of Frank Rijkaard and Ronaldinho. I rate Ronaldinho very high. Up there with Ronaldo. The joy was back in the dressing room…. A news period of successes. I was not going to be part of it. My contract ended. I was allowed to stay but the club was not doing well financially. I had already sacrificed earlier on with a new deal and as the skipper I felt the respect of that last offer was lacking…. Sure, you try to be there in good and bad times and as the skipper I played my part but this particular offer didn’t show a lot of respect. I am quite principled in that sense. And when PSV called, I got excited. They wanted to do something at Champions League level. I had a good feeling about it.”

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On the second journey with PSV:

“For years, PSV wasn’t able to get that break in Europe. That quest was exciting for me. The way Hiddink embraced me and made me co-responsible for this was something I enjoyed. I try to use that approach myself now too, to make the players accountable. Not everyone is sensitive to this, there is always that, but a lot of them are. My first year back was great. We lost in the semi finals against AC Milan but we should have gone on to the finals. We were better over two games, but we let ourselves down. But, we won the title, the cup and got semi finals CL… Not that bad. More experienced players can be crucial in that process and this is why I am also keen to work with players with similar bagage. They can give the team that crucial last push.” (Jan: Schaars was one of the players in this category for PSV but he was injured most of the season).

cocu psv bommel

On his final game for PSV:

“A crazy end to a crazy season. We won the title on the last day on goal difference and it was me scoring that final goal. This is probably the most emotional moment of my football career.  I knew I would quit so it made it extra special. My sons are all football players. The middle one plays in the Vitesse youth, the others are at the local amateur club. I love watching them play and watch like a dad, not as a coach. They have good coaches and I want to enjoy them as their father. Obviously, they come and watch PSV play when we play at home.”

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On resurfacing at Al-Jazira Club….

“Crazy. I was retired. And a week into my holiday I freaked out. I was invited to play in Munich for the farewell of Roy Makaay and Scholl and while I was there, Al Jazira was in a trainings camp there. And Rob Janssen, my manager, spoke with them and they made him an offer. One more year, in another culture… Quite an adventure. And quite a good pay-check. I decided to do it. In my first game, I scored with an overhead kick so my entrance was quite good, hahaha. During the season I did realise I was actually really getting over it a bit. And that was it. We won the Europa League of the Arab nations. Good fun. But that was it. I played Jaap Stam’s farewell game too that summer and enjoyed being in the dressing room with the lads. I missed that.”

cocu farewell

On life as a retired football player:

“I never saw myself as a coach, like Frank did. He knew as a player he’d go into coaching. I did want to get that diploma but it was Van Marwijk who called me to assist him, with Frank, at Oranje. I loved it. I knew it was ideal to do this in combination with my studies. And being amongst the lads, on the pitch, always a ball around…was great. The South Africa World Cup was amazing! I started to work at PSV and took over when Rutten was sacked. We actually won the Cup and that is my first trophy as a coach. They all matter. I’m really happy that PSV saw me as a good coach, and just like with my football career, I do wish to achieve the highest possible.”

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Cocu did suffer some setbacks in his recent years. He divorced from his wife and the mother of his three kids after she appeared to have an affair for years. He also was diagnosed with a tumor in his back, which was taken out last year.

 

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Cruyff’s velvet revolution at Ajax is failing miserably

Johan Cruyff will always be a factor at his two favorite clubs, Ajax and Barcelona. His opinion will be heard. He will voice it himself ( in meetings, via his column or via his connections) and usually the club listens. There are always times when some faction is in charge that opts to ignore JC, but at the end of the day, his opinion will be noticed.

As a result, his work and his vision can be seen at clubs like Feyenoord, AC Milan, Liverpool and Manchester United, while coaches like Arsene Wenger and Joachim Low have admitted to be influenced by him.

At this stage, in the Eredivisie, Feyenoord rules. Sure, PSV wins the title and Ajax probably finishes second, but in terms of youth development, it seems Feyenoord has leapfrogged Ajax over the last years, with talents like De Vrij, Martins Indi, Clasie, Karsdorp, Nelom, Van Beek, Vilhena, Achabar and Boetius all making it big while the likes of Ake and Rekik also came through the Feyenoord system.

De Vrij is making big impressions in Europe while Sven van Beek will be right behind him one can only assume.

