by Ruud Gullit
Teammate Mark Hughes and I—he had played at Manchester United and Barcelona—took the squad under our wing. Experienced players see everything a lot quicker, you can tell what’s going on and what’s about to happen so you have more time to talk, to tell players what to do and to coach. Eventually other players start to get it and to play the way you want.
English soccer
The manager, Glenn Hoddle, put me in central defense, as I had suggested when we discussed my move from Sampdoria to Chelsea. Great idea, said Glenn. Until I chested down the first couple of deep balls, let the ball fall to my feet and passed to the nearest teammate. The fans loved it. “Whoah,” came the response from the stands. But Hoddle was aghast. No one in the Chelsea side had ever played like that. Someone like Michael Duberry, a killer at the back, was expecting me to kick the ball straight back upfield, and suddenly there it was at his feet: “What the f*** are you doing?” he shouted as he skied the ball blindly into the stands.
It’s true I thought we could set up an attack by building from the back. But at halftime Glenn said: “Ruud, I know what you were trying to do and it’s great, but not here and not now. Would you please move up into midfield?” Clearly, the tactics you choose have to match the individual qualities of the other players.
In England, the midfield area is where players fight for the ball. With my insight I managed to avoid those duels. After one game Gavin Peacock, a midfielder who had joined from Newcastle United, asked: “Ruud, how come you’re always in free space?” I couldn’t explain it, but with ten, fifteen years’ experience at the top you know where to go and where not to go.
For me, the Premier League was the ideal place to be at that time. Everyone was saying that the pace was so fast and every game was a battle, but I felt like I had more than enough time and space to develop as a player. And a bit of confrontation was no problem. Until someone floored me with a really brutal tackle and I broke my ankle. I carried on playing for a bit, but that didn’t go well of course, so I was off the pitch for a couple of months.
I loved England. Naturally I had to speak English, so we could communicate with each other effectively. At AC Milan no one spoke English, so I had to get by with a minimal amount of Italian. Even the manager, Arrigo Sacchi, could hardly make himself understood in English. When he came to me to suggest some tactical change he’d tell me in English with his heavy Italian accent: “I am Gullit, I come and I go in zone dangerous.” For emphasis, he described it with his hands and promptly pulled a muscle in his neck; it was hilarious. Sacchi would always want to hold discussions in his office. I preferred talking on the pitch, when the moment was still fresh in the memory and everyone could picture the situation you were talking about.
While there was a huge gap between English and Italian soccer at that time, as a player I really enjoyed playing in England. English club soccer was at a low ebb, but better days lay ahead. Premier League clubs had begun raising their income in the mid-nineties with lucrative television contracts, enabling them to buy up expensive players from abroad: Eric Cantona, Jürgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp, David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla all went for English pounds sterling.
Managers also found themselves in an international market: English managers increasingly made way for foreigners, the supreme example being Arsène Wenger. In 1996, I also joined the managers’ guild as player-manager at Chelsea.
English grass
In England, clubs in the lower divisions often employed a tactic that involved letting the grass in the corners of the pitch grow a little longer. During the 1998/99 season, when I was coaching Newcastle United and we played Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park, the corner flags were almost overgrown. Their manager was John Aldridge, the famous former Liverpool striker, and his central defenders had orders to kick every ball into the long grass in our corners. Since the ball rolled to a halt there, it hardly ever went over the line. From there they would cross the ball toward our goal. It was a difficult tactic to defend against. And if our defenders kicked the ball over the touchline then one of their players would throw it in all the way to the goalmouth.
Talking about throw-ins: they had a clever ploy at Tranmere. There was a door in the advertising hoardings there and the ball boys had towels at the ready. I couldn’t believe my eyes. As I watched, a Tranmere player disappeared from view, drying the ball. I stepped out of the dugout to see where he had gone and there he was, standing among the spectators. With that door open he had an extra couple of meters’ run-up and he threw the ball right up to the penalty spot. Like a free kick! I asked the ref if that wasn’t against the rules, but he allowed it.
Later, when we had a throw-in near there, the door remained resolutely shut of course, and there were no towels to be found either.
Rocket man
Later on in my playing career at Sampdoria and Chelsea I felt as if I had been released from my chains, I played free and easy. I could see everything three times as fast and flew like a rocket. I had the most fun as a player at Genoa. All my experience came into its own. I wanted a completely free role up front, and that is precisely what the Sampdoria manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson, gave me. At Chelsea, it was exactly the same under Glenn Hoddle, although Glenn kept me out of the defensive lineup because I took too many risks.
The package I brought with me from AC Milan was perfect for Sampdoria and Chelsea. In Genoa I was a striker alongside Mancini and I scored sixteen goals in thirty-one league games in the 1993/94 season. At AC Milan I had never got more than nine in the net.
Yet nothing compares to the feeling of winning and the professionalism they evinced at AC Milan. It was hard work, but that club is the best thing that ever happened to me. However, it was at PSV and Sampdoria that I enjoyed playing the most. At Eindhoven I was the star practically every week, whatever position I was playing in. Of course, I tended to dominate the team, the whole club actually, yet I had a lot of fun too, with everything I did.
