Dutch order unravels as minnows NAC take top spot in Eredivisie

Leander Schaerlaeckens
Guardian
Tuesday 21 October 2008

Give a Dutchman a choice and he will say no. It's in his inherent nature to question and resist. The refusal in the Netherlands' first ever referendum, when the European Constitution was voted down in 2005, surprised few and confirmed why we don't hold referendums to begin with.

This stubbornness is as Dutch as coffee shops and low-quality techno music. That's why the great Dutch football managers of yore were disciplinarians. Rinus Michels, who is credited with inventing Total Football, wasn't called "The General" for nothing. Kees Rijvers, Leo Beenhakker and Aad de Mos built impressive international careers on respect and order — the latter two held 35 managerial jobs between them. Louis van Gaal has a monopoly on the truth, or so he believes, and at Ajax was known for berating his players, standing to attention, for half an hour at a time. Following a Willem II loss, Co Adriaanse was once so peeved that he made them walk 20km to the stadium, complete a brutal training session and walk back.

Ex-Everton player and former Roda JC manager, Raymond Atteveld, is a bruiser in the same mould. While no player on a lacklustre Roda roster merits star treatment, his players nevertheless grew disgusted with him and his methods. And so, with five games gone, Atteveld became the first managerial casualty of the season with his tally of two points from those five matches hardly helping his cause. His temporary replacement is his ex-assistant Martin Koopman, who makes everybody laugh and doesn't make them run as much.

On Saturday caretaker Koopman fielded almost exactly the same side and hardly did better than Atteveld. Against Heerenveen, a tame match yielded a 2-2 score. After the match Koopman told the press that he has no interest in staying on.

Atteveld's dismissal is emblematic of a power shift in Dutch football. His junior standing left him without the pedigree of van Gaal or Adriaanse, and thus he did not have their same mandate to shout. Dutch managers have been successfully exported to other football nations for decades but we may have seen the last of the headmaster variety. Today's sensitive footballer and his fragile ego no longer allow it. The boss is, in fact, no longer the boss. Since Jean-Marc Bosman granted footballers their freedom, it's something they've grasped with glee. The result? A bunch of annoyed players can now get their manager fired.

Perhaps it's why the modern Dutch manager is more relaxed. Guus Hiddink and Frank Rijkaard have had considerable success by just standing back and letting squads regulate themselves. Marco van Basten, though, has had mixed results by blending the two managerial styles. He's relatively easygoing so long as his authority isn't questioned and his orders are followed, otherwise he becomes venomous. However the approach is yet to work at Ajax, who hardly look ready to compete for the Dutch title let alone European silverware.

Van Basten's men barely beat FC Groningen 1-0 on Saturday. The away side's supporters could only console themselves by knowing their team were hard done by, something they noted with banners reading: "Finally the No1 is playing in Amsterdam." Oleguer Presas scored the only goal with a header from a freaky bounce before "the liberating final whistle was celebrated by Ajax … as if Groningen were PSV," wrote Nik Kok tellingly in Algemeen Dagblad.

Ajax were only moderately better than their pathetic showing in their last match, when they were trounced by Heerenveen 5-2. "We talked about our attitude of two weeks ago and there wasn't a shortage of that anymore," Van Basten said, begging the question of what it is then that ails Ajax. The manager perhaps?

Unhelpfully, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who hoped to score 35 league goals this year, hasn't been spotted in weeks. While the real Huntelaar sits in a basement, gagged and bound, his doppelganger is out making pub-league strikers everywhere feel better about themselves. Some 300 miles north-west perhaps Manchester City are breathing a sigh of relief that their €40m bid for him was refused. They'll use that change at the laundrette instead.

Against De Graafschap, a somewhat lucky AZstriker Mounir El Hamdaoui unapologetically continued his charge up the scoring charts by stumbling in the only two goals of the match, bringing his season's tally to eight. He now trails only Matthew Amoah of NAC's nine net-bulgers. Afterwards the inimitable Louis van Gaal slagged off both his own team and the opposing supporters. "I don't think we played well," he harrumphed. "We weren't positioned well and we weren't aggressive enough. [I] tried to fix it with some instructions and some yelling, because at De Graafschap the players can actually hear you."

Feyenoord fell further into disrepair, losing to Willem II 1-0. Steeped in talent, the wildly inconsistent Rotterdammers appear to have taken themselves out of the running for the league title; now in fact edging nearer the relegation zone. "Ashamed? Why should I be?" manager Gertjan Verbeek said shamelessly when asked about his side's shameful 15th place.

Steve McClaren's primal scream, reminiscent of a Soviet discus-thrower on a double dose of steroids, eventually convinced his FC Twente side to dispatch Heracles 2-0 in the derby of the east. (Unmissable scream after 5:55 in clip.)

Down south, NAC deservedly defeated four-time defending champions PSV. NAC have been performing better all season and their phenomenal wing play forced PSV manager Huub Stevens to humiliate both of his wing-backs, Erik Pieters and Jan Kromkamp, by substituting them early on. An own goal by Belgian PSV captain Timmy Simons and another fabulous finish by Amoah put NAC 2-0 ahead before Ibrahim Afellay, who transcended his peers once again, made the final score
2-1.

"PSV's club song says 'We're going to battle,'" Stevens noted. "I don't know if our players know the club song because I didn't see [a battle]." The result put NAC top of the table for the first time since Dutch football became professional in 1954. "I don't think it's undeserved that we're there," manager Rob Maaskant said. "We're playing decent football at the moment."

"You see that smaller clubs … aren't as scared of the big clubs anymore and that just makes the league more fun," NAC winger Anthony Lurling said, capturing the zeitgeist. Two hours after the final whistle NAC's players were still dancing on the field in front of a packed stadium, enjoying their first place. As they should.