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Where are they now? Peter Hoekstra

January 25th, 2009 | By: Jan | 15 Comments »

Peter Hoekstra (35 years old) played 5 games for Oranje. The former PSV, Ajax and Stoke City winger is currently youth coach at FC Groningen. He happily talks about past, present and future…

PAST
The highlights of my career were the five internationals I played for Oranje, two of which at the EC1996 under Guus Hiddink. That was the best, playing for your country. An experience no one can take away from me, even if my contribution was limited. I am so proud I was the number 11 at Ajax at one stage and I played with Romario and Ronaldo at PSV. In Oranje I played with Dennis Bergkamp and Edwin van der Sar. Not bad…”

NOW
“I needed to retire in 2004 due to consistent injuries. I was a so-called big talent when young, but when 23 years old my knee played up and I never got back to my old level. I’ve never been able to leverage from my talents. It’s tough when you need to stop at 31, I lived for my sport. But I don’t look back in anger… I am happy, I’ve got a great marriage, two wonderful and healthy kids and a good job here in Groningen. ”

“I coach the very young, the D-group. Great age, coz you can still mould them. They like being coached by a former Oranje player and they really pay attention when I talk about my past. And although my body isn’t top anymore, I can still perform tricks or first touches to show them stuff. also work as skills-coach with the other youth teams. I teach them how to take up positions and work on their passing and kicks.”

“FC Groningen doesn’t have the budget to work with specialized strikers coaches. We have five full time coaches, while Ajax employs at least 20 and they also have specialized coaches. I do think technical skills are vital, but mentality is the most important aspect. One of the things I’m religious about is having kids use their weak leg more often. You can easily tell which players actually do that. It tells me how their head is, if you know what I mean… I will keep on studying and hope to get the final license next year. I don’t have the ambition to become a head coach, but I do want to have all my papers.”

FUTURE

“To be honest, most games Oranje plays for qualifications and all can’t really interest me. I sometimes zap a bit but I can’t be bothered. The big tournaments, however, I follow from A to Z. My wife is Spanish so I also support the Spanish team. I think it will be tough in South Africa. Our offense is world class and our build up isn’t too bad, but we lack solid defenders. I don’t think you can win the title with our defense, I’m sorry to say. Top nations always have top defenders. We may think we have a world class midfield, but so does Spain, Italy and we were played off the pitch by Russia! But, once the tournament starts I am as patriotic as any other Dutch fans and I do hope we’ll do well. Most of our players have the perfect age to peak.”

Tags: Ajax, Group C, Hiddink, Hoekstra, Oranje, PSV, Sneijder, Van Marwijk, van Persie

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Comments

By finnster01 | January 25th, 2009 at 7:28 am

I wonder what happened to Johan De Cock? Played for Utrecht in late eighties and early nineties. Got a few Dutch caps too.

Has to be the funniest football name ever in Oranje

By Van Basten | January 25th, 2009 at 8:34 am

I like it when he said “We may think we have a world class midfield…we were played off the pitch by Russia!”

By sonneveld | January 25th, 2009 at 9:13 am

my mom is a hoekstra

By Felipe | January 25th, 2009 at 9:19 am

Cool text. Waiting for the breakthrough of “The Specialist” section.

While I write, Groningen 1-0 on Ajax. Is this the dreamed weekend for Van Gaal and AZ? Seems like…

By Alex | January 25th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Fact that we lost horribly is that V.Basten doesn’t know how to deal with defenders like ours, the simple fact that he used Ooijer and Mathijsen as a central duo for two championships while changing it all the time in between tournaments is the best example of lack of vision. You have to create a steady central duo to perform well. Shockingly, V.Marwijk just continues on this deathtrap. Putting Boulahrouz on the bench in favor of Ooijer is crazy.He needs to start looking to form a strong centre, with possibilities for at least 3 or 4 years to come. With other words, he needs to be looking in the 20-28 category and at least drop the oldy.
With Heitinga out of form, the only one I would turn to is Boulahrouz and possibly Marcellis, Mathijsen for centre. Or emergancy solution with Wielaert(who isn’t better then Mathijsen, believe me). To make a long story short, we have only one-and-a-half year to get 8 defenders ready for the WC. That’s a challenge

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | January 25th, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Better if we’d hire some former world-class defenders to give special training/coaching sessions to our defenders, I know Heitinga would benefit, he developed fantastically when playing next to Stam at Ajax.
Stam, De Boer(already involved), Rijkaard(would be fun to see), Krol(only as supervision of course, not intensively)

Posted from Netherlands

By Miguel Rosado | January 25th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

“Most of our players have the perfect age to peak.”

Seems like Robben is doing just that.

By Miguel Rosado | January 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

1) It seems like Real’s supporters can’t stand Drenthe anymore and I really don’t see Drenthe having a bright future there unless he starts proving his real worth.
2) Sneijder has been playing very poor the last couple of games and it seems like Juande Ramos is considering other options let’s see what happens when Guti gets back. But I’m not too worried about him because he has a great mentality and is a great player.
3) Van der Vaart has to improve as well because we all know what he’s capable of doing but at the moment he’s playing below his capacity. I do think he hasn’t had as many opportunities as he should have because at the beginning of the season he was playing very well but as soon as Sneijder got back from injury Schuster benched him.
4) Huntelaar needs time.
5) Robben is the star of Madrid at the moment. They love him there.

By Carlos | January 25th, 2009 at 7:05 pm

Does anyone have an opnion about Barry Opdam ? The 2 games he played for Oranje were quite solid (I thought) then he disappeared ? Goose ? What happened ?
Looks like Hoekstra has been readng this blog, he says exactly the same thing as us about Oranje.

Posted from Singapore

By Mario | January 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

Alex, I agree on your lack of vision when you talk about van Basten and his decisions in central defense but for me Boulahrouz is the worst player ever to wear an Oranje jersey. He is slow, no tecnique, doesn´t score and doesn´t know how to read the game. But I strongly think that Ooijer should be ommitted because he is old now and we need guys like Marcellis or Heitinga in the center for the years to come.

But Boulahrouz was benched at Sevilla and Chelsea because he has no talent at all and is not even tall to cope with players like Toni, Klose, Henry, etc. I think van Marwijk will have to look for other options because if we think that our defense will be ok with guys like Boulahrouz we will have terrible results at the back.

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | January 25th, 2009 at 9:08 pm

van der wiel for boulahrouz

Posted from United States

By Andrew | January 26th, 2009 at 12:30 am

@Miguel, Agree that Sneijder has been pretty quiet the last few games. I think its the system that Ramos is playing. Sneijder is starting wide; he needs to be more in the middle, and he needs to be on the ball pushing the team forward. Its take care of defense first, and get the ball out to Robben—no problems there, Robben is shining in the role. But it doesn’t suit Sneijder. VDV has to go somewhere else, where he can be be one of the main players. Not much to say about Huntelaar…he’s not getting much of an opportunity.

Posted from United States

By Jan | January 26th, 2009 at 2:20 am

Barry Opdam moved to Red Bull Salzburg with Co Adriaanse. I guess he’s doing well there. He’s a tad too old now for Oranje, me thinks. He’s probably 34 years old or something. He was a tremendous player. Could have made more out of his career.