Feyenoord, at the start of my career, was where I learned most, especially under Johan Cruijff. I realized that it was the team that mattered. An obvious example is my place in the Dutch team at the 1988 European Championship in West Germany. In the group stage against England I was on the left wing and in the final against the Russians I was up front. It could be frustrating sometimes, but you have to sacrifice your own interests for the team, even when you disagree with your coach’s tactical vision. Especially if you’re captaining the national side.
Although, of course, I understood that the team was the priority, I never played to my true ability in an orange shirt.
At the 1992 European Championship I was on the right wing in the group stage against Germany and I faced Michael Frontzeck as my direct opponent. He was constantly going forward, and with me chasing after him. At halftime I asked our coach, Rinus Michels, whether someone else could take over for me. All he said was: “You keep dogging that Frontzeck.” “That” Frontzeck was as pleased as Punch and more than glad of my company. His job was to make sure I came nowhere near the German penalty area. Frontzeck had the easiest task possible; and we had made sure ourselves that I wasn’t part of the attack thanks to the defensive provider Michels had given me. The Netherlands won 3–1 and the whole country was in ecstasy, but for me the game was totally unsatisfying.
When it comes to positions and tactics, I always had a kind of love–hate relationship with the Dutch squad. The tactics that the various national coaches chose were not always what suited me, even though players are selected for the squad for their specific qualities. My problem was that I could play in several positions and my basic level was so high I could be used for all kinds of tactics, so that I often had to put my own ambitions second in the service of the team. I often played as a pure right winger for the Netherlands, even though I didn’t have the specific qualities for that role in a 4-3-3 formation.
Looking back, it all came easy to me. Cruijff made me conscious of my respons
ibility as a team player and persuaded me that I could develop into someone who could lead a side, both on and off the pitch.
Manager
After my first year at Chelsea, in 1996 the chairman, Ken Bates, asked me if I wanted to be a manager, to succeed Glenn Hoddle. Hoddle had been appointed to coach the England side and the fans were calling for me to be the new guy. I hesitated at first, because it signaled the end of my playing career. Being a manager-coach and a player at the same time is almost impossible. You have to divide your attention, so you do both half well. It’s an illusion to imagine that you can manage a major club and also play in every game. At the top, you have to do either one or the other. At some point, Gullit the player would have to make way for Gullit the manager.
Although I was just a beginner as a manager, Bates gave me all the space I wanted. I hadn’t even taken a course in youth coaching when I took the helm at Chelsea. It was only after Chelsea that I took a Professional Football Coach’s course in the Netherlands. At first I had to rely on my experience as a player and the lessons I had learned from managers such as Arrigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello, Rinus Michels and Sven-Göran Eriksson.
It was all in my head; nothing on paper. Since I was working with top players I didn’t need to bother with practice exercises and plans. The main thing was to create a connection between the players and help them complement each other’s qualities. It’s about searching for the ideal combination of players until you have a squad that gels together as a team.
I organized various combinations to play each other for prizes, to foster automatic responses between players, which increases the pace and keeps everyone on the pitch sharp. For a prize of ten pounds the sparks flew. From experience I knew that players loved this kind of thing and they really enjoyed themselves.
At a preseason competition, we once played against Ajax. The fantastic Ajax side that Louis van Gaal had built, which had won the Champions League. I knew Ajax’s 4-3-3 system like the back of my hand. My immediate concern was what to do to make a difference. “Play the ball to Hughes and keep the midfielders moving forward.”
Not a particularly revolutionary, intelligent idea, but I knew that the Ajax midfielders hated having to run after their opponents. They weren’t used to such distances, since Ajax always try to play deep in the opponents’ half. Their game is all about possession. They’re always thinking ahead and whatever happens at the back, that’ll take care of itself.
A serious miscalculation. Sure, Ajax had their chances, but we won the game. Patrick Kluivert, the Ajax forward who later played for AC Milan and FC Barcelona, found me and congratulated me on the result, and especially on our tactics. “You got it right, Ruudje.”
Naturally, after all my years in Dutch soccer, I knew how to play Ajax to win. More to the point is whether you have the players to do the job. It wouldn’t have worked without Hughes.
Hughes’s specific qualities made all the difference because Ajax didn’t know how to deal with him. In fact Van Gaal soon started making substitutions and explained afterward that he was still working on building his team . . . well, I didn’t buy it, of course.
You should always deploy players on the basis of their qualities, and I tried to do that as much as possible. When we did technical exercises at training sessions guys like Zola, Roberto Di Matteo and Franck Leboeuf would join in. They could do anything with the ball. On the pitch they took the other players under their wing. As a manager you can direct, but it’s up to the players to work together. I just showed the way to go. I must have done something right because we won the FA Cup that season.