Feyenoord HAD to change their strategy, after signing big name players (with big paychecks) failed and the shenanigans of Wotte, Gullit and Bosz almost bankrupted the club.

It was Cruyff adept Stanley Brard who organised Feyenoord’s youth system, mentored by none other than Wim Jansen and the rest is history.

Currently, Ajax’ biggest talent – Bazoer – was actually developed by PSV.

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So, when Martin Jol was playing more realistic football as Ajax coach, Cruyff had enough and stepped in. He started the so-called Cruyff revolution. And with ex Ajax players and icons like Frank de Boer, Dennis Bergkamp, Wim Jonk, Marc Overmars, Bryan Roy and Orlando Trustful (ex-Feyenoord, not Ajax), Cruyff took the club by storm. With support internally from the likes of Mark Geestman and Ruud van Duyvenbode in the admin side of things and in governance, Johan modelled a new organisational structure. From now on, the technical triangle would determine the technical future of the club. The technical triangle being the head coach Frank de Boer, the youth coordinator Wim Jonk and bridge between senior and youth, Dennis Bergkamp…. In the background, Edwin van der Sar is the commercial director while Marc Overmars is technical director at board level.

But…Cruyff does things the JC way. He is a supported of seagull management. This means: coming in from high up, making a lot of noise, and flying off again, leaving a heap of shit.  The shit he left, is basically no real in-depth deployment of the structure. It’s more like “you guys do this together and sort it out. Bye. Or better: adio!” And off he went to Barcelona.

Anyone with know-how of organisational design knows you need to do more than that. You need clarity in communication structures, in authority, tasks and responsibilities. Who is responsible for what? KPIs. Etc.

Not something JC will worry about. But with Overmars in the role of technical director – as Ajax is a public company and needs a formal structure – the role of the technical triangle is a bit unclear. Is Overmars part of it? Does Frank de Boer report to Overmars? At De Toekomst, the youth center of Ajax, the situation is not much better. Jonk is supposed to be the leader, but his communication and management skills seem non existent. The second in command at the youth center, a certain Ruben Jongkind , seems to have taken the lead but the poor lad is an athletics coach. So guess what. The emphasis in the Ajax youth center is now all about running and fysiology. And even worse: talented youth coaches like Ronald de Boer, Michel Kreek and Orlando Trustfull have all left. Ronald de Boer is doing tv analyst work, Trustful is coach of Oranje’s youth teams.

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Ajax’ De Toekomst (The Future) youth center

It was always the plan to have at least one ex Ajax icon to manage a youth team. Now, after three years, that plan is in the bin. The new strategy is to have coaches rotate every couple of weeks. This is why Trustfull left: “I am happy for Ajax to determine what they think is best, but I feel I can deliver best when working with one team for a whole season.” Other coaches who managed a team have left as well, such as Fred Grim, Yannis Anastasiou, Heini Otto, Michel Kreek and Dean Gorre.  Grim and Kreek are now at Almere City, Gorre and Anastasiou have gone abroad while Otto is currently leading Ajax Streetwise, a humanitarian project. Jongkind attracted new coaches, none of them with a football or even Ajax history, but former coaches in American football, athletics, triathlon and pole jump. There are still a couple of individual coaches, such as Simon Tahamata, Richard Witschge and Bryan Roy.

Jonk has refused to spend more time in the technical triangle meetings as he believes Frank de Boer ignores the Ajax youth and buys players Ajax doesn’t need to buy (Van der Hoorn, Duarte, Sinkgraven, Sigthurson, Viergever) while Frank de Boer and Marc Overmars don’t see eye to eye for the same reasons.

And in all of this, the battle between Cruyff and Van Gaal has a role to play as well. Because Bergkamp, Roy, Jonk are most likely all Cruyff adepts, but players like Frank de Boer and Marc Overmars are more Van Gaal supporters. When Cruyff was wielding his influence in Ajax a couple of years back, De Boer never commented on his “revolution”. Always said he was there to focus on the first team and he never wanted to interviewed about it. Only once, when pressed, did he say he was keen to utilise JC’s football know how. But as Martin Jol strikingly said, when his days at Ajax were running out: “If Cruyff is on the stands and shakes his head, you know what time it is….”.

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Happier times….

When De Boer was winning title after title, he seemed an untouchable. Now, with a lot of slow backpasses and slow build up, there is no escaping anymore. The minute Cruyff uses his column to address you and your performance, you know you are in trouble.

