Unlike the people who are forced to stay at home, as a football coach in the Eredivisie, he cannot complain, says Kees van Wonderen (52). Okay, his players are again spread over three different changing rooms. And yes, everyone must keep at least one and a half meters away. And playing without an audience hurts. But he can just go on the field. Grass at the feet. Nice ball with those guys. Make them better. Plane, plan, plan. “Getting something done together, that’s what I like best about coaching,” says the former international, who won the UEFA Cup as a Feyenoord player in 2002 and has been the trainer of Go Ahead Eagles for a year and a half.
However, not everyone will be so cheerful. He understands that too. Closed cafes, empty sports fields, evaporating savings, canceled hobbies; it hits a lot of people. So yes, in that sense he is easy to talk to. “I really understand the dissatisfaction in society.” But, Van Wonderen wonders, „is that the fault of our leaders? Would the catering industry have been open now if we had set aside Mark Rutte and Hugo de Jonge as football trainers?”
He wants to talk about the latter. At your own request.
Last week he read in NRC the interview with professor of public institutions Arjen Boin. In it, Boin answered the question of what should happen now that infection rates and hospital admissions are rising and citizens’ confidence in the crisis approach had dwindled. His answer: “Actually, ministers and OMT members should now be replaced, just like the coach leaves a football club that keeps on losing. With that you show as a cabinet that you really mean business.”
Those words excited him, so Van Wonderen climbed into the pen to respond to that statement. Which is remarkable. Sports and politics should be kept separate, it usually sounds from the side of trainers and football players.
Why did you want to respond?
“Because I see parallels with the world I work in. That finger pointing, the search for a culprit … you see that in football. Disappointing results? Sooner or later someone has to pay for it. Mostly us, the trainers. We are the evil genius then. It often quickly turns out that the trainer was not the problem.”
Do you think Rutte and De Jonge are portrayed as evil geniuses?
“When I watch TV broadcasts, I mainly see people scolding each other. So negative. What do we get with that? Maarten van Rossem said the last thing On 1: ‘We can curse Rutte and De Jonge, but managing this crisis is very difficult.’ I think above all that we should stand behind each other, regardless of whether someone is doing well or badly. Try to empathize with someone else’s situation.”
Is that enough in your work, that empathy?
“Supporters want success, and preferably quickly. They don’t have too much patience. If you have done well as a trainer for a while, then you have some kind of credit. In fact, whatever Rutte has built up, after all the years he has led the country. Until the misery continues. Then the fingers come your way. And that is not easy.”
Also read: Five tons? Go Ahead will not pay such salaries
Van Wonderen experienced it himself. Last year, in his first season with Go Ahead, things slowed down for a while. After a defeat against Jong AZ, he noticed that supporters started to look at him differently. Had their club chosen the right course? Was Van Wonderen the right man?
“I was disappointed, I felt enormously responsible. Was working day and night turning it around. Especially for all the people of the club. If we win, it will be a lot easier for commercial employees to renew contracts with sponsors. And players become worth more, so that the club can then sell them again to stay financially healthy.
“And to make the comparison with Rutte again: he has this in abundance. They will feel an enormous responsibility for the well-being of all Dutch people.”
It’s part of the job, people will say. Football coaches know what they are getting into.
“I have nothing to do with such a cry. It is often not the trainer’s fault at all. It is the impotence that is taken out on him, usually by supporters. If the trainer is gone and a team continues to lose, they want the board gone. Keep it up. My point is: the cause often lies elsewhere and yet someone gets the blame.
“I also get that feeling with the pandemic and with politics. Just as football supporters should stand behind their club more in times of adversity, I think the Dutch should do the same. Don’t kick everything. Be proud too.”
Sounds idealistic.
“I am also annoyed by certain things, really. I also don’t know if we have the right government. However, it is very difficult to get everything right in this crisis.”
Are you satisfied with the party you voted for?
“I have always voted VVD.”
You are not the prime minister’s mouthpiece, are you?
“This enormous crisis is cross-party. That also ties into my message. We are in this together – left, right, progressive, conservative – so it would be nice if everyone thinks in his or her own way: what can I do to contribute to the solution? Instead of pointing at each other and trying to destroy each other.”
About Van Wonderen, supporters also thought that others would do better. During the difficult period, Go Ahead Eagles received an e-mail from a supporter who wondered when the club would send ‘that sniffer intern’ back to Zeist. With that remark he referred to the years that Van Wonderen was national coach of national youth selections. A message that he remembered, because the same man emailed again three months later. This time with the question why the club had not yet extended his contract. Not much later, Van Wonderen was promoted to the Eredivisie with Go Ahead.
“Such opportunism characterizes the football world. Everywhere I’ve played and trained, I’ve noticed that. Also at Feyenoord. The season after we won the UEFA Cup, we started badly. Fans shouted that we had to ‘work for our money’. Against players who had just won a top prize.”
With Go Ahead, he is currently in the left row of the Eredivisie, in eighth place. From all sides there is praise for the game of his team, while he was still ridiculed last season. Van Wonderen: “We are talking about the same trainer at the same club with the same supporters.”
#Kees #van #Wonderen #search #culprit #football