We go again
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Was this lad offered the Celtic gig last season?
Not sure.
He was offered Spurs anyway.
slot managed Jack Byrne
In fact you could say Jack Byrne made him
Welcome on board pal. Your usual spot in the Ratoath Inn will be ready for you in August for the Arne era.
TELL LLF NEVER
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I saw the word jizz mentioned on another thread. I wonder will Coach-Elect Slot make a move for the prolific Dutch striker.
Slot is the most promising manager in the world right now
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People always think Slots are promising and rarely does it turn out to be the case.
Thats a very small mentality. Like the letter Van Der Sar sent about Donny. The Dutch are some quislings.
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Slot wonât make it to December.
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Obsession
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The making of Arne Slot â âhe is more intelligent than Erik ten Hagâ
Friends and mentors who have helped to shape new Liverpool managerâs rise believe he is cleverer and more empathetic than Old Trafford rival
Oliver Brown,
CHIEF SPORTS WRITER, IN BERGENTHEIM, NETHERLANDS
20 May 2024 ⢠5:17pm
A couple of miles from the German border, Bergentheim nestles on the edge of the Netherlandsâ answer to the Bible Belt. Two churches stand sentry beside the canal bisecting this village of chocolate-box prettiness, although there used to be three. Rote learning of the New Testament was once a feature of local education, as Arne Slot, today the communityâs most famous son, found out first hand. âHe especially liked the story of the Good Samaritan,â recalls Jan Ophof, his childhood mentor. âThat one made an impression on him.â
But on an unusually balmy spring evening, it seems, in these secular times, as if the one truly unifying faith here is football. Children of all ages are gathering in the sunshine for after-school training at VV Bergentheim, on artificial pitches of a standard to put those of many major towns to shame. âWe have good sponsors,â smiles chairman Bert Nijenhuis, as he shows off the immaculate clubhouse. They also have quite the story to tell. For it is to this bucolic setting that Slot, their celebrated alumnus, returns every August to deliver a coaching clinic. Except this summer he will do so as manager of Liverpool.
His appointment stirs immense satisfaction among those who have tracked his talents from the start. At 45, Slot has already brought cachet to Bergentheim through his feats at Feyenoord, defying initial scepticism in Rotterdam to become known as the âMessiah on the Maasâ. Liverpool, though, is a promotion that astounds even true believers. It is little wonder that the clubâs committee is already scrambling to book a trip to Anfield next season, or that it is planning to screen every Liverpool match live in the bar.
One of Slotâs many monikers in the Netherlands is the âXavi of Bergentheimâ. It might be a touch generous, given the testimony of many former team-mates that he was never especially quick or nimble. But Ophof, a richly expressive figure with a playful grin and a shock of slicked-back grey hair, identified in his protege a precocious coaching mind. âHe was nine years old and he would ask me: âCan we do this, can we do that?â And I kept looking at him, thinking: âIs he really only nine?â Even then he was direct, technically very strong. He knew whether to pass it out to the right wing or the left, in a split-second. He would go to sleep with the ball and wake up with it.â
Amid the Liverpool fervour, a running joke between Ophof and Nijenhuis is that Arne, as a player, would not be called the strongest in his own family. That distinction falls to his father, Arend, a former headmaster and member of a Dutch amateur team who came agonisingly close to qualifying for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Where paternal ambition was thwarted, Arend was determined that nothing about Arneâs nurturing should be left to chance.
âArne was only six when he first came here, and I was coaching 10-to-12-year-olds, but his father said: âCan he play with your team?ââ Ophof explains. âIt was the right thing to do. His father was very strict, very hard.â
âDiscipline, discipline,â Nijenhuis agrees. âOh yeah,â Ophof says. âIf the boy wasnât good at football, he didnât like the boy.â
Mercifully, for Liverpool fans nervous about Slotâs credentials to succeed JĂźrgen Klopp, there are few signs of the same harshness with Arne. After eight years in coaching, one consistent tribute to his style is that he has empathy, knowing precisely what to say to a struggling player â and how to say it. ââLook at what Thomas Tuchel did,â says Ophof, referring to the Bayern Munich manager berating centre-back Kim Min-jae for âgreedyâ defending against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals. âArne would never do that to a player. He would do it face-to-face in private, never for the cameras.
Slot has built an image around his equable temperament, seldom lurching too high or too low. It is a psyche typical of Bergentheim, which, you can detect on even a brief visit, is not a place inclined towards hero worship.
On a tour of the club premises, Nijenhuis stresses how, for all the pride they have here in Slotâs achievements, they feel the same powerful emotions about the Second World War resistance fighters that this region produced.
Any notion of him being the villageâs greatest export, he suggests, should be kept in perspective.
