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Oranje not a futuristic playground - Derksen

November 22nd, 2006 | By: Jan | 14 Comments »

Johan Derksen’s column in VI last week was a real ace. Enjoy…

“As football fan and Dutchman it will not be a surprise that I am a huge and fanatical Oranje supporter. And, the success of the Dutch team also has a huge effect on the sales of Voetbal International. Every international game is a big event for me. And that’s why I am always a bit worried about the choices of the team managers.

Ever since Michels won the EC in 1988, with the likes of Gullit, the Koeman Brothers, van Basten, Wouters, van Tiggelen and Rijkaard I sit watching the games with my ass tight. Michels did win the first and only grand price with Oranje, but he was also responsible for the fact that Cruyff never got to be team manager. Cruyff offered his services three times, but The General always applied his political skills to keep Holland’s best player ever outside.
Michels didn’t want Cruyff to be more successful than him and he ignored the wishes of the players, the fans and the media, who all thought Cruyff was the ideal team manager. The former No. 14 decided never again to offer his services.

Thijs Libregts became team manager. A very experienced and cunning coach, who made a couple of dire mistakes in a Volkskrant interview, exposing his racial view of the world. Analyzing Gullit and Rijkaard, he stated that these players were difficult to coach, since they were black, hence lazy. Libregts could go and not Cruyff but amateur shrink Leo Beenhakker, the king of thunder speeches and repetition was appointed.

Beenhakker will never be able to actually teach a top player anything, but he is a great communicator. With his verbal skills, he worked all over the world and still increases his enormous bank-account. Still, the thunder-speech method only works this long. The Oranje players could ad-lib his one-liners and tedious anecdotes. In 1990, Beenhakker had probably the best Oranje selection in many years, but the WC in Italy was a disaster for the Dutch. In an attempt to keep his slate clean, he made all sorts of mysterious stories of what happened behind closed doors. And, he added, one day I will tell all… We’re still waiting…

Guus Hiddink was our best team manager post-1988. He asked big name ex-players like Neeskens, Koeman and Rijkaard to assist him and never did anything wrong tactically. But Hiddink – although not black – was really lazy. Team managers need to be ambassadors for Dutch football, but Guus was never in Zeist and did not do much else besides managing the team during tournaments and around qualification games. He enjoyed his big paycheck and rode his Harley or played golf.

The appointment of Rijkaard was a leap of faith. He started his career as team manager and he definitely achieved a lot. The schism between dark and white players disappeared, Rijkaard was an outstanding people manager. But, he also made a lot of typical beginners’ mistakes. Particularly his substitution decision during EC2000 were disastrous. After the EC, Rijkaard became coach of Sparta Rotterdam and became the first trainer ever to get demoted with the oldest club of Holland. But, all came good for Frank winning the CL with Barcelona last season.

What Hiddink lacked, van Gaal had an overdose of…. He was always in Zeist. Turned the lights on in the morning and off at night. He manifested himself as a pathetic control freak. He wanted to manage everything and every team. He even made a plan that described how every (!) youth trainer in the country needed to work. Whenever he had the internationals together, they’d move into a heavily guarded, secluded camp and he would punish them as if they were SAS commandos. The results were terrible and one-time van Gaal copies like van der Sar and Frank de Boer stated to the press that the magic between the coach and the players was gone.
Van Gaal quit the job at an infamous and hilarious press conference, broadcast live on Dutch tv, where he – redheaded – blamed every one and everything, except himself.

The return of Advocaat as team manager was a huge mistake, and a decision I never understood. He is very defensive, as a coach, but also as a person. He’d never lose a match with big scores, but then he’d never play attractive football. And he is very paranoid. During the EC2004 in Portugal, he would be sitting in front of the tv, sweating, listening to all the pundits on tv and after all the opinions were heard in the different sports programs, he’d make his final decisions about the line-up. He left after the Robben-sub incident in Portugal and chose a new job in and with South Korea. Far away.
Desperate, the KNVB went to talk to Cruyff. Who advised van Basten for the job. As he did with Arie Haan and Feyenoord and Hiddink and Valencia. Van Basten spent his last years playing golf and he never really expressed any interest in football. He was van ‘t Schip’s assistant at Ajax 2. He started the team managers job with a ridiculous amount of credit. But, an ex-topplayer is not automatically a smart coach or someone who can handle a bus full of rich kids with ego-problems.

