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Denneboom, Kalou and the joke: 4 years Marco…

June 24th, 2008 | By: Jan | 28 Comments »

Marco’s last ride in the Oranje bus

The www.Ad.nl had this article today:

San Marco’s era in a nutshell:

Best game
June 9 2008 will be a historical day in Dutch football history. Better, more beautiful and fresher than ever under Marco van Basten’s reign. The matches against France (this EC) and the Ivory Coast (WC2006) were pretty good too. And do you remember Holland – Czech Republic in September 2004 with two Van Hooijdonk goals?

Worst game
Hard to pick. But probably Luxembourg – Holland in September 2006. Holland won thanks to a Mathijsen header but created zilch and even had luck in defense. Edwin van der Sar even had to play the clock at the end of the game.

Debutants
When Marco just started, everyone with a pair of football shoes was considered. Remarkable names of players picked for the Dutch team were Collins John, Theo Lucius and Romano Denneboom. After the WC2006, Marco worked with a more or less fixed squad.

No debutant
Do you remember Salomon Kalou. Van Basten wanted him as the right winger for the WC, but there was one little detail in the way. Kalou was born in the Ivory Coast and didn’t have a Dutch passport. Van Basten urged Kalou to seek it out if front of a court, but clashed with secretart Rita Verdonk. And even San Marco couldn’t take her on. Kalou now plays for the Ivory Coast.

Friends, part 1
Van Basten had a lot of respect when he started, based on his playing career. Now, that group of friends is smaller. Mark van Bommel, Edgar Davids, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Clarence Seedorf clashed with the former EC winner. Edgar Davids was his first captain. Later he would say: “Why select Davids? I won’t select Jan Wouters either.”

Dodgers
Mark van Bommel is the most famous Oranje-dodger under Van Basten. Ruud van Nistelrooy also said: no thanks for a while. Less well known fact: Andy van der Meyde said no to Van Basten in October 2004.

Friends part 2.
They never were friends, but the relationship between Van Gaal and Van Basten only got worse. Van Gaal would analyze Oranje’s games on the SBS channel. Van Basten loathed the critical talks of his colleague and stated on a Christmas gathering of coaches, that “Van Gaal probably is the worst team manager of Oranje ever.”

Friends, part 3.
Johan Cruyff convinced the KNVB to go with Van Basten for Oranje. No matter how bad Oranje played, the seer from Barcelona would always support his protege. A few months ago, they clashed big time at Ajax. They seemed to be friends no more. Cruyff even criticized Oranje. The day after the defeat against Russia they met again and it seems the friendship is still going strong.

Words
When Marco was appointed and inaugurated, he spoke the infamous words “dominant and attractive”. He must have regretted these words, because the press would confront him with it every time Oranje played lacklustre. His other two one-liners: “That’s an option” (when asked about the line up) and “we try to do this the best way we can” (on any other question).

Statistics
Van Basten has done a phenomenal job, when you look at the figures. 52 games, 35 victories and only six defeats. Oranje qualified for the WC and the EC. Oranje scored 96 goals against conceding 31. He is the best team manager in 60 years. But, he himself says: “It’s about silverware, I know that. That was the objective and we didn’t achieve that, so…”

Charisma
When Van Basten was appointed, a wave of excitement went through the nation. In four years time, this excitement was replaced by bewilderment and frustration. Outside of Amsterdam people called him the Ajax team manager and during the Slovenia match he was booed and people chanted the name f Foppe de Haan.

Charisma 2.
When Oranje beat Italy and France at this EC, the former super-striker became the super-coach again, and the adoration was expressed through numerous banners. “I never took the criticism too serious, so I also can’t take this adoration too serious. The truth will be somewhere in the middle.”

Jokes
To control the discipline, Van Basten decided not to give monetary fines: “Most players are multi-millionaires nowadays, so money is not an issue. I will have players who are too late tell a joke in public.” During the WC2006, Ruud van Gol and Marco had a serious issue and when Ruud had to tell a joke, he told a joke about the Greek striker Alsiemaarraakis (”Aslongashescoris”).

Mistake
That issue between Ruud and Marco was caused on a press conference after the Argentina match. The team manager allowed himself to ponder the strikers-position and he said some critical things about his striker, Van Nistelrooy. He heard those on the radio, listening to the team manager, and Ruud was hurt. Probably the biggest mistake the team manager made.