Sadly for Ajax, the only way they know to make it work again is to ask El Salvador to come to Amsterdam again and fix the issues. Sadly for Ajax, the well paid executives (Overmars, Van der Sar, Jonk, De Boer, Bergkamp) can’t seem to fix it by themselves. Cruyff said it eloquently back in 2013: “They were all great players. They were able to find each other on the pitch without a problem. Surely, they will be able to sort things out.”

It seems not. End of the month, JC will be reporting back in De Arena to sort his pupils out. Board member, former Ajax (and Feyenoord) player, and lawyer Keje Molenaar: “There is a lot to do, but Johan is aware of the situation and is aware what needs to happen. He won’t be racing down immediately, but that has also to do with his agenda.”

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Molenaar: “Cruyff will focus on taking the tension away and making sure all factions work and talk together again. But key is also the quality of the play on the pitch. We need to play Ajax style football again and make sure we get people to come back to the Arena.”

Cruyff responded as well: “I think Ajax is in good shape. Four titles in a row, lots of young players coming through and their quality improves by the year. But now we need to take this hurdle and make another step forward. We need to stop playing the ego game and swallow our pride and get on with it. The distance between the youth center and the first team needs to be closed. We need to develop players that will stop the management in trying to find better alternatives.”

 

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The Big Guus Hiddink Interview

Guys, it was good to be back! Enjoyed our actions re: Turkey and Spain. Will keep the blog going I think. I have had some highly generous donations from some of you, and wouldn’t mind just reminding the others to push the donate button on the home page and drop in what you can spare, ok? Every $ counts as it does take some budget for me to run the blog.

We’ll be on slow pace for the next 2 months but then in June we’ll see some key action again, all the way to October 2015! Exciting!

Here’s the interview with Hiddink:

Every team manager we had has been interviewed at length for this blog. Well…not really for this blog. I made that up. But we had MVB, we had BVM and we had LVG. Now we’ll put Guus on the spot.

The ol’ sly fox, terribly highly rated abroad, has seen his leadership challenged and his choices at times ridiculed.

The man with the Midas touch might have lost it… 2 wins out of 7. And that with a team that finished 3rd at the World Cup, only 8 months before…. In the autumn of his career the happy go lucky coach, formerly of PSV, Real Madrid, South Korea and Russia, finds himself in a big storm.

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Bert van Oostveen (left) not happy with Guus dropping points….

Lets ask the man some questions.

After the loss against Iceland, the man who only reaped kudos and compliments for his way of working got vicious attacks to fend off… A first for you?

Guus Hiddink: “Well, I haven’t been reading the media for months now. Nice, peace and quiet. But obviously friends and family do feed you the headlines and the gist of it all. I’m a bit over the media guys who call me up and say “sorry mate, I’m not in charge of the headlines…”. That is cowardly to me. Hiding behind the editor. I think that is lame. It’s like when I let Ruud van Nistelrooy practice on the set pieces and corners, and whenever we concede from one of those situations I say “hey, I’m not responsible”. Bullshit. I am responsible for the team and a journalist should be responsible for his article. So don’t come to me for end-of-year stories of christmas interviews or whatever. There are journalists I share a whole history with, so I tend to be generous to these guys, but those days are over….”

After the Cech defeat you seemed even over the top angry in Jack van Gelder’s tv program….

GH: “I saw that a day later and I have to agree with you. I had trouble putting things in perspective. But we were not on the same page. The whole interview was a mess. I was waiting in some room for them, they were waiting for me. The organisation didn’t work out and we were both agitated.”

The principal idea that came across was “Guus is not in control”….

GH: “Correct, and I wasn’t. I was still trying to get everything to work out for us. After Iceland is when I noticed things started to go like I wanted it to. Not just on the pitch. But on the pitch, I want to see a team with balls. With teeth. Like at PSV when we won the Europa Cup. We had players like Gerets, like Kieft, who would say “This is where it stops!”. You gotta show an opponent you won’t give anything away. That is your attitude. The Lithuania game was a turnaround. The swagger was back. I saw their willingness and commitment. I missed that spark in the first games.”

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Guus as player and as coach…..

Did you threaten to quit for that reason?