Van Basten also has a lot to learn. And what applied for Rijkaard and others applies to him too: Oranje is not a highschool for young coaches! Every young player who performs well in a few games was invited for an international match. Denneboom, Bobson, Babel, Hofs, Koevermans… Makaay, van Nistelrooy and van Bommel aren’t good enough, but AZ’s pinchhitter is! Clarence Seedorf never got an invite (before the recent England come-back) but Evander Sno – after 2 games for Celtic – is part of the team. I do hope Afellay will have more future with Oranje than Heerenveen winger Ugur Yildirim. The latter was asked by van Basten to chose the Dutch citizenship vs the Moroccan so he could play for Oranje. He hasn’t been called up since…
It’s about time the team manager chucks his incredible long term plan out of the window and selects the best available players for every international game. Oranje is not a futuristic playground but a opportunistic beast. There is no room for learning curves and future visions.
Oranje needs to win games.
For the Dutch nation, the fans and for the sales figures of my football magazine…”

Tags: Johan Derksen, marco van basten, The Netherlands

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Comments

By goose | November 22nd, 2006 at 6:48 am

well…nothing really more to ad to this, ive been saying the same things for some times now…the KNVB is to blame with their stupid idea that any great footballer will automaticly be a great ‘bondscoach’, Rijkaard and vanBasten proved that alright!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Lerkot | November 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 am

I think Rijkaard was great except for some substitutions.

Posted from Sweden

By sphinx | November 22nd, 2006 at 8:42 am

Rijkaard made beginner’s mistakes but he learn very first to redirect his own way towards victories.
And what about Basten? How fast he is learning on his mistakes?
Or even did he try to know what mistakes he did?

Posted from Myanmar

By goose | November 22nd, 2006 at 4:03 pm

Rijkaard wsa always a mre humble person ,also as a player.. i still think vanBasten has the feeling he needs to be as arrogant and stubborn(?) as he was when he was a (great)player in order to be a great and succesfull coach
im sure he has learned a bit by now but its already to late
grtz

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | November 22nd, 2006 at 4:03 pm

Good point… it does seem Rijkaard learned and adapted and was open to criticism. Van Basten still has to show us some… Next column is interesting as well (watch this space…).

Posted from Australia

By jip jaap stam | November 22nd, 2006 at 5:16 pm

does anyone think knvb should look outside the netherlands for a coach???…

Posted from Canada

By mrfocus | November 22nd, 2006 at 5:51 pm

This makes me think: Why isn’t Dersken the bondscoach?

By Jan | November 22nd, 2006 at 6:29 pm

Hahaha… Derksen as bondscoach… Let’s not go there! A coach from abroad is a huge risk. If we want to play acording to the Dutch school (a big IF but I think that’s the only way we can keep - or regain - our position in world football) than you need a Dutch coach who proved (!!) that he can coach a team to play accoridngly. Henk ten Cate. Co Adriaanse. Bert van Marwijk. Foeke Booy. Foppe de Haan. Ron Jans. Sef Vergoosen.

Posted from Australia

By mrfocus | November 22nd, 2006 at 6:35 pm

You agree with me that football (soccer) is a sport in which you need to be active, do you? You need to think ahead of your opponent, you have to be pro-active, you have to be avant-guard… How can you do that is all you do is try the same old coaches as Bondscoach? Van Basten is a good and bad example. Good because, he does so different things than normal Bondscoaches, and a bad example because well, the results are unsatisfying. I would be willing to have Rijkaard, since he has obviously learnt a lot from his time at Barca. I would also like to see JC…

By Oranje.cn | November 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 am

Jan, thx again for your English version!

