by Ruud Gullit
The Mexican Andrés Guardado is an exception. After his career ran aground in Spain at Deportivo La Coruña and Valencia, and in Germany at Bayer Leverkusen, he reinvented himself in spectacular fashion at PSV and has elevated the players and even the coaches along the way. He ensured that PSV managed to survive the winter in the 2015/16 Champions League season for the first time in nine years.
In addition there is Dirk Kuyt (formerly of Liverpool) at Feyenoord and Ron Vlaar (formerly Aston Villa) at AZ. Much of the time when you watch Dutch Eredivisie clubs you are actually watching glorified youth teams. Because players like Guardado and Kuyt are rare, most youngsters lack the necessary support as they turn professional. They have to work it out for themselves, which is not always a smooth process. Not a bad thing in itself, but it takes longer and there is a real danger some will lose their way in the process.
At the same time, I remain convinced that many Dutch players join foreign clubs far too soon. Leaving the Netherlands too early can easily kill a career. Far better to grow to maturity in the Dutch competition, even if it is weaker these days than it was twenty years ago. Young kids hardly get a chance to play when they join Manchester City, Barcelona, Chelsea or Manchester United, and they spend their crucial teenage years stagnating for two or three seasons at their giant club, effectively accumulating twice as many years in lost ground. Nathan Aké, Jeffrey Bruma and Karim Rekik are examples.
What about Marco van Ginkel, who chose Chelsea, only to find his way by all kinds of digressions, via AC Milan and Stoke City, on loan to PSV and back in the Netherlands? Jeffrey Bruma and Nacer Barazite followed a similar route only to return years later than planned by a roundabout path back to the Dutch second tier.
Nathan Aké was the victim of his own premature transfer. At Chelsea they kept him waiting for far too long. It was not until 2016 that he was able to book real minutes on the pitch at the highest level with Watford. “But at Chelsea he trained with all the top players,” people say. Great, but training is not the real thing. You only really get tested when three points are at stake. That is incomparably more significant than winning in training.
It is different for Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordy Clasie and Erik Pieters, all three of whom moved to England with experience at club level and having played for the Netherlands. Their story shows that you should only leave the Netherlands once you have achieved maturity. I’ve never seen a Dutch teenager ready for the Premier League.
I understand the urge—after all, money is a big motivator. You never know if that bus is ever coming past again. While I can’t look into everyone’s bank account, I can say that there is no justification in soccer terms to transfer a teenager to a foreign club.
That young English players come to the Netherlands is another matter. It makes sense. They don’t get a chance to play in the Premier League, but in Dutch clubs with all those young players, they can make real progress and rejoin at a higher level when they return to England.
While Dutch professional club soccer suffers from a major lack of funding and a hemorrhage of young players to foreign clubs, a third plague is the advent of artificial grass. No fewer than eight of the eighteen professional clubs in the top division play on a synthetic surface.
Proponents of artificial turf claim that the country is ten years ahead of the rest of the world, while in fact the Dutch are really ten years behind as long as real grass is the preferred surface under UEFA and FIFA. Quite apart from the stagnation in players’ development, it also changes the game and distorts the competition; players respond differently on synthetic surfaces. Tackling is slower, so games tend to resemble indoor soccer matches. These pitches need to be watered; otherwise they become rough and cause injuries. But water makes the surface extremely slippery so that long, deep balls race away at the speed of a rocket. To prevent that, players tend to play short-ball combination soccer over short distances, as you do indoors.
Two major teams that introduced artificial grass in England, Luton Town and Queens Park Rangers, have now switched back from plastic to proper pitches, with real grass.
Technique, physique and tactics
Technique should be every player’s first priority. Tactical insight into the various systems comes from actually playing in them in practice. You learn to adapt. For individual players, technical development has to be paramount, from the moment you start playing. That’s why you have to let youngsters between six and twelve get on with it, let them try and work it out, a few comments here and there, occasional individual tips or pieces of advice, and for the rest let them find out for themselves. Tactics are for later—at least for those who have mastered the techniques, otherwise they become more difficult.
In the Netherlands we have tended to stagnate in terms of functional technique, maybe even regressed in youth soccer. It’s all very well to learn tricks and keepy-uppy the ball a thousand times, but in games it’s about basic techniques: taking the ball, controlling it and passing at the right pace with the correct foot. Unfortunately we’re far too engrossed in positional play in the Netherlands. It looks good, but without sufficient basic technique and without being physically aggressive you’ll never make it in the race for international soccer at the highest level.
Among the truly top-class players it is evident that there is a balanced combination of technique, tactics and physical aggression. Messi is short but strong, has superb technique and can play in any system, whether at FC Barcelona or for the Argentinian national side. Luis Suárez is as strong as an ox and has an unorthodox technique, but it’s no coincidence that he invariably emerges from any situation with the ball.
Zlatan Ibrahimović is another player who received practically everything as a gift from Mother Nature. His strength is crucial for a striker and he also possesses an incredible array of technical skills. Despite his strength, it is technique that is his priority. Messi and Ibrahimović are physical opposites, yet what they both have is a unique technique.