World Cup 2006
The WC2006 was just a step towards the main objective. But, when Oranje survived the Group of Death, Marco realized anything was possible. After 16 yellow and 4 red cards against Portugal, the team manager realized that fairytale had ended.

Tabletennis
The team manager wants to win every game he plays. In the run up to the WC2006 he played a game of tabletennis with Robin van Persie. The first set was won by Van Basten, with ease. The second set was again a struggle for Van Persie (youth champ of Rotterdam) but he won it. They never played the decisive set.

European Championship 2008
One of Marco’s objectives was: let Holland love Oranje again. It took a while, but the former Ajax striker managed to achieve this. The euphoria surrounding the Dutch team in the recent weeks was unbelievable. The defeat against Russia was extra painful because of this.

Future
In effect, the four years under Marco didn’t really result in anything tangible. But he did lay the foundation for his successor Bert van Marwijk. A significant number of mid-20 year old has two big tournaments under their belt. “It was an interesting period in my life,” Van Basten said. Let’s leave it at that.

Tags: Basten, Bommel, Cruyff, Euro 2008, Seedorf, Van Marwijk

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 28 comments.

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By Caleb | June 24th, 2008 at 10:06 am

I find it really strange that Van der Meyde said no to Van Basten in October 2004. That’s right at the start of Marco’s reign, and I don’t think Andy played any games under Marco (did he?), so why say no? Although Van der Meyde has disappeared in the last few years, I actually thought he was a pretty decent right winger during EC2004.

Posted from Canada

By Bob | June 24th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Boasting about a four year record and qualifying for a WC and Euro begs the question of who the competition was, how the team played when it mattered and what affect the coach’s decisions had on the outcome of those matches. What about player choice? What about team morale? What about tactics? What about meshing player talent with tactics? What about substitutions at critical moments–remember WC and the Portugal match? What about physical conditioning of your team? What about the ability to make changes–personnel or tactics–during a match that make a difference in the outcome? I suggest that an evaluation of the van Basten coaching era considering these issues will result in an overall job performance grade of no better than C-. van Basten is, at best, currently only a mediocre coach and teacher. Unless he starts on a high learning curve program, I do not believe he will accomplish very much with Ajax. Very few great athletes (van Basten was a great athlete!) become great coaches. Coaching is a very different profession, requiring completely different mental and emotional talents than that of an athlete. Cruijff was, as in everything else, an exception to this rule because he was, and is, a genius regarding this sport. Hiddink and de Haan also approach that genius level. van Basten, as a coach, does not. The long term future of the Dutch national team is brighter now because he is gone. The question now is, what’s next? We will, in time, find out.

Posted from United States

By MAB | June 24th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Bob…Give Van Basten the credi he is due!!!It was his genius, that had the team rejuvenated. He brought into the team young talents, many of whom are the future stars of football. So give him credit for he deserves that. Losing to Russia was certainly a shock after their performance in the group stage, but no one saw it coming. I love Van Basten, regardless, and I hope you will stop criticizing him. He did what he thought worked best for the team. I hope before my death in 2089, that he will lead the Dutch team to win the World Cup, and I hope he will lead Ajax to win 3 Champions League title.
I love You Van Basten!!!

Posted from United States

By Junior | June 24th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Hey Jan you said that Ruud Van Nilsterooy had to tell “a joke about the Greek striker Alsiemaarraakis (”Aslongashescoris”).” What was the joke? Do you know?

Posted from United States

By sjop | June 24th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Bob, you sound alarmingly like Louis van Gaal.

By Yevy | June 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Marco, you broke our hearts in ‘88. Now it’s our turn.

Posted from United States

By Junior | June 24th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Yevy, you may have broken our hearts…but nono of that will matter if Russia does not win the EC. So you better win it, otherwise we are all losers. Go Oranje!

Posted from United States

By Mario Rosado (Dutch admirer) | June 24th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

I have to agree with Rob on this one. I mean, certainly statistics count for the record but we’ve done much better under other coaches when we were at the finals we played beautiful football and fought like lions.

I trully believe it was not Marco’s fault but KNVB’s because the poor Marco had no international experience and the KNVB should have appointed someone with international degree. Marco did some irrational things like fighting with all the experienced players and calling some players who had nothing to do in the national team like Yildrim, Van der Bergh, Hofs, etc… but he has changed in a positive way. Before the EC I said he had no future as a coach but now I can say that he might although he has to learn a lot.