I’ve translated it into Chinese.

http://www.oranje.cn/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11842&extra=page%3D1

BTW, Yildirim is not Moroccan but Turkish

Posted from Hong Kong

By bodo | November 23rd, 2006 at 2:40 am

thanks for this translation. Do you know if MVB is a friend of Van Gaal. He seems to appreciate a lot AZ.

Personal successes for MVB : Van Persie and Oijer who play very well under his management.

Please note that Van Nislterooy strongly cheated by diving and provoking a penalty against LYON. I appreciate his ban from Marco.

By sphinx | November 23rd, 2006 at 5:17 am

mrfocus@ I think JC is the man behind Basten right now. Possibly, Basten looks stubborn cause he follows strickly through JC’s principles.
I don’t think the god father would come out by himself at that age.

Posted from Myanmar

By ferenc | November 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm

i’m agree with darksen,but think that now frank rijkaard could be the ideal oranje-manager. he has learned a lot at barca,can communicate,good stratege,etc. but this is a dream because he has europe’s best team and wouldn’t leave barcelona.

on the other hand yesterday kuyt was a vital provider and he’s really good for this job. van persie too. we have two natural born goal scorer: ruud (i hope once he will be back) and huntelaar,and except robben we don’t have very good wingers. even robben is not as good as two years ago. so at least for me it’s obvious that we should play with two strikers: van persie or kuyt as provider and ruud or huntelaar as striker. the midfield would be stronger: van bommel,seedorf,schaars,van der vaart - two holders and the other two could organize the play. but the defence is very problematic: the right and the leftbacks are all right (heitinga oe kromkamp or boula, van bronckhorst or emmanuelson or de cler),but the central part is carastrophic. ooijer and matthijsen are getting worse and worse. i don’t feel any security with them. ok boula could play there,but in the good oranje in the past there were always two different type of central defenders: one who makes the “dirty” job (style jaap stam,but unfortunately even boula is far from jaap stam) and the other who could organize from behind wit long passes,etc (style frank de boer)- we definitely don’t have the second type of central defender now. matthijsen? he’s a joke for this role (enough to have a look at hamburg’s recent performances).

Posted from Hungary

By Samuel Knight (Oudegeest) | November 24th, 2006 at 10:14 am

This article begs one question: Why not call Johan Cruyff’s bluff: he gives tons of advice on Oranje - why doesn’t he just coach the team? Van Baasten needs to learn.

And I’d disagree with the assessment of Hiddink - he was hired as Bondscoach and that’s what he did. People seem to think that input matters more than output. Baloney - working hard doesn’t prove anything - Hiddink took a group of great players and moulded them into a pretty appealing team.

The KNVB needs two jobs - bondscoach and player development coach. And Van Gaal clearly could be the latter - he’s proven over and over again he’s great at developing talent. But he’s also proven that with top players he burns out quickly. All that helpful advice to an up-and-comer, becomes annoying prattle to a veteran.

So there’s my two cents: Johan Cruyff as coach, Van Gaal as head of player development.

I also heartily agree with the commentators who say stopping developing on the national team. It’s really difficult to predict how players will develop. Look at Oranje - one year ago Van Persie was fighting for a place on the side, now he is the side (offensively at least). Pick the best talent and let them rip - is much simpler and fairer than trying to predict how players will be in two years.

Lastly, it appears to me that Robben might be fairly simple to fix. Tell him get assists, don’t try to score, beat one guy and pass. Go to the corner, and center it. He’s still got speed and great moves, but everyone in the whole stadium knows exactly what he’s going to do - he’s going to try and beat everyone and score. So as a defender just sit back and let him give you the ball. And frankly neither Oranje or Chelsea needs him to score - but both need guys to set up plays. So if I were Van Baasten that’s what I would tell him: if you try to score I’m going to bench you in the second half - if you get some assists - I’ll praise you to the skies!

Hup Holland!

Posted from United States