Image
Both as player and manager I dealt with tensions differently. I looked for the positive and added a sense of fun. Not everyone appreciated that approach though, inside or outside the club. Many in the soccer world have a hard time accepting people with a sense of humor. They seem to think: he can’t be serious about his work, which I always found hard to understand. As if walking around with a frown and making a fuss about everything makes you serious. As a manager I had to find a golden mean. Not easy, because you soon lose touch with the real you. And when you lose touch with yourself, you don’t perform well. Examples of managers who put on a façade and then failed to live up to expectations are legion.
When my friend Robby Di Matteo was head coach at Schalke 04, he was at the club from seven in the morning to eight at night. Whenever anyone asked if he wanted to go out to eat, Robby would say: “No, people would think I’m not serious.” It didn’t help much. Within a year the directors fired him.
In fact the opposite is true: if you give the directors, the players and your staff the impression that you’re always involved with the club, and you lose a few times, you’ll be out on your ear just as quick.
Building a team
In retrospect, in my first year at Chelsea I was still learning. I got a look in the kitchen to check which ingredients Chelsea needed to rapidly become a significant force in the Premier League.
To build a team you have to start by creating an axis: from goalkeeper to striker. I brought in Franck Leboeuf, Roberto Di Matteo, Gianfranco Zola and Gianluca Vialli, and a year later keeper Ed de Goey from Feyenoord. Good English players augmented the side, players who knew the ropes. Steve Clarke (Clarky) was an intelligent, skillful defender, and to put a dent in the tough English strikers I had Michael Duberry. Later, we acquired Celestine Babayaro, Tore André Flo, Gustavo Poyet and English international Graeme Le Saux.
The foreign players had to get used to the English, and vice versa; and we also adopted a more European style of playing. For some in the squad it meant a huge change of culture, and for the fans too. In the end, we won them all over and people appreciated the new tailored attacking soccer we played at Stamford Bridge.
Le Saux was a left back who loved to send long passes to the left winger or to the striker. But I wanted Chelsea to play soccer that built up from the back. Poyet, a Uruguayan and a sprinter with two tanks of oxygen on his back, came to me and said: “Rudi, tell this man to play the ball to my feet,” because players like Poyet and Dennis Wise are possession players, but they need to have the ball . . . My focus was always on transforming the team. We played hundreds of practice matches, always with something at stake and with a tactical purpose. I had to keep it competitive too, otherwise the transition would have seemed optional and it would never have succeeded.
Le Saux was an excellent player who adapted fast and easily. He had all the qualities necessary for the style of play I had in mind. Our right back was Dan Petrescu. He could run and covered the whole right flank. Up in front was Zola, a Premier League sensation. Impossible to take the ball away from, turning left and right, a superb shot, an easy goal scorer and a wonderfully stylish player. He had learned a lot at Napoli from his teacher, Diego Maradona.
Finding a successor
Italian international Roberto Di Matteo, later my friend, played at Lazio as a defensive midfielder. At Chelsea I asked him to take on a more attacking role. He developed rapidly, and within no time Robby was regularly scoring goals. He didn’t know what had come over him, but I’d already spotted his potential in Italy.
When I found Robby I realized I had the perfect player to take over my role in the team. In the end he also took over as manager and he was responsible for coaching Chelsea to the club’s greatest success, winning the Champions League in 2012.
Robby is cosmopolitan: born in Switzerland, he moved to Italy. He speaks Italian, German and English. When I called Robby to invite him to come to Chelsea, he was in the Italian national squad’s dressing room. “Sorry, Ruud, I can’t really speak here. Let’s talk German. Then at least no one will understand what I’m talking about.” So I launched into my high school German, and suddenly I’m listening to a real German speaking. I thought he was pulling my leg, as if he had passed the phone to an actual German. I knew Robby and he always spoke with a heavy Roman accent. And
he turned out to speak German like a native. “Is that you, Robby?” I asked. It was.
He was eager to join the club and had an amazing time as a player at Chelsea. Like Gianfranco Zola—another magnificent midfielder at the club in those days—Robby has continued to make England his home.
Hidden conflicts
In May 2005 I submitted my resignation to the directors at Feyenoord, following a turbulent period under the media lens. That February we had been eliminated from the UEFA Cup by Sporting Lisbon in the third round, but we still had everything to play for: we had the title in our sights, and the KNVB Cup. Then we lost a postponed midweek game against FC Den Bosch and the mood suddenly switched.
Some fans in Rotterdam started to call me “that Amsterdammer”: Rotterdam against Amsterdam, 010 against 020. The rivalry went too far then and it still goes too far today. They used to say things like: “You’re a good guy, but what about that Amsterdam accent?” Whenever I went to Varkenoord in those days—Feyenoord’s amateur complex—I could feel the looks like daggers in my back. It’s so short-sighted. And this while all my life I’ve been a fan of Feyenoord and I even played for the club.
A while later, we lost the semifinal of the KNVB Cup when goalkeeper Gabor Babos dropped the ball.
The end wasn’t long in coming.
But what had actually happened? There was a lot more at stake than winning or losing one or two games. My assistant, Željko Petrović, was invited to appear on TV and was publicly humiliated. It suddenly got deeply personal. To my mind that must have been orchestrated. People at Feyenoord must have been leaking information to undermine my position.