Oranje’s management problem

October 29th, 2007 | By: Jan | 4 Comments »

Johan Derksen came with this piece in VI:

The newspaper De Gelderlander published an interesting article by Wilbert Savonije, managing partner at Winner, a worldwide operating consultancy firm for leadership-development. Microsoft, KLM, IBM and Douwe Egberts are some of his customers. According to him, the KNVB has made a classic mistake in asssessing leadership in our current team manager Marco van Basten.

Companies tend to promote their best salesman to the job of sales-manager or commercial director, creating two major problems: one, the company loses his best sales-rep and two, that person is not necessarely a good manager, i.e. good at translating his success to the team. The result is a dis-functioning team.

Savonije: “Van Basten is a top professional who is being promoted to leader. But he doesn’t know how to do this. He never was a leader on the pitch, like Wouters, Koeman or Gullit, and he doesn’t have any track record as coach. It seems that be playing it cool he creates a power-bubble around him, and everyone who shows strength, leadership or charisma will be seen as a threat to the power-balance and rejected on the basis of “football technical reasons”.

Or, to paraphrase Mark van Bommel: “Van Basten gave me the idea I didn’t know how to play football anymore.”

Savonije again: “Managing a team in this way, you will get a team of compliant individuals who will obey the tactical directives of the coach. These boys will be able to qualify for a tournament, but you’ll never win, because you miss the strong leaders on the pitch who can take the team by the hand against the strong countries.”

The managing partner of Winner has different options for this problem. The team manager could be replaced. But this means the KNVB and Van Basten will lose face. The KNVB could appoint a more senior and seasoned coach next to Van Basten, to coach Van Basten into authentic leadership. Van Basten’s assistants will need to be replaced though. Or, and this is the one most companies chose for, the KNVB doesn’t do anything. “I expect the KNVB to just let it go. We will be ousted out of the EC after a tough game, a all or nothing type of match, and we just lack the personality on the field and the freedom of action from the team manager, to win those games.”

Good article, I thought. And it does cover what we discussed many times…

This phenomenon would answer all our questions about: what’s with Van Bommel? Why the criticism on Van Nistelrooy (during the WC2006)? Why is Seedorf treated like he is? Why play the best players on weird positions?

Tags: Group C

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Comments

By Miguel Rosado | October 29th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

Great article.

I hope the KNVB fires Van Basten before the EC and hire a coach with experience like Van Gaal, Foppe de Haan, Van Maarwijk even Koeman, etc…

I’m from Mexico and I have been a fan of the Netherlands for 13 years. I say this beacause I had never seen a Dutch national team play so bad like this. This team is a shame, but I know we have a lot of potential and I trust the players, not the coach and his system.

By goose | October 30th, 2007 at 2:50 am

Great article..really great! quit an eye opener; think he said nothing new but just put it in a different light (if thats an english expression)

@MR; i know were you coming form, been following Oranje since 1988 and this team (the vanBasten team) is by far the worse ive seen…even 1992-93 wasnt this bad…keep the faith… happy days will soon be there again (just after vBasten leaves us)

gtrz

Posted from Netherlands

By Bob | October 30th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

An excellent article, which shows how often organizations miss the point with leadership decisions. Based on all of the blogs presented during the past several weeks, I come to two conclusions regarding Netherlands football leadership at this time:

1. The KNVB is apparently not a well run operation. In spite of its wonderful coaching books and clinics,its decisions regarding the national team have been thoroughly vetted on this blog, and will not be repeated. I also have written, previously, that I do not like its website and its lack of truthfulness regarding the English language aspect of that site. KNVB has been “promising” that a new and better English language aspect to its site would soon be in place, promises that have been made for the past four years,yet nothing positive happens. Do these knucklehead managers not understand how many people speak English, and how many English speaking people enjoy and want to know more about Netherlands football. It seems that the KNVB purposefully ignores this large potential fan base. It also does not know how to market national team apparel, to which they should turn to Mr. Beckham and learn how very much money they could earn if they did this aspect correctly. Professional football is in the entertainment business, yet the KNVB seems to think that it produces some other form of product that only its leaders understand. It is sad to see the lost potential of Netherlands football and all of its dimensions because the management of KNVB lack competence.

2. We, the fans of Netherlands football, understand that this particular group of national team players may not be the most gifted to be put on the pitch. However, the frustration with van Basten and company is that their attitudes and mindsets lead to the result that these players can not perform up to their best potential. That is all we fans ask of the KNVB and of van Basten–help, lead, teach, let these players perform at their highest and best level. If they do not win, but play their best, then we can accept that. It is when they lose and play well below their potential that causes so much of the irritation expressed on this blog.

As Goose says so well, we live in hope and that is why we keep coming back. The affection for Dutch football is addictive, and so damn much fun!

Posted from United States

By tijuthomas | October 31st, 2007 at 9:36 am

Not only that we need a motivating, cool,experienced,talented captain on the pitch
can we use zeadorf?
otherwise edgar?
think
i would say Edgar more over he can play as holding mid feilder
MY line up
4-4-2
Nestel
persie
Vaart (r)
davids(holding mid)
left (who)i would opt for a talented tireless guy(afaleey/bakal/
Ze dorf(behind nestel and rvn) should be substituted by znijder after 60 minitues
Donk (an offencive minded ,physically tall and strong, good in air can stop henry,cristaino,etc on wings and any where)
Mathijenson(cb
ooiger(cb
heitinga (lb
Van der sar