I remember when Hiddink coached Holland that he had his starting 11 and never changed it, the only time he changed it it was because he had Davids back which was only better for the team. That team knew each other very well and that’s what we need with van Maarwijk. I’m positive about the future because we have a rational coach who will be working with 2 legends Cocu and Frank de Boer.

By Jan | June 24th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

The actual joke doesn’t exist, me thinks. It was cynical. Van Basten had said before the WC that Ruud was his number 1 choice. During the WC, in the first match, Ruud didn’t get any decent balls and was subbed after 70 minutes (?).

The second match, Ruud did score. Suddenly, he was criticized in public, Marco hadn’t shared his criticism with Ruud directly first. So that “joke” was a cynical story about this Greek striker aslongashescoris, which was black humor and Ruud was that striker. I guess some players saw the humor and laughed (Van Bommel?? Kromkamp??) and when Ruud demanded a public apology by Van Basten the stone was cast…

Ferenc: are you sure? Ruud didn’t get a card during the Portugal game, did he?

I think there is certainly truth in Bob’s view. Definitely. But then again, it’s so hard to “measure”. Guus could work in 1996 and 98 with a strong skeleton of Ajax players who then where the top in the world. Marco had to start from scratch in a different era of Dutch football.

If you’ve read the article of the neuro-psychologist, you can read inbetween the lines – I should have brought that point forward more – that these types of coaches have a hard time communicating what for them is so obvious. Most people don’t “get” JC, or Van Basten for that matter. They tend to perform well with players who blindly follow their instructions. JC had trouble as a coach with his players (Van Basten, Rijkaard) because “they didn’t get it” and Van Basten runs into the same issues with his players…

There is a lot to this game we call football…

By MAB | June 24th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

So Van Basten is an “irrational coach” ???Is that what you are saying Mario? And Van Maarwijk is the “rational coach”. Well for your information, Van Maarwijk(I can’t even pronounce let alone spell his name) has achieved NOTHING. I am skeptical as to what he can do for the team. Time will tell! However, you go on and keep criticizing Van Basten. Go ahead!!!Go ahead!!! When a coach is winning,all of you are on his bandwagon. When he is on the losing side, criticisms from all angles keep piling up.Let’s move on, and focus on the next task at hand.
Van Basten, you may not have the trophy that matters, but to me you are a winner!

Posted from United States

By ferenc | June 24th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

Jan: i’m sure about euud’s suspension after the 2004 ec semi-final. he had some words to the referee after the game.

i don’t know what to say about marco. sometimes i criticized him,but at the ec he was very sympathetic and very human. i know that for ex. hiddink is 3times better than him but it doesn’t change the fact that guus (at least for me) is not a sympathetic person. marco – with all his mistakes – is. don’t kbow too much about the personality of van marwijk. it seems he’s neutral without the charisma of cruijff,rijkaard,etc. (anyway i hope that one day frank will become our national coach again.)

Posted from Hungary

By Finnster01 | June 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

Van Basten, as a coach, didn’t win anything made of silver. Van Marwijk at least is a proven coach that won the UEFA cup with Feyenoord as recent as 2002, which these days in my book is about as an incredible achievement as actually finding life on Mars.

Lets give Bert a chance and move on. Personally, I am certainly more optimistic looking ahead than I was under MVB. For me, MVB will go down in history as perhaps the best true target man and goal scorer ever in the world of soccer. His coaching needs work though. Not sure if he is the right man for Ajax either, and I am an Ajax fan. I am not comfortable with MVB, but hopefully he can prove me wrong. Winning Eresdivisie doesn’t exactly pose the largest challenge in the world anymore, does it?

Posted from United States

By Bob | June 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

One of the best parts of this blog is the openness of the comments, and the manner of criticizing what others might think. I applaud MAB’s loyalty to van Basten, and I hope you are right regarding future successes with Ajax. Sjop, I do not know enough about van Gaal to understand your comment, and have never wanted anyone to consider what I write as alarming. Jan, as always, you choose to move comfortably between and among the comments, affirming some, challenging some, and your thought about the complexity of this sport is absolutely correct. None of us, really, knows enough about what goes on in the practices and private sessions between a team and its coach to make an accurate evaluation. Would it not be interesting to know what some of the players think of van Basten? In any event, I will now end any more comments regarding Marco’s coaching skills, but note for the “record” that my most recent blog regarding him is what I believe to be true. I also wish it were not so, as no one wants success for Netherlands football more than I do–we all stand united in that goal!

