Dutch sack race begins at the top

Leander Schaerlaeckens
The Guardian
Thursday May 22 2008

Nothing fails like success for managers in Holland as the top three's bosses are all shown the door.

Proof: Sef Vergoossen, Adrie Koster and Ernie Brandts, who made up the top three with PSV, Ajax and NAC respectively, will all be unemployed a few weeks from now with no prospects on the horizon.

In what will surely be remembered as a season even more bizarre than most Dutch league campaigns, Ajax and PSV used five managers between them, PSV once again survived an 11th-hour title push by Ajax and no manager's job was safe, especially not if he was performing well.

For starters, Ajax manager Henk ten Cate decided that he would rather be No2 at Chelsea than in charge at Ajax in early October. Under ten Cate, the team had not only failed to make it through the Champions League's final qualifying round but the first round of the Uefa Cup as well.

Adrie Koster inherited an Ajax team ravaged by injury and, well, mediocrity. As caretaker he was to tide the club over until Marco van Basten becomes available after the European Championships. Not only did he do that, he staged an improbable title-assault despite missing the backbone of his team, Edgar Davids (injury), Jaap Stam (retirement in January) and Wesley Sneijder (left for Real Madrid days before the season). More impressively, he kept his team focused throughout the unrest surrounding it. He'll be rewarded with a plush job as reserves manager next year.

In late October, Ronald Koeman, manager of eventual champions PSV, bolted from Eindhoven to take the reins at shambolic Valencia. Yet grass didn't turn out to be greener at Mestalla for Koeman who was fired before April was out after transforming his new team from mere underachievers to relegation candidates. "I'm relieved," he told the Algemeen Dagblad the other day. "It was the wrong choice."

After Koeman's departure, PSV was entrusted to Jan Wouters, who proved at Ajax almost a decade ago that he is no manager. In January, Wouters was replaced by another caretaker, Vergoossen, who held together an oddball collection of players (even by PSV's standards) and secured a championship with unattractive yet effective football. But despite doing an admirable job, Vergoossen will have to make way for Huub Stevens. Vergoossen's most tempting job offer thus far is at a football academy in Limburg.

Ernie Brandts guided NAC to a baffling third-place finish despite having a team tipped by most to finish in the bottom half of the table. For his overachievement he was thanked - and shown the door after being told a porky pie about chemistry and opportunistic football. He will be replaced by Robert Maaskant, who has a poor top flight track-record. As it stands, Brandts will be spending his Sundays playing Sudoku next year.

Heerenveen similarly discarded their talented manager Gertjan Verbeek, who steered the club to consistency throughout four tumultuous years. Feyenoord then gleefully made him their new boss.

But this season's most surprising (and pleasing) event came when AZ manager Louis van Gaal's giant mouth finally caught up with him. His side, which he had led to a masterful second and third place in the two previous seasons, came unstuck and could only muster an 11th place. Van Gaal, known best for speaking the worst Spanish ever heard, blamed everything but himself and decided to walk at the end of the season. But, following a curious outcry from his players for him to stay on, he changed his mind.

The manager's conundrum might best be explained by the mayhem in the boardrooms of all three big clubs. A stinging report blamed Ajax management for a string of moronic transfers over the past decade which led to virtually the entire backroom and boardroom having to clear out and the chairman being replaced by the author of the report, Uri Coronel. PSV director Jan Reker irritated everyone from the staff by the watercooler to his star-keeper Gomes, who says he will leave if Reker does not. And Feyenoord lost their manager, Bert van Marwijk, to the Dutch national team and decided that almost the entire staff should follow him out the door, despite their considerable success in bringing attractive football back to Rotterdam.

Other than that it was business as usual in the Netherlands with PSV winning their fourth consecutive championship, Ajax sustaining their run of futility, Feyenoord pretending they're still a top club and all the best talent being poached by mediocre teams from abroad.

For the third and, thankfully, final year the regular season was followed by the play-offs, an asinine series of matches that decided all European places save for the direct Champions League entry - which automatically went to champions PSV - leaving one to wonder what the regular season's purpose was.

Ajax had won the previous two versions of the play-offs but despite finishing second in the league, lost their spot in the Champions League qualifying round to fourth-placed FC Twente. Ironically, Ajax will be missing out on the Champions League millions because of an artificial post-season designed to generate more revenue.

FC Volendam and ADO Den Haag were promoted and Excelsior and VVV relegated to the First Division.