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Coaching is a craft!

May 26th, 2009 | By: Jan | 9 Comments »

Marco van Basten did prove on thing in the dramatic Ajax season: coaching is a craft. A profession. It requires more than the clinical know how of a 4-3-3 system or the skill of a outside boot kick. Ernst Happel impressed his players by hitting the cross bar from 40 meters. Ten times in a row. But that was quite some time back.

Business management, social and emotional intelligent and the capacity to understand when to kick a players’ butt or when to hug him. In modern football it’s more about the running lines withing the sensitive minds of the players and group dynamics.

So, Marco van Basten confronted himself in the mirror and was shocked by his own conclusion: “Ajax deservers better.” Ruthless as he was as a player, when he crushed the cheek of Club Brugge defender Plovie with his left elbow. That’s how he crushed his own coaching career. Who ever can lose this grand, is still a winner. Although it was the victory of introspection.

And there was more. The comeback of Guus Hiddink from outer space. Moulded from Achterhoek clay, he wasn’t one of us anymore. The creator of his own magic floated effortlessly above the international football pitches. His own museum and stadium in Korea, free beer in Australia, a wodka brand in Russia and a statue on the Crim: wherever Hiddink worked, success and hysterie followed. Hiddinkmania. And as ad interim Czar in Chelsea, he was the master of the best football players in the world, for 180 minutes. Until Andres Iniesta in injury time crushed the pink balloon above Guus’ head.

And then there was Louis van Gaal. His total silence about the courtship by Bayern was deafening. Louis van Gaal likes to act the coach who respects contracts. In Munich, they already knew: Hurricane Louis is on it’s way…

Sandbags in front of the door and windows closed. The wish-coach of Bayern can yell the white out of your eyes. The German tv showed a summary of karate-kicks, tantrums and a recent blow on the tv-camera. The tabloid Bild used his quote: I’m the best!, making him Jose Mourinho’s parrot. The newspaper also explained why Van Gaal was named The Iron Tulip in Barcelona: “This discipline fanatic checked on his players at night even, to make sure they weren’t clubbin’ on the Ramblas.”

Another paper had spotted something remarkable: “Louis can turn the deepest red. This red we haven’t seen in Germany since Ernst Happel.” The Bayern Rundfunk summarized Van Gaal’s silverware: six national titles, two national cups, a Champions League win, once runner up, a World Cup and the UEFA cup. The blond anchor woman looked serious when she read the news.

Coaching is a craft.

Peter Wekking in VI

Tags: Dutch Eredivisie, Johan Cruyff, Louis van Gaal, MArco van Vasten

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Comments

By Caleb | May 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am

Wow, Happel hit the cross bar ten times in a row from 40 metres?? That is impressive!

Posted from Canada

By Brian | May 26th, 2009 at 11:21 am

Jol to Ajax, according to the BBC.

Good manager, interesting times lie ahead for them.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Bob | May 26th, 2009 at 11:36 am

Coaching is a craft–Amen! For several years we have emailed and blogged about that subject, including how to define successful coaching, what personal qualities are needed and, most often, who we think are the good and not so good coaches. One conclusion I think we have come to is that a good or great player is not necessarily going to be a good or great coach. It can happen, yes indeed, but not often. So, van Gaal to Bayern ( a short tenure, I think ) and perhaps Jol to Ajax. I like Jol and wish him well. I hope Ajax can return “to form”. I believe Jol has the skills of the craft.

Posted from United States

By finnster01 | May 26th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Mr. Bob,

great to hear from you again Sir. I totally agree with your sentiments. Good player does not equal good coach, or vice versa. Look at Sir Alex, very untalented player, but maybe the best coach in the history of the game (if you go by trophies for sure). I guess the General, Michels (and even Beckenbauer) may be the big exception to that.

But the reality is there are very few world class players that made the grade as coaches. MvB being one of them, and obvious to many of us, his lack of people management skills is a case study for proving the point.

In the world that I live in, I see it all the time. You have great people that are high achievers. They get promoted with more responsibility. They are terrible at it. The net result is the company lose an extremely valuable contributor in exchange for a terrible manager. What one needs to do is pay the guy more to satisfy the ego we all have, keep him in his role and everyone is happy.

By Carlos | May 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm

That’s the “Peter Principle” where the author actually establishes that everyone is promoted to a point where they may not shine or go further. So the world is full of Managers/Supervisors who are probably very inefficient.

Posted from Singapore

By Jan | May 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

Haha , true… We tend to push people up until they burn…

Michels wasn’t too good a player. A very stocky striker . And der Kaiser did well as national team manager but I don’t think he could build up a club like Louis, Arsene or Sir Alex did.

Bob is right. We discussed and debated coaching here ad nauseum and it seems “we the fans” get it, but “they the clubs” don’t .

I am with Bob also on the Louis tenure at Bayern. I don’t think that will work. Louis the trainer coach will, but Louis the person will not be very amused at FC Hollywood, I assume. We’ll see….

By Caleb | May 27th, 2009 at 9:14 am

I guess the biggest exception has to be JC though – fantastic player and fantastic coach. The same can not be said about other players in his “class” though, like Maradonna or Pele.

I think it really depends on what type of player they are. If they are a good player largely because of physical skill, that will not give then any help with coaching (will probably be a deficiency actually). But if they are the type of player who was great because of their mental ability, strategic mind, and leadership capabilities, those skills will obviously be benefits to a coach.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | May 27th, 2009 at 9:45 am

I guess some are naturals. I assume JC would have been good in anything he tried. I’m not sure Der Franz had the ambition to be a long standing club coach. It is funny how “lesser” players like Hiddink, Jol, Adriaanse, Van Gaal, Jans, Rutten and Van Marwijk have developed. At the same time, those lads started their careers humbly. Bert at Fortuna (and amateurs before that), Jol at the amateurs and then RKC, Jans at Groningen, Adriaanse at Den Haag and Zwolle, Hiddink as assistant to Reker at PSV.

Even Rijkaard seemed to have learned a lot at Sparta and he’s another great player who became a successful coach. Winning Spanish titles and a CL does grant him that title, right?

By finnster01 | May 27th, 2009 at 10:23 am

Good point Jan. I still can’t really believe how a big club like Man Utd gave the job 20 plus years ago to a relatively unknown Scottish manager at Aberdeen called Alex Ferguson. Whomever was the Chairman back then must surely have made the best boardroom decision in football ever.

I also find it somewhat interesting that more often than not, the great coaches are not very pleasant individuals by the look of it. Now, I don’t know any of them personally but they all come across as bad guys. Maybe it is just the media and how they portray them, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Ferguson, Benitez, Mourinho, Hiddink, MvB for that matter, etc. The list goes on. I guess the most likeable “big team” coaches are Wenger and Pep, and the latter has still some work to do in my book before he becomes a great coach although he can cement a lot of that by a win tonight.

Having said that, he can’t count on having a bad Norwegian ref help him out every game

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