The job isn’t fun anymore: Neeskens on how modern coaches are always fighting | Football News
Johan Neeskens played two FIFA World Cup finals in 1974 and 1978, was one of the most prominent figures of the famed Class of 1970s that transformed Dutch and Ajax football and later took on coaching roles in Barcelona, Galatasaray, Netherlands, Australia and South Africa.
Yet it’s in the last 10 years after he stopped professional coaching that the septuagenarian says he is having the most fun.
The Dutchman has travelled to 36 countries as part of the World Coaches Program designed by the Dutch national federation to conduct courses for local coaches across various countries and communities. He speaks in detail with coaches about developing not just the players’ football but also their life skills, understanding a kid’s background and surroundings—“what is the situation of the child, his home situation, is there abuse, crime, does he go to school, how does he behave when he plays on the streets”—and for a coach to be more than only that. “He has to be a role model, administrator, father figure,” Neeskens says.
It’s a long-term, time-consuming investment, in which Neeskens is happy to contribute his bit to. Ironically, time is what the legendary Dutch midfielder believes has been taken away from coaches at the elite professional level.
No club perhaps epitomizes that more than where Neeskens’s fellow Dutchman finds himself in. Recently-appointed Erik ten Hag is Manchester United’s eighth manager in the last decade, facing the heat after a poor start in the result-oriented club and league. It’s a trend Neeskens feels is not solely restricted to the English Premier League.
“You see it in Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy,” Neeskens says in a chat with this paper in his latest stop in Mumbai for the week-long program with Acosa Sports Infrastructure Services as its partners.
“Coaches just don’t get enough time. All the people who put money in the team, they want results. They think, ‘hey, you have to win a title’. If you lose 2-3 times,” Neeskens says snapping his fingers, “you’re out.”
“You don’t get the time anymore. And the job isn’t fun anymore. In our days, they said, ‘we’re going to work on a team, and we need three years to build a team which can maybe compete’. Now they say, ‘we buy players, and you have to win the title’. You also need time to bring all the players together, and then for them to function like a team. Three times you lose, you’re out. I don’t like it anymore.”
Not how he scripted his name in one of the greatest legacies in world football under one of the most revered coaches. Neeskens, alongside the likes of Johan Cruyff and Piet Keizer, was a key cog in the wheels of Rinus Michels’s legendary Ajax side that dominated opponents with three consecutive European Cup titles in the early 1970s and mesmerised fans with its “Total Football” philosophy. Neeskens was the fulcrum, described as a player worth two in the midfield who elevated that style of play by pressing to regain possession while also having a penchant for scoring goals.
“He (Michels) was already working on building that team for five years, with his philosophy, the way he wanted his team to play. And he sought players accordingly. I came into the group in 1970 at 18 years old. He wanted us to play attractive and attacking football. When the opponent had the ball, you try and find their weakest part, put pressure, try to win the ball and then play the ball forward as quickly as possible. It was a lot of work, a lot of work. It took him 5-6 years. And then the fruits came,” Neeskens, who famously scored a penalty just two minutes into the 1974 World Cup final against West Germany before the Netherlands went on to lose (and also the 1978 final), says.
Is that philosophy out of style in modern football?
“It is not out of style. But now, football has changed,” Neeskens says. “Sometimes, on paper, you see a weaker team and you think you can beat them easily. But tactically, they park the bus. It can be difficult. It is up to the coach and the quality of players. The coach has to deal with the quality of players that he has. Not everybody has the quality to start playing attractive, attacking football.
“Also, in our time, players stayed longer with the club. You stuck as a team for 3-4 years before maybe somebody left. Nowadays players sign for a club, they play one year, they get an offer to play for another club and off they go. In our time, things were easier, a lot smoother.”