One nagging doubt about Slot on Merseyside is whether he simply represents Erik ten Hag Mark II. Even the besieged Manchester United manager was the future once, arriving at Old Trafford on a wave of goodwill after winning the Eredivisie with Ajax, just as Slot did at Feyenoord last year. The two have an age gap of only nine years and grew up just 40 miles apart. Another no-nonsense Dutchman, another Johan Cruyff disciple promising to reinvent âtotal footballâ in the Premier League? Liverpool supporters could be forgiven for claiming that they have heard this one before. Except Ophof insists, in defence of his star pupil, that they need not be worried. âArne is more intelligent than Ten Hag,â he says, with disarming bluntness. âHe is different.â
How does this intelligence manifest itself? For illustrations, it helps to travel 90 miles north to Leeuwarden, where Slotâs steepest of coaching trajectories began. In this picturesque little city, the heart of Friesland, Gerald van den Belt is on his lunch break. As financial director of Cambuur, known locally as the âfolk clubâ, he is busily organising a relocation to a larger stadium in three monthsâ time. But for one hour he is happy to elaborate on the virtues of Slot, one of his closest friends.
The pair socialise together, play padel together, their paths so entwined that Van den Beltâs son, Thomas, is a rising star under Slot at Feyenoord.
It was Van den Belt who gave Slot his first break in management at Cambuur, under Henk de Jong. âYou want to know the first thing I told Arne?â says De Jong, as he strides through the stadium lobby, back for his second stint in charge. âAs a coach, donât be a grey mouse.â Roughly translated, he means that it was important for Slot to stand out. Not that there was ever much danger of him fading into the background.
As an evangelist for using data to his teamâs advantage, he made an early impact by telling De Jong to reduce the number of high crosses from wide areas, arguing that only one in 80 would be successful. âArne spent 10 minutes trying to convince Henk about this,â Van den Belt remembers. âIn the end, Henk replied: âThatâs a good idea. Weâll cross 160 times and that way weâll always score twice.ââ
Eventually, Slot converted Cambuur to his way of thinking, going to extraordinary lengths to do so. âOur fans thought he was mad at first,â Van den Belt says. âSo he said to me: âOn Tuesday evening, invite anyone to the club who wants to come.â He spoke for two hours, with video analysis of his reasons for changing, for asking his players to spend a few more seconds creating a better chance, rather than resorting to a high cross. He encouraged fans to be patient, not negative. Afterwards, they were very excited. Arne will do anything to achieve a better result. Anything thatâs a bad influence, he tries to transform.â
Rob McDonald, a striker for PSV Eindhoven and Newcastle in the mid-to-late Eighties, observed a similar trait. He has lived in the Netherlands for 40 years and one of his many roles in coaching was at Zwolle, where Slot first forged his reputation as a shadow striker, making up for a lack of speed with visionary passing. âThe thing I noticed about Arne was, not arrogance exactly, but the fact he had so much confidence in himself,â McDonald says.
âI could tell from his face that he was gutted when I didnât pick him for the team at first, but business was business. He had an air about him on the pitch. A player would try to tackle him hard, and he would just shoot them this glance. He has had the same attitude as a manager. It is one of âI know what Iâm talking about, listen to me.ââ
It would be misleading to characterise Slot as an autocrat. But he is distinguished, like the titans who have gone before him at Liverpool, by a consuming thirst for glory. âHe doesnât want to ignore a single per cent of his potential influence on a result,â Van den Belt says. âHe is an absolute winner. We use the word âwinnerâ a lot in football â about Paul Gascoigne, for example. But Gascoigne was crazy and could have won so much more. Arne, on the other hand, realises that doing stupid things runs counter to winning. You have to stay in control if you truly want to have influence.â
There can be a tendency towards cultural exceptionalism in England, a suspicion that accomplishments in Dutch football mean nothing in the Premier League. What Slot has engineered at Feyenoord is genuinely startling, however. Van den Belt relates the story of how, in 2022, the club lost 7-0 in a pre-season friendly to Copenhagen, with their Danish opponents accusing them of not taking the match seriously. Nine months later, despite an almost wholesale turnover of players, they won the league. That, his friend argues, is why he is now treated as a âdemi-godâ in Rotterdam.
All his career, his attention to detail has been relentless. At Zwolle, where his face looms large on the clubâs wall of heroes, he developed a habit of launching the ball high into the sky at kick-off. Dutch TV pundits mocked him mercilessly for it. But what they neglected to notice, Van den Belt says, is that he was doing it deliberately, wrongfooting the opposition as they looked directly into the sun. ââWhat an idiot,ââ his critics laughed. And yet that year, Zwolle scored seven times within the first 30 seconds.â
The same meticulousness applies at Feyenoord, where Slot has taken a particular interest in maintaining his playersâ circadian rhythms. âDutch teams play at ridiculous times because of the TV demands,â McDonald says.