Posted from United States

By dave | June 24th, 2008 at 5:40 pm

Van Basten did a great job all in all. Oranje cannot win huge trophies without more talent and athleticism on defense and in the midfield. Let’s see how he does with Ajax. With Oranje it was his first job and certainly he learned alot, grew alot, and I kinda like his comparatively serene sideline approach. With the kids he has to groom at Ajax I bet it works pretty well.

One day he’ll be oranje coach again. Maybe for wc2018. In the meantime, I can’t wait to see all the jong oranje at china. Esp. Donk.

Posted from United States

By MAB | June 24th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

It’s incredible!All of this dislike and cynicism towards Van Basten. I can’t believe it!I can’t believe it! By the way, Louis Van Gaal won the Champions League with Ajax in 1995, but failed to take the Oranje to the WC 2002. So who is a better coach of the two?
As far Van Maar…(whatever his name is), he only won the UEFA Cup, which is nothing really compared to the Champions League. There is no coverage of the UEFA Cup here in the USA. The UEFA Cup is nothing(no wonder Zenit FC won it) and previous winners include Tottenham, Ipswich Town FC, Moskva, Napoli, Goteborg,Parma…does that ring a bell?UEFA Cup is not the trophy that the great clubs of Europe want to win.
Van Maar was fired from Borussia of Dortmund for poor results. His CV is far miles away from being lacklustre.
So no need to elevate him, he has yet to prove himself(UEFA Cup is NOTHING).
Van Basten is the man.Period.

Posted from United States

By Finnster01 | June 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

He won the UEFA cup in 2002 with FEYENOORD!!!! Now, that feat obviously does not impress you, but to me that is pretty remarkable.

And I will actually argue that the UEFA Cup is a much more interesting competition to watch from a fan perspective than the same old 4-5 teams every year in the semis of the CL. That competition is severly broken.

And Zenith had a few good players on that team didn’t they? Other than beating Bayern 4-0 in the semis, unfortunately Oranje also found out that the hard way. Guus, Arshavin and his teammates sure schooled MVB and the rest of us.

Posted from United States

By Carlos | June 24th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

@ Junior
The joke is similar in perspective in Dutch as the one about the Irish Dentist – Philip McCafferty !
Most Greek names end with ” kis” so Alsiemaarraakis – litteraly translates into “as long as he scores”.

Posted from Singapore

By lowiesje | June 24th, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Bert van Marwijk is an experienced coach. Van Basten wasn’t and had to learn. He build up a team from scratch, dealing with the heritage of Dick Advocaat. First Marco’s approach was refreshing, relaxt, but the rest is history. We all know what happened. Players didn’t get it, the media didn’t get it what Marco really had in his mind. I agree with Bob and Mario Rosado. Statistics doesn’t say anything; only silverware counts. In that he failed bitterly. Isn’t ironic that Hiddink pluckes the fruit of Advocaat’s good work with Zenith Petersburg? In a way Russia’s success is also Advocaat’s, although indirectly.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | June 24th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Feyenoord won the UEFA cup beating Glasgow Rangers, PSV Eindhoven, Inter Milan (!!) and Borussia Dortmund (Koller, Rosicky). That is quite a feat! And with spectacular play to boot!

Van Marwijk put that team together, signed the players, got them to play together, handled physical, mental preps, etc etc etc. There are not many Dutch teams who won this cup so Bert is up there. Period.

And don’t forget: many successful club coaches failed as national coach and vice versa! Van Gaal, Sacchi, McLaren, Advocaat, Beenhakker… It is a totally different job! There’s huge similarities obviously, but also lots of differences.

A national team coach has to approach his job differently. Some examples: you can’t buy a player for a position that needs it. You can’t work with the players for weeks on end during qualification. This means you can’t imprint your system or automatisms during qualifications. Which is 80% of the job at a club. You need to be a people manager and motivator (Hiddink, Klinsmann) more so than a typical tactical coach. Oh, and football associations pay less than big clubs! Rijkaard made 2 mio + at Barca, while the KNVB will not pay more than 1 Mio p/a. Etc etc.

You simply cannot judge Van Marwijk now. Everyone who has an opinion on Van Marwijk as team manager is pissin’ in the wind a bit.

We should all assume that the KNVB has good selection criteria for the job and that Bertje fits the profile.

He is a decent man, good communicator, loves the game (was a creative winger himself), never gets in trouble with strippers, alcohol or stupid statements and has experience.

