Van Basten still in the dark…

Marco van Basten isn’t too confident for the first competition match with Ajax against Willem II tonight. “I am positively surprised with the enormous potential of this group. There’s a lot of very good young players. But, we’re basically a long way from the level that we’re looking for.”

You’re in the job for a month and a half. How does it go?

“It’s fun. I am working with players on a daily basis again and that feels great. And, I have a central position in the club organization and I am constantly working on different aspects.”

How would you describe a typical day. You’re the coach and the technical director, how does that work?

“We train twice a day in this phase. And in between there’s numerous other stuff to do. Organisational and the like. It’s very busy and the task is grand. There’s a lot of things that I have to have an opinion about. So, I’m still a bit searching and looking around and getting used to stuff. People come to me with questions and all, I will need to get some structure going.”

You’re making long days now, wasn’t the Oranje team manager’s job a bit of a lazy job?

“People always mock the Dutch KNVB (football federation) but that’s not fair. I have worked their with a lot of satisfaction for four years. The organization is very good, the facilities and infrastructure is there and they have a number of topnotch people working for them. But, working at Ajax is more fun for me, because I have the players every day. So my impact is bigger now.”

Can you work in freedom here?

“Players need to play together a lot to form a team. We have that team-process as well in terms of management and decision making. That’s why I like a lot of communication and meeting. I may be the one to call the shots, but after ample consideration. I’m happy with where we are, but I can see more room for improvement. I’d like to see a separate and new trainings facility. We need to keep on dreaming on that.”

What did you think of Oranje’s game against Russia?

“I assume you mean the last friendly (laughs). I liked it. I enjoyed myself. I think Oranje played very well, both in defense and offense. They could and maybe should have won that game, but it was good to have seen so many opportunities. A good start.”

Didn’t you think: why didn’t we play like that at the EC against them?

“Well, not really. This is a totally different game altogether. No pressure, a different motivation. I think we did all we could in that game, and it wasn’t enough. We played under par, they peaked. We missed some luck and…you know, it’s football.”