âSo Arne changes the schedule, making sure that they train at the same time that theyâre playing the next night, enhancing their metabolism.â His approach has yielded rich reward, including a Dutch Cup triumph last month, but he craves a grander stage. âAfter three years, what more can he do at Feyenoord?â says his friend Pascal Frederiks, Zwolleâs former right-back. âI was a little surprised at first that Liverpool didnât get a bigger name. But why not? He can articulate everything in his head extremely well.â
This ease of communication is a key attribute in separating him from Ten Hag. None of the usual criticisms of the United manager â that he lacks warmth or human connection, that he is too stern in his manner â are likely, McDonald predicts, to be raised against Slot. âWhen I look at Erik in interviews, I can 100 per cent put on paper what heâs going to say. Arne will at least put a joke in now and then. He knows precisely who heâs talking to. He has this way of showing people respect but still getting a little dig in.â
The task that confronts Slot at Liverpool is vast. A school of thought holds sway that he is simply a holding substitute for Xabi Alonso, that he could easily shrivel in the shadow of Kloppâs cult of personality. Still, the overwhelming view in his native land is that he can confound expectations, reminding Liverpoolâs superstars how to create a team greater than the sum of their parts.
âArne always has a message that the collective, the team, makes the individual look better,â Van den Belt says. âThatâs a very important part of his football philosophy. A scout told me recently, âNever take players from Arne Slotâs team. They always look better than they are.â That is, when you think about it, the biggest compliment to a coach.â
A scalding baptism awaits Slot. But if there is one view on which his compatriots are united, it is that he is not to be underestimated.
Slotâs life in football in nine quotes
By Ramsay Hodgson
Relatively little is known about Feyenoord manager Arne Slot, the man who will succeed Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.
Here are nine of the Dutchmanâs best quotes that provide an insight into what makes him tick.
- On his expectations of players:
âI want as many good football players as possible in the team and I want to make them work as hard as possible. I believe that when we work to perfect our habits every day, we have more chance to cut out luck.â
- On Messi, Guardiola and Klopp:
âThere are two people who have really enriched football in recent decades, who have never disappointed me. Those are Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola.
âMessi has everything. Guardiolaâs teams always play good, dominant, well-thought-out football. Then of course you have Jurgen Klopp. Manchester City-Liverpool for me is the ultimate game.â
- On his pressing philosophy:
âWe always want to create a surplus around the ball, both offensively and defensively so that we can lock down the opponent and immediately move forward. We always have to press the ball aggressively when we are outnumbered. That is why our defenders must be as high as possible on the field, so that we can win the ball in the opponentâs half and immediately launch a counter-attack.â
- On his formation, system and flexibility:
âThere are several teams playing with many systems. We have a team where you can see the changing system in the game. We play 4-3-3 and if the opponent is trying to pressure us in a certain way then we need to have an answer to that. These differences can be quite small to see.â
- On losing to Manchester United (as AZ Alkmaar manager):
âThe first 50 minutes I think we played quite well. I had the feeling it was quite a close match and that both teams could score. When youâre 1-0 down and you have to win over here itâs going to be very difficult and then the situation of the second goal comes and afterward it was over for us. United showed how good they were in that period.
âWhen you want to have a result at Old Trafford you cannot have a situation like this [for the second goal]. Everyone saw it was a foul, we watched it back and it was a clear foul. When you concede a goal after a foul like this itâs almost impossible for us to win then over here.â
- On his relationship with fans:
âOur fans are so important, of course the players are important, but the fans can create this atmosphere between the players and the fans so we can score. We need them.â
- On Feyenoordâs rivalry with AS Roma:
âThe Dutch media asked me a lot of questions, âdo you think about revenge [for the Europa Conference League final defeat in 2021/22)â⌠and then the headline is âhe wants revengeâ. But of course if youâve lost a game, if itâs a final or another game, itâs quite normal for a professional sportsman that you want to win the next time.
âI do not think that itâs an emotional overload that makes it difficult or these kinds of things to play against AS Roma. What makes it difficult is that they have a very good organisation and very, very good individual players.â
- On Jose Mourinho criticising his sideâs progress:
âIf he said this a few months ago then I completely agree with him. I watched the game back this morning from the Conference League final and that team played very good football always the way to the final and also during the final. And at the beginning of this season the team that is here now didnât play that well.
âBut Iâm hoping that maybe when he [Mourinho] sits here in a few hours he will change his opinion, because that is what I do. I think weâve improved a lot through the season.â
- On why Celtic are better than Rangers:
âI think they [Celtic] are a great team who play good football.
âYou should have and pay respect to teams that have been champions. Because I know how difficult it is to become a champion.
âCeltic, the last 10 years, they were nine times champions [in Scotland], I think Iâll offend Rangers fans, but Celtic are a much better team than Rangers if you look at the results.
âIâm a Dutchman so of course I like to watch Rangers. They had Giovanni van Bronckhorst, I think at that time they were really good but in the last 10 years Celtic have performed much better.â
Ruh Roh!
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I stopped reading after this.
Jesus if thatâs the barometer. It wouldnât be hard.
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Low bar and donât bother with rest after I read that line too
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https://twitter.com/offtheball/status/1792664091925844221?s=46
Klopp fell out with all geeks who bought the good players.