GH: “No? Threaten? No, someone asked me : if you lose this one, what then? And I basically said: It doesn’t make sense to keep on being the man in charge if I only lose games…. That was all.”

But now, you get that question before every game?

GH: “That is not needed. I have made the decision now. I am going on with the job. I couldn’t say that before, as I was not settled in. I had a number of meetings to book, a number of talks to do. Internally. Like I said, it’s not just what goes on on the pitch. Also in the organisation around the games, with my staff and with the KNVB… I needed to make it all work like I want it to work. We have been through all that now and I am happy.”

Oh, with whom did you talk?

GH: “With everyone who has a role to play.”

That is cryptic?

GH: “I don’t need to name names do I? Everyone that plays a role in the inner world of Oranje. Everyone that I have to deal with. Team manager, management, staff, medical staff, press people, players…. As a team manager you are like the CEO of a company. All departments need to function in service of the key activities: winning football matches. And I needed to make sure everyone understands what I want. Simple. But everything I say will be magnified and interpreted…”

Still, you can give an example?

GH: “There were meetings that I would do differently. And the responsibilities weren’t too clear. My predecessor was more a top-down dominant leader. I am more bottom up. So I need my staff to take matters in their own hand. So just do what you think you must and if I don’t like what you do, I’ll tell you and we can discuss it. Louis probably was more dominant in instructing. This also applies to on pitch antics. I need players to start thinking for themselves.”

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Guus, captain of De Graafschap

Danny Blind has been working in the LVG style for years. Whenever you see the two of you, it doesn’t exude warmth….

GH: “I have no complaint about my relationship with Danny whatsoever. Danny is doing a marvelous job. I told him from day 1, I am happy to be the senior mentor guy, you can do the work you want to do. The KNVB wants to move forward with him, great. I have a good or better, excellent relationship with him. It is working like clockwork and I said it really fast into the process, I am happy to let Danny do the team talks and press conferences.”

Bert van Oostveen, general manager of the KNVB, said after Iceland he wanted to evaluate sharply?

GH: “And we did. This is what I said earlier. I spoke with everyone that has a role to play. And after these talks the major impulse is: let’s go for it! The key thing was to find common ground in the way we play. With all due respect: we can keep on going like “we have two top players up front, lets park the bus and let them sort it out” but if the defence is not good enough, it’s like a cake foundation that is faulty, with Robin and Robben being the cherries on top of the cake. But the cake implodes… what good does that do? So the key is: pushing forward, high line of defence, high pace and supporting our attack as much as possible. We can only utilise the quality upfront by offering a foundation for them. That foundation is a strong and solid defence and a smart, fleet of foot midfield. We need to build smarts, a killer mentality and physical strength. We cannot let ourselves be played out that easily.  The lads need to learn, really fast now, when to put pressure on, when to drop back, when to give support, etc.”

Were you shocked with what you saw?

GH: “A bit. I thought they’d progressed more. It’s what I call their ability to get themselves out of a situation. Even when you don’t play well, you need to make sure you don’t play bad… This is a Cruyff quote. Player bad is ok, but you still gotta grind out the result. Against the Cech’s we didn’t even play that badly, but we gave the 3 points away. Unnecessary.”

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Janmaat realises his mistake against the Czechs….

Was it your time spend abroad? You didn’t assess Dutch football properly?

GH: “Oh no I saw all the games. I did a lot of research. I saw that at the World Cup even with 5 in the back our defence was vulnerable. It was more a question of too many players so the players think “he’ll take care of it”. And so you do have two players there in a situation but they’re both too late…If you have more space to defend you tend to be on your toes. Four men at the back breeds more responsibility and alertness. This is what we are working on. The biggest issue is the post game talk. I love prepping the team in training, but to drive the point home, you need to be able to get the guys after the game and do a de-briefing. In our case it sometimes takes weeks before that can happen.”

Is it a disadvantage for you to get this team after they reached the 3rd place at the World Cup?

