Socceroos come from the land Dutch Under
Roar Rookie
By Janex, 2 Jul 2009 Janex is a Roar Rookie
Socceroo's coach Pim Verbeek chats with Harry Kewell during a training session at ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Thursday, June 19, 2008. The Socceroo's take on China in a World Cup qualifying match this Sunday, June 22. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
A recent article out of the Netherlands named Dutch football as the most successful of the past forty years. With Verbeek and Henk Duut (ex Feyenoord) leading Australia to another World Cup, the Dutch school must be close to being declared Holy Down Under.
Verbeek: “It’s just great. We’ve started this series in February 2008 and obviously, playing these games is a real challenge on the body for the players from Europe with 22 hours plane flights, 7 to 10 hours time difference, and they never complained. Their mental attitude is top notch.
“They’re a tight team and they know exactly what they want.”
The admiration is reciprocated.
The big names in the team, Kewell, Cahill and Neill are very happy with their Dutch coach. They did have to Google him at first when he was appointed, but now they can’t say enough positive things about him.
After securing the ticket to the FIFA World Cup tournament in Qatar, Everton star Tim Cahill said: “I love working under this coach. You know exactly what you get on the pitch and off. You can discuss anything with him, for me that’s crucial and most players feel this way.”
“It was different under Guus. Nothing against him, he’s respected all over the world and rightly so, but I wasn’t always happy.”
A remarkable quote. Wasn’t it Guus Hiddink who gave Australia their confidence?
Pim Verbeek can answer that question. He and Hiddink worked together for South Korea in 2002 and reached the semi finals at 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament.
“Guus is able to align and fine tune everything quickly and gets a result, that’s his speciality. He controls the management of the games and understands how to work the players and media.”
Verbeek smiles when he says that, he‘s still in touch with his former boss who immediately sent his congratulations via a text message.
“I learned a lot from him and from Dick Advocaat. The main thing is, be who you are. This will be my first World Cup tournament as a head coach and I look forward to it, however I realize very well that I can do this thanks to the people I work with.”
One of those people is former Feyenoord defender and Fortuna assistant coach Henk Duut: “I worked with Henk before. He’s my left and right hand man, both in tactical decisions as in training build up and he’s a great scout, too.”
Duut worked with Verbeek for the Dutch Antilles and worked at Feyenoord under Ruud Gullit and Erwin Koeman. Duut highly enjoys working and living in Australia. “You can see the team come together and that’s the best thing about this job.
“I think both myself and my buddy Mario Been never dreamed of becoming a coach, but being able to move these processes along is just great. Also I live in one of the world’s prettiest spots, so what more can I ask.”
The name Feyenoord is mentioned: “Unbelievable that they never contact me, they have my number, there’s a lot of talent here.
“Tactically, maybe not that good, but still a lot to work with but they’re strong mentally and physically and love to learn and work hard, most talents are now scouted by Twente and AZ, and it’s weird because Brett Emerton and Holman started their European careers at Feyenoord.”
The Football Director of the Australian Football Federation is Dutch as well. Han Berger, a former coach of Utrecht and Groningen, took over from Rob Baan and is responsible for the strategic planning: “I work on Baan’s foundations. The local competition needs to be stronger, but now there are more and more players like Culina returning, so that’s good.
“The facilities need to be upgraded and we need to work on the youth competitions and the youth selections. In Canberra, Jan Versleijen is working with the talented youth, we are all going to play 4-3-3, all following the Dutch school.”
Money is not the problem in Australia, but the “attitude” is: “Soccer, they call it still on the streets. There’s still a huge English culture apparent (cricket, rugby) and AFL is number one sport, but there are lots of scandals and bad stuff happening there so most parents would love their kids to play football and sponsors turn away from these sports.”
Therefore, the performance and results of the national team are essential, and Australia is also bidding for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments and are serious competitor to the Holland/Belgium bid.
Han Berger: “That would be the ideal impulse, and make no mistake, they can pull that off here, remember the Sydney Olympics, but that’s all in the future. We are focused on the 2010 World Cup first. We have qualified as one of the first nations and people start to complain that we’re boring.