He may be kicked out of Borussia “because the results were bad” but the first two seasons he was heralded as a super coach because they played very attractive football. The money was gone from Dortmund and Bert had to work with the budget that was left. It’s a well known fact. Check them if you want to criticize people. There is always more to the story.

By bunchapooha | June 24th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

“which these days in my book is about as an incredible achievement as actually finding life on Mars.”

Actually, they’re pretty close to finding it now. Yet Feyenoord winning an international trophy again sometime soon, lol, much, much harder!

Btw, anyone remember how Dortmund performed after van Marwijk left? Worse.

Posted from Netherlands

By Mario Rosado (Dutch admirer) | June 24th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

Mab, I don´t know if you are talking about Marco van Basten or another van Basten because Marco as a coach didn´t win anything, no semifinals, no finals, very far from the objective.

By ferenc | June 25th, 2008 at 1:46 am

MAB: you should consider the fact that before the wc 06 we still had a good davids, a top form seedorf and during the wc marco had his famous conflict with ruud. without these 3 “incidents” we could have been serious contender for the title. since 2006 he has matured and his people-mamagerial skills have improved. but he still has to learn a lot.
after the boring group stage and from the beginning of the quarter finals uefa cup is as interesting as the cl. and at least you cannot predict the winner. in the cl there are always ten clubs (real,barca, milan,juve,inter, mu,pool,chelsea,arsenal,bayern) and no other clubs have (mostly the financial) potential to win it.
Jan: at barca in the first 3 years frank made 3million/year, after the cl trophy he made 5 million + /year.

Posted from Hungary

By Caleb | June 25th, 2008 at 9:16 am

Overall I didn’t think Van Basten was too bad a coach. He learned a lot and was looking much better near the end of his reign. Still has a lot of learning to do. I think he’ll be able to do good things at Ajax, if given the time to work with the club. His biggest downfall was probably his player management skills, and I wonder how good of a motivator he is… those are probably what he needs to work on the most. Good luck in the future Marco!
As for Van Marwijk, I just hope he is a great motivator and can get our boys to play like they want it… every game! By the way, how is his name pronounced? Like “mar-wike” using English pronunciation?

Posted from Canada

By Mario Rosado (Dutch admirer) | June 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

@MAB: I guess you didn’t read my comment well enough. I said that there was a time when I felt Marco had no future as a coach but after this EC he has shown a different face, he has learned and developed a lot but he’s still not at the top yet. He did an OK job because the Netherlands are bigger than just quarter finals but he’ll keep on learning and I believe he can be a good coach but he needs experience. Guud Hiddink was no wizard at the begining of his coaching career it took him time to get to know the game.

About what you said of Van Gaal. He had many problemas I remember when we started the qualifyings we faced Ireland and Portugal at home and almost every player was injured, those 2 games proved to be crucial and then we had Frand and Davids banned for the drug problems. Everyone remembers only that he didn’t qualify for the 2002 but if you really look at what he had to deal with it was not easy for him.

By Zak | June 25th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

I agree with Jan, being a successful coach on the club level doesn’t mean you have to be successful on the national team level or vise versa. There are few coaches that have been successful both ways- Italy’s Lippi is a recent example. Overall, I think that Van Basten is a C+/B- sort of coach. I’ve never been convinced with his tactics or player selection. I do realize that he had a lot of baggage to deal with after Euro 2004 and the retirement of the “great generation”. However, he definitely had communication problems with star players. I’ve never seen a coach who got into fights with as many players during his tenure (Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Davids, Seedorf, Mark Van Bommel, and the list goes on). It’s unacceptable of a coach to criticize his players in public. I couldn’t believe the comments he made about Ruud Van Nistelrooy in the World Cup. I also couldn’t believe it when he said that Kromkamp was a mediocre defender that we shouldn’t have selected for the World Cup, while the freakin World Cup was taking place. These 2 incidents made me lose respect to Van Basten for good. Great coaches never say comments as such! I’ve been a Dutch fan since 1992, and have never seen a worse coach (in terms of achievements). I don’t care if he produced superb results in the group stage of the Euro 2008. He has never made it past the knockout stage in his 2 tournaments (World Cup 2006 & Euro 2008). The Netherlands deserves better! I can “accept” losing to Brasil in World Cup 1998 in the semi-finals and to Italy in Euro 2000 in the semi-finals as well. Even though both losses hurt, they came in the semi-finals to great teams. However, I will never accept losing to Portugal nor Russia in regulation. This is NOT the Netherlands I know!

Posted from United States

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