GH: “That World Cup was quite amazing. There is nothing to discount the result. I have complimented Louis and his staff and the lads on this. Well done! But, once you analyse the individual games afterwards you need to realistic. The coach was looking for ways to find a foundation for a result. The qualifications were fine but the friendlies against France and Belgium were a disaster. Even briefly before the World Cup Oranje didn’t play flash in their prep games. And without cynicism I say this: shortly before the World Cup Louis changes the tactics for the first big game. Versus Spain. The team concedes one goal, almost concedes a second. Louis said he was ready to go 4-3-3 in the half time break as it wasn’t working. And then Robin van Persie scores that wonder goal…. And suddenly the team has the confidence and understands how it can hurt strong opponents. There are examples where you can see that Oranje conceded with that new system.”

hiddink oz

Lucky Gus working for the Socceroos

The Australia game. Holland is 1-2 down and Australia creates chances…. Depay comes in and is responsible for two goals….

GH: “If I say this, people will say I’m jealous on Van Gaal. Bullshit. If you analyse it, you will see this. It looks like the World Cup was one sensational high point, but the Australia game could have gone the other way. The Chile game was irrelevant. The Mexico game, we need a penalty late in the game to win it. And with Costa Rica and Argentina, it came down to penalties as well. We did have little hurdles in our gameplay and we did see players of the opponents slip through at times… Moments where you thought “Oooh…there is a little angel on our side….”. But, Oranje had Arjen Robben, who is or at least was in the form of his life. The power, the speed… what he did was phenomenal. Any game, he had energy left at the end of the game for his sprints over 60 yards. He wasn’t the small difference in a very good team but he was the big difference in a mediocre team.”

So what was the plan, in September 2014?

GH: “Well the man who made the difference, Robben, wasn’t available due to injury. We had that friendly against Italy. It was our intention to play more offensive. To use some other players and go back to our more dominant playing style. But an early red card made that impossible. In hindsight, that game against Italy should not have been programmed. We came back from the World Cup, with a new coach- me- and new intentions. You ideally want a week to work together on this new playing style. If you can focus on it with 5 tactical talks and 5 focused training sessions you can make good progress. We didn’t have that time and then the Czech game was looming….”

And you went back to 5-3-2?

GH: “But with reason. Our intention is to play 4-3-3 but Czechs play with 2 forwards and 5 at the back. It made sense to play 3-5-2. We weren’t oozing with confidence after Italy and the team surely knows how to play 5-3-2. We also missed two players that normally give us backbone: Vlaar and Robben. The first away game in a qualification series against a relatively strong opponent. If you don’t play well but still get a point, that would be considered a good result. Like the first game at a big tournament. You don’t want to lose that. And there was no need for us to lose that. But we did. It was 1-1 until the final minutes and we gifted them the win.”

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Iceland better than Holland

The idea was to make Sneijder the free man in midfield but that didn’t work?

GH: “True. It has to do with the execution. The whole debate about systems is overrated. People in Holland love those discussions but you can play counter football with 4-4-2 or you can play dominant, attractive with 4-4-2 (like AC Milan in the early 90s). You can play counter football with 5-3-2 or dominant like Italy does. We didn’t execute it properly. It all starts with defence for me. The Italian defenders push up and defend at a high line. This supports midfield enormously and would give us opportunities to get the ball to Sneijder. You get opportunities on the flanks and you can provide service to the strikers… But in our case, we almost always conceded within the first 15 minutes! Incredible. And not because our system failed. And never because we were outplayed. No, simply making silly mistakes. Bad execution of the gameplan. Our players make the wrong decisions at the wrong times. It’s all about decision making.Take Iceland. We concede twice: once from a throw in and once from a corner kick! You cannot make these mistakes in the final third. You can not! Like Janmaat’s mistake against the Czechs. That needs to be ironed out. And I was quite disappointed to see that we still play naive and dreamy, despite the World Cup results. Innocent and too sweet. We need to know when we show and use our teeth!”

Apparently, Robben has had a number of group pep talks between Mexico and Lithuania?

GH: “True. He did that really well. It was quite heavy too. But it needed to happen. We took the time. We had a number of sessions together and were very open. Using video images too. Showing it is a good thing. This team has no reason to be cocky or arrogant. The World Cup is history. We need to learn how to draw a line in the sand and say “No. More!” And don’t get me wrong, the players also made us, the staff, accountable. There were things we promised we’d do and didn’t do, and they have every right to call on us. If Oranje fails, we all fail. Including the technical staff.”

What was the key learning point?

