World

Europe

Netherlands

Foppe vs Marco

September 19th, 2007 | By: Jan | 16 Comments »

It’s funny how totally different Foppe and Marco are… Both employed by the KNVB, both team managers for Orange, but that’s it.

Foppe won two prices, Marco didn’t reap anything but criticism.
Foppe has a longstanding career with Heerenveen, Marco trained Ajax 2 for 1 season, as John van ‘t Schip’s assistent (!!).
Foppe became a somewhat well-known Dutchman in his forties, when Heerenveen got promoted to the Eredivisie.
Marco was a big name talent when he was 16 years old.

Foppe comes from a poor, religious family in the north of Holland and had to work and study his way through the Sports Academy etc etc before landing the coaching job at Heerenveen.
Marco was the star of the Van Basten family and everything had to make way for Marco’s career (as his brother and sister famously remarked in a tv documentary once).

Foppe plays 4-4-2.
Marco plays 4-3-3.

There is more ofcourse, but this sort of paints the picture.

Foppe is well-liked because he is open, honest, warm and humble. Marco is idolized but he is a distant hero. Cool, collected, aloof, arrogant.
Foppe will tell you if his team played crappy, Marco will snub anyone who opposes his views…

But (there are ALWAYS buts… ),

Foppe is a man for young talents. That’s how he built up Heerenveen. He either used new, exciting talents or he picked so-called washed out veterans. He could mould them into a team, he could inspire and educate the youngsters and get a second or third wind out of the veterans.

Marco - I think - is more like Sacchi. A more cool, rational, methodical approach. He misses the tactical brilliance of Cruyff, the passion of Capello and the suave of Henk ten Cate (Goose, I’m only joking). But I do think Marco can hold his own in the dressing room full of ego’s and superstars (Nistelrooy. Seedorf, Vaart, Persie, Sar) and I am not convinced Foppe can do that….

I just wanted to point out some differences between our team managers and also make a case against the idea that “Foppe should do it because he did it with the U21’s….”. I don’t think it works that way. It could. But it’s not a given…

A big difference between club coaches and national team managers - you hardly ever read this, because it is so obvious - is that club coaches can scout, assess, buy and then mould their team together. If Rijkaard or Wenger has a problem on some position, they alert their scouts and off they go. Chuck some money at it and in winter time the new full back is presented. As a team manager, you can’t. So, it’s also too easy to say: let Wenger do the job. Because Wenger cannot weave the same magic as he does at Arsenal.

Tags: Foppe de Haan, marco van basten, The Netherlands, useless post

Netherlands World Cup RSS Feed

Comments

By netherlandfanboy | September 19th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

Great article. Marco has the talent to become good coach. The problem is that KNVB ask him to take the national team when he has no experience

Posted from United States

By tjeerd | September 19th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

Good article. What I see is that Foppe is one hell of a nice guy. You would love to have him as your nieghbour. My cousin in Lochem says he is too nice, and maybe too loyal.
My brother in Ouderkerk says that he has the ability to overproduce with the talent he has.

Foppe has success with U-21, Jan is correct in noting that that does not necessarily translate into success with the senior team.
Great College football coaches like Steve Spurrier (Florida Gators) became a huge bust as a NFL coach (Washington Redskins).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spurrier

By stephen | September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

I think it is obviously true that just because Foppe was successful with the U-21s, doesn’t mean he will be successful with the senior squad. No arguments there, however I think you can make a very strong case for Foppe being the coach of the senior squad based on his record, and give him a go, rather than apointing the unproven vBasten out of nowhere.

Posted from United States

By Mario | September 19th, 2007 at 11:57 pm

Excellent point Stephen, you stole the words from me hehe!
If I would have the decision of naming one of this two gentlemen I would chose de Haan 10 times out of 10. No doubt about that, he is a succesful coach and van Basten is still learning the subject, he is in the kindergarten of coaches learning it but taking subjects that should be taken by masters or doctors. Anyway, the KNVB comits the same mistake again as they did when they appointed Frank Rijkaard, hope that when van Basten go they hire a real coach, not an aprentice.

By tiju thomas | September 20th, 2007 at 9:39 am

Dear jan
Wat wrong i did
castelen is a good dribbler ,VP,Roban too tat means OUR predator RVN will get enough space (hope he will be free)
so 100 % we can win against any team in the world (espsecially in crucial games)
actually i want (my first choice)edgar as holding mid ,dek saaw ,Zno,bommel are considerable.
why i put donk in the left we need a strong man with speed and skill(to stop christiano,ronaldinho,ribery etc kind of players.)
i dont think emmanuelson and van bronk can catch any of them above mentioned)

By tiju thomas | September 20th, 2007 at 9:43 am

hai jan nice post,
when u pick the right team u will get result.we have enough skilled plers in mid and front average back side with wonderful goal keeper .we r lagging confidence.

By tiju thomas | September 20th, 2007 at 9:45 am

dear all guys
think in different way and confidences and win trophies

By Jan | September 20th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

Hi Tiju,

You didn’t do anything wrong :-).

I like your way of thinking. It would be great to say: hey, we’ve got the best players and we want to use them. So, in Dutch we say: death or flowers (de dood of the gladiolen). All or nothing. Go down, but go down in flames.

I like that, but realistically, Marco will never do it!

I would really support Marco playing the next line up for some matches (maybe friendlies first):

Sar

Boulah Ooijer De Zeeuw Emanuelson

Seedorf Sneijder Vaart Robben

Persie Nistelrooy

And eat them up!