“We weren’t able to qualify for decades and then now these comments. Pim Verbeek doesn’t mind all that criticism but I sometimes get agitated by it. But hey, we’re missionarie. It’s part of the job”.
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Kurt said | July 2nd 2009 @ 4:37am | Report comment
You have to chuckle at the opening line of this article: “A recent article out of the Netherlands named Dutch football as the most successful of the past forty years”. Well I guess that settles it then!
The Answer said | July 2nd 2009 @ 5:59am | Report comment
Clearly the authors of such a report had been visited Amsterdam’s favourite cafes.
But you have to love the Dutch, they never win, but always believe they had the most style. Good to see a such a positive feelings of self worth, parents in the Netherlands must be very caring.
Slippery Jim said | July 2nd 2009 @ 7:49am | Report comment
This will be my first World Cup tournament as a head coach and I look forward to it, however I realize very well that I can do this thanks to the people I work with
Including Graeme Arnold, I presume. Strange, Henk Duut gets a mention but not the other Socceroos assistant.
Andrew said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
Well it’s a Dutch article so you have to consider the audience. He is unlikely to talk about people who aren’t Dutch as they would be largely unknown in Holland.
Arnold did play in Holland though…
Midfielder said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:06am | Report comment
SJ
Same throughts as mine …
Slippery Jim said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:20am | Report comment
Andrew, so this is an article reporting on another article from Holland – isn’t that called plagiarism? Perish the thought, I’m sure the author isn’t purely parroting everthing from that article, there does seem some creative input of his own here.
I would hope that Janex – being from the Gold Coast of Australia, would presumably be targeting his article at Australians, which makes it notable that the perennially unpopular Arnold is ommitted as a key member of the Socceroos coaching staff.
Talking of Arnold and ex-Socceroos, did anyone else watch football superstar last night? Fascinating to see the old Socceroos playing a match against the youg guns, including none other than Robbie Slater!
Pippinu said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:29am | Report comment
Lieve Pim – ik hou van jou heel veel!!!
GeneralAshnak said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:31am | Report comment
This is a very feel good article, but it does highlight some very important points that get missed by the regular media, and quite often the football media. Our going Dutch has been a completely tactical decision, we have deliberately chosen to make use of the Dutch system to improve the quality of football here in Australia. Though Pim was not brought here to overhaul the entire football system in Australia – as many of us were hoping – the FFA have decided that what the Dutch football philosophy offers is the perfect tie in with Australia. I would suggest that as a sporting nation the main strength we bring to every competition is an unswerving belief that we can win. That belief has been formed over a long period of time where we, as a tiny little nation, have competed extremely successfully in a huge number of sports with countries whose population and wealth far, far exceeds our own. I personally am looking forward to the long term result of this decision, especially as by the 2026 World Cup we would have had our first generation of players who have grown up entirely under this system ready to be playing on the biggest stage in the world.
Pippinu said | July 2nd 2009 @ 9:56am | Report comment
General
…or by a 2022 WC hosted in Australia??
I think it’s ok to be excited about us sticking with Dutch expertise – if nothing else, it’s a constant, uniform message and there’s stacks of expertise available at an affordable price – but I do have a problem with some aspects of this article.
Kurt is right that the opening sentence about Dutch football being the most successful of the last 40 years makes zero sense on any level.
Also, I don’t think it’s smart for them to buy into local arguments about whether a particular code is about to self-implode because of “scandals”:
1. because it’s bull shit and makes them sound like dills;
2. it’s not their job to worry about that sort of bull shit anyway;
3. it might play well to some segments of the population, but will play less well to other segments; and
4. I’m only just reading that Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted kicking in the car window of a teenage girl, sending glass splinters into her and having her admitted into hospital for treatment – reinforcing the message – forget the bull shit, leave the PR to Buckley and do the job you’re being paid to do.
Koala Bear said | July 2nd 2009 @ 10:04am | Report comment
I have to mention this … Graham Arnold’s body language is so much different around Pims… He almost seems to me he is directing Pim when you see them together on the sidelines… A far different GA when he was assistant to Farina and Guus when he was always clearly seen as the subordinate … Am I imagining this, or is there someone else out there that feels the same vibe… ?
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KB