GH: “A confirmation of what we knew: that we need to play better organised. We need to be aware of the role we play in the team and we need to execute our tasks with 100% commitment and focus. Only then are we capable of achieving a result. We are vulnerable any other way. We believe that to be dominant you need to be able to base your dominant play on a well organised and alert defence. Playing high up the park and reading the game well. We need that balance. And we need the lines in the team to operate as one organism. You can’t have three defenders moving up and one going back. The decisions a team makes are important. As a whole. Do we accelerate the pace? Or slow it down? Do we go for a long ball? Or pass back and wait for the full back to move up? Do we go for the pass through the center or the ball over the top? The playmakers need to read the game and need to be on the same page as the defenders and the forwards… Barcelona is the example of a team of players who know each other so well… A national team is harder to get to play like this. We have players now from at least 6 different clubs. A goalie of Ajax. Defenders of PSV, Lazio, Porto, Newcastle…midfielders of Galatasaray, AC Milan, Feyenoord, PSV or Man United. And forwards from Bayern, Schalke, Man United, PSV…. We need to work hard to make this work well together.”

hiddink psv

When Guus won the Europa Cup 1 with counter football and parking the bus 🙂

And playing counter football against smaller nations won’t work….

GH: “No not really. This is not our intention as it won’t work. Counter football is not something weak teams only can do by the way. It is sometimes said in a way as if counter football is inferior. It’s not.  It takes certain skills. Particularly upfront, you need 3 players with speed. With the ability to run 60 meters at full speed maybe 8 times in a match. Our forwards are amongst the older players… We don’t want to play this game. We think we are able to push up high, take possession of the ball and then maybe use 2 or 3 passes to get a player in a good position. I don’t like the game where we possess the ball and then pass back to the center back and he passes to a defender, gets it back, pace goes down and he plays it predictably to the central midfielder etc etc. It is needed at times, but rather not….”

Still, it looked like this against Turkey

GH: “Of course it did. We were not able to execute our game plan too well. Some cogs in the machine had trouble delivering, without me naming names. And I am proud of Nigel de Jong and the patience he had to have. He is smart enough not to force anything. Turkey didn’t come to play. They parked the bus. I told the lads to try and get Turkey to react to what we did. We invited them in, they didn’t come out. Nigel had to be patient and he is now being punished for it. Turkey was organised well. And we were totally in control. Our problem, again, is that we conceded first. Again, we were chasing down the facts, as we say. We were chasing the game. Had at least 5 clear cut opportunities. In any other version of this match, we would be 2-0 up after one hour of play. The Turks needed 2 chances to score 1, we needed 7 chances to score 1. In the end we are happy with the point, as it looked grim. But normally we put this game away.”

reacciona-Hiddink-Bosque

Respect for each other, Del Bosque and Hiddink, both former Real Madrid coaches…

You said you’d use the same players in hindsight…

GH: “That is theoretical though. There is no hindsight. You will never get me to say “in hindsight I should not have played Player XYZ”. I will not let the lads down publically. But it was clear that some players didn’t perform as I wanted them to. That does happen. Sometimes when a game doesn’t go your way, it might look like it is all bad, but in our case we simply lacked that final ball. In the first 15 minutes or so Depay had a couple of good actions and it could have worked out differently. The goal we conceded was a comedy of errors. Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Sneijder playing left back. De Vrij positioned to far forward. Van der Wiel hypnotised. De Jong marking on the wrong side…. A coaching nightmare. But the lads deserve our respect for their fighting spirit.”

The Spain win was nice at least.

GH: “It helps with our confidence. You can see that it doesn’t take much to get the team going. A couple of changes and it can suddenly work. But Spain helped a lot. They want to play football too. It does take two teams that are willing to create a good game. I do hope people realise this.”

 

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Fresh Oranje stocks up on confidence vs Spain

Stefan de Vrij summed it up nicely. The ex Feyenoord man scored again vs Spain, in last Tuesday’s friendly: “I wish we’d play all our international games against Spain…”.

It’s plain to see that Oranje has trouble winning when it has to in serious games against lesser teams, but finds luck at its side against a strong Spain in a friendly.

All the criticism that Hiddink copped after the Turkey game and the previous qualification games at least resulted in a response from both coach and players. Using De Jong as central midfielder and using Afellay as right winger in particular were largely misunderstood by media and public alike. Hiddink said after the Turkey game: “In hindsight, I’d make the same choices” HUH? And “I can get this team to play football, but don’t ask me how, coz I don’t really know now….” WHAT?