Posted from Australia

By Mario | September 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm

Jan:

I like your line up, it is mostly the one I´d like to see at Oranje but I would only switch two places.
Boulah for me is having a terrible time and as a right back he has been awful, he is more a sweeper. He should be benched nowadays and put there a real right back like Melchiot, Kromkamp or even Zuiverloom. And I would love to see van Bommel in the position you are designing for Demy De Zeeum, I think that to be in front of the defence linking with midfield you need a taller guy for the long balls. It is true that some guy named Frank de Boer player there some years ago but altought he was not very tall he was pretty good in the air and de Zeeum isn´t and that would be a blow when we deal with long balls for the forwards. That is why I think a guy like van Bommel will be more useful and effective.

Anyway, van Basten will never line up Holland like that so why do we make ourselves false ilusions?. I love Holland and will support them for live but I am pretty tired of van Basten and his stupid decisions.

When is the KNVB gonna do something guys!!!????

By Jan | September 20th, 2007 at 9:15 pm

I think in Zeist they’re secretly hoping that he would have lost against Bulgaria and Albania so they could kick him out :-).

No, honestly. If the team does well against Rumania and gets the results than everybody is happy again…

Posted from Australia

By Bob | September 20th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

Jan, once again a great article. As a gifted and successful coach, I believe that deHaan would earn the respect of the senior players. As the possibility of Faap coaching the national team seems remote, I’ll move on from this idea and join you in considering possible team shape for the current talent.

Your lineup is excellent, but again reflects the Achilles heel of the Dutch team–defense. Your proposed 4-4-2 has very strong midfield and forward line players, but the defenders are weak. Are there any players on defense from the U21 team, or even the younger teams, that could move up? It seemed to me that the U21 team had some tough defenders (I don’t know their names)who might develop into better than average. I wonder if the talented Dutch players simply do not like playing defensive positions, and thus the dearth of talent.

One final comment, based on several emails you have received and concerning van Bommell. I agree with van Basten to keep him off the national team. He is very over-rated and does not compare favorably with any of the midfielders you propose for your lineup.

HUP HOLLAND!

Posted from United States

By Jan | September 21st, 2007 at 12:50 am

Ah…Bob…tough questions…

I think youngsters like Vlaar (Feyenoord but severely injured), Donk (AZ, very athletic but sometimes a bit laconic), Zuiverloon (ex-Feyenoord, a bit too wild sometimes), Kruyswijk (Groningen (?), limited footballer, a bit Stam like) are interesting options for V Basten. Vlaar was introduced to international football when Adriaanse coached AZ, but he had a bad spell when he moved to Feyenoord (even Tottenham wanted him in those days).

I think Donk is a potential super player but time will tell. Marco has a tendency of calling these chaps a tad too early (Maduro for instance) so I support the fact that he doesn’t call on Donk yet, but I would be surprised if he wouldn’t come along to the EC.

Other than that, I am eager to see how Sergio Greene (ex Ajax, now Feyenoord and just back from injury) and Hofland (ex PSV, now Feyenoord) will hold up. Both are more experienced and therefore maybe more valuable to Marco.

It’s true that defending is seen as something dirty and unworthy and the “talent of defense” is not hailed in Holland (as it is in Italy or Germany) and that’s a shame. Even very defensive ex-players like Adriaanse, Stevens and Ernie Brands who became coaches tend to favor attractive, attacking football. The only “realistic” coach who also was a tough as nails holding player is Dick Advocaat. And most people - including me - don’t like him as a coach…

Posted from Australia

By tijuk_thomas | September 21st, 2007 at 8:17 am

dear jan
Zneijder is almost like lampard(ENG)he is a long range shooter,a first time shooter always want to shoot in to the post its better to use him as subsitute.
then why u selected deksaaw in central defence he dont have good height how can we stop header goals from luca toni,materazy,patric veira etc
better use him as a holding mid.
i am damn sure with out lampard england can easily win the games
we need penetrating ability for our RVN.tats we won the game.
vaart
roban
vanpersie
afaleey
castelen these guys can provide those things we should use any of these four at a time if available
we need rock solid defenders with skills we r lagging in tat part tat is our main problem
not like vanbronk host(but like him)

By tijuk_thomas | September 21st, 2007 at 8:25 am

in the sence hard work

By Samuel Knight (Oudegeest) | September 21st, 2007 at 12:17 pm

Defense is under-rated in Holland right now - and I think that is sadly ironic when you consider that Total Football’s biggest innovation was to raise the expectations for the backline.

Previously, defenders were just that - defenders. In total football they had to have ball skills, passing skills and all that.

Second, when Jan and others have mentioned tapes of the old games - you see one other thing - the whole team played Defence. Remember the description of Ajax pushing Inter around? 2 or 3 players always challenging each Inter player.

And that was the other side of the defensive innovation - the expectation that when you failed to score that the forwards would actively defend. No lolligaging with horrified looks - get in formation and get that ball back!

My favorite moment of last year’s World Cup was Van P making a save on the goal line. He went back and did his job. I thought that boded well - oops.

So my pitch would be Van Baasten needs to select players who will do it both ways and appeal to their pride to do it.

Posted from United States

By Caleb | September 21st, 2007 at 10:30 pm

Samuel Knight - I agree with most of what you said, but I don’t think we can expect every player to run from goal line to goal line and back. For example, Ruud. I think Marco tried to get him to do this before and it resulted in no goals being scored. A player like Ruud has to stay up where he is lethal, and save his energy and focus for getting into dangerous positions and finishing the chances he gets. If he is always tracking back into midfield then when we get the ball he is not in position and we lose opportunities (for counter attacks, for quick passes, etc.).

Posted from Japan