TV anchor Jack van Gelder spared the coach in his post-match interview and decided to let him off the hook. The Dutch football analysis programs ripped the former success coach a new one and midfielder Nigel de Jong was also ridiculed by the pundits, for his amateuristic attempt to intervent the Turkish forward when preparing for his goal. Some analysts even suggested that Jordy Clasie had left the trainingscamp disgusted for being totally ignored. “Feyenoord probably said “Come back to us Jordy and let those morons sort it out without you, you don’t need them”. The analyst might be right. Who knows.

coaches spain

It was clear that the team needed to give a response. Hiddink did so by picking the youngsters for the Spain game (not unlike Del Bosque, by the way). Narsingh, Blind in midfield, Klaassen, Willems… And Kenneth Vermeer in goal, exactly as I asked for.

And I’m sure we’ve all seen the highlights? I havent seen the whole game yet (but will this weekend) and I want to see if the team really played much better. From what I did see, it was clear that big shots Depay and Sneijder made their statement and played a big game. Highly needed too. Daley Blind played a good game too, while Davy Klaassen’s game was uplifted by the first Oranje goal he scored. Man of the Match was Kenneth Vermeer who intervened a number of times when Spain looked to score. In any other situation, it might have ended 2-2.

But the saints were with Lucky Gus again. The two Oranje goals were definitely no luckies (another Sneijder to De Vrij assist and a Willems assist for Klaassen), both goals prepared on the wing. While we did get lucky with a couple of bad misses by the Spanish. The biggest miss however was a header by BMI after a clean cross from the right. The Porto man had a clear header but misstimed and his attempt when down to the ground too much, and as a result bounced over De Gea’s goal.

sneijdpanje

Their “B-team” was as much a B-team as ours… Like Holland, Spain needs to phase some older players out and like Holland, Spain does have a number of exciting young guns coming in.

Our midfield outshone theirs, with Blind and Klaassen doing better than De Jong/Wijnaldum vs Turkey. It’s almost impossible to see Klaassen as the debutant he actually is (he only played 19 minutes in Oranje before this game). Hiddink: “Blind is developing as a leader, which is very important for our midfield development.” Klaassen didn’t have single wrong touch and all his actions were positive and aimed at moving forward. He defended Spain star Carzola well but also added much in attack. Daryl Janmaat, back in the warm nest after being banned for that mistake against the Cechs, showed why he is rated as a top signing in the EPL, always threatening going forward.

Kenneth Vermeer was praised by the coach but he also said that Vermeer was able to stand out thanks to sloppy mistakes by Willems and Martins Indi. “Those mistakes are not longer acceptable at this level. We almost shoot ourselves in the foot with this sort of play.” Hiddink was happy with the development towards the next qualification games.

klaassen

After 65 minutes or so, the changes started to come and the game became slower and less organised.

Wesley Sneijder spoke of a fantastic night. He is now the most capped filed player of Holland ever, with 113 caps. Only Van der Sar is above him with 130 caps. “It was daunting to play Spain after a bad result but it turned out great. A fantastic night. This builds confidence for the youngsters and gives us some respite towards the next game.” With 17 games to go for Sneijder and looking how he played he might have a crack at Sar’s record.

A not so positive aspect was the fact that one of the world’s best players, Andres Iniesta, was constantly booed by the Dutch supporters. Probably because he scored the winner against us in 2010. The Dutch football world was aghast. Hiddink: “To me that is a disgrace and a downer on the night. Iniesta is the most gentle and nice player. He doesn’t use any sort of bad manner in his game. A true player. And he doesn’t deserve this.” Leo Beenhakker: “I didn’t believe my ears in front of the tv!! This guy worked his whole career for that particular goal. Isn’t he allowed? Do we want our countries to boo Robben or Van Persie all the time for being successful. Ridiculous. People should be grateful to see him play!”. Henk ten Cate, former Barca coach: “Great players don’t care. He is a great player. He won’t really register it. But it is silly, isn’t it. In a friendly game? About a game we played five years ago?”.

iniesta

This response by the players means a couple of things. 1) it means they can win big games, 2) it means they wish to support their coach and 3) they are capable of playing good football.

What it also MIGHT mean, is that we are not capable of creating much against teams that don’t want to play.

And Turkey, Lithuania, Kazachstan are most likely teams that will try and block any form of flowing football.

 

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