The physique of the average professional soccer player at the top of the game has changed over the last thirty years. Whereas you once had to be big and strong, these days players are often short, lithe and explosive, especially in midfield. The strength of these short players is palpable. The game has changed too. As has the approach of referees.
Players receive far more protection: the whistle blows for the tiniest infringement. Meanwhile, players know that cameras are pointing at them so that it’s impossible to give an opponent a quick going over. Whereas it used to be open season on forwards, especially in countries such as Italy and Spain, now the cameras provide protection. That protection has created space for a new kind of player.
A good example is Andrés Iniesta. When you see him turn away from opponents without a scratch . . . fantastic, although when I used to try that, and especially against someone like Marco van Basten, I’d get a vicious kick to the ankle. These days you can turn without worrying. In my view, it’s a major change in soccer which has crept in without fanfare.
It is a positive development, because I’m not a supporter of the nastier ways of physically stopping an opponent. What I do think—especially in the Netherlands—is that it should be more macho, like in England. There the ref doesn’t blow the whistle at every physical confrontation.
Referees and soccer culture
To an extent, the referee determines the level at which a game is played, and so too the level and the development of the individual players. In the Netherlands, referees award penalties as if physical contact were taboo. Dutch clubs venturing into European competition soon find their players scattered like bowling pins and are swept out of the European tournaments.
Body check
If you referee a game like an indoor soccer referee, you’ll get indoor soccer on grass—or on that horrendous plastic turf. That does nothing for players’ development and in this way you lose touch with the top even more. That process is now under way in the Nethe
rlands, once a leading country at European club level. By permitting a little more physical contact, referees would help clubs and players be more effective in international competitions.
They do things differently in England. There, physical clashes are part of the game—although English referees often err in the opposite direction, and the way players are allowed to carry on in one-on-ones is also extreme—their tackles often leave you shaking when you see the replay. When English clubs come to Europe they are constantly penalized because Continental referees are far less tolerant than their British colleagues.
When foreign players first line up for the kickoff in the Premier League, they love the magnificent surroundings and the fast pace, but they are shocked by the game’s physicality.
When Didier Drogba came to Chelsea from Olympique Marseille he was amazed, even though he’s a big guy and very strong. Having learned his trade in the French league he dropped to the ground at the slightest contact, but no English referee blew his whistle, which led to theatrical protests from Drogba. John Terry, Chelsea’s captain, soon called him to one side with an urgent request to stop his exaggerated dives and his theatrics: “Or else you’ll come to nothing, my friend, here in the Premier League.”
Drogba took that wise lesson to heart and instead of falling to the ground, he kept going to meet the next challenge, with the result that he became one of the most popular foreign players in the Premiership. I think the only one to become equally popular was Eric Cantona. The extent to which Drogba developed, controlling his skills and reading games, was evident in the season in which Chelsea won the Champions League. In the Premier League, Drogba played a physical game, but in European matches he transformed himself back into the French Drogba.
Whenever his team was in trouble, or he wanted to gain some advantage, he opened up his box of tricks and you could see the European referees falling for them each time. In the semifinal against Barcelona and in the final in Munich against Bayern in 2012, Drogba was lying on the ground more than he was standing. And the referees kept on blowing their whistle. An English ref would never have allowed him that kind of opportunity to influence a game.
Meanwhile, at Stamford Bridge he scored the winning goal against Barcelona, the equalizer in the eighty-eighth minute of the final at the Allianz Arena and the winning penalty in the decisive shootout.
Going berserk can be a tactical weapon: to waste time, to win over the fans, to influence the referee, to disturb the other side’s rhythm or to get an opponent a yellow card, or have him sent off. The latter especially is unfair. But then these kinds of professional tricks are all part of how you win games. English and Dutch fans cry shame; in Southern Europe they pat you on the shoulder.
To blame the referee in every case is unreasonable, because referees are often sent onto the pitch with all kinds of instructions. They carry out their orders because otherwise they won’t climb the ladder and won’t get to referee the top games. This repressive policy gives them little scope to interpret situations that arise on the pitch in their own way—a personal touch can have a certain charm and players often appreciate it all the more. Better to have a referee with personality than a robot who may also make all kinds of mistakes.
Healthy common sense
These days, referees are more emphatically present than they used to be, although that is also a question of image. Everything looks bigger on television. And there may be as many as six or even ten cameras around the ground so that everything can be seen from all angles. The pitch has no secrets anymore, which detracts a little from the game’s charm: players, managers and fans feel aggrieved more easily, and complain more readily that a decision is unfair, all of which does not make life any easier for referees.
How referees respond often shows which country they come from. For me the most important thing is to be able to talk to them normally. They shouldn’t be afraid of dialogue. This is often more problematic in Southern Europe than in Western Europe. It is above all crucial that referees use their common sense.
Unfortunately, that is often lacking. If you’re refereeing a Champions League final and you’re about to make a decision that will kill the game, then stop and count to ten: what are your priorities? A good example is the 2006 Champions League final at the Stade de France between Barcelona and Arsenal. The Norwegian referee, Terje Hauge, saw Arsenal’s keeper, Jens Lehmann, bring down Samuel Eto’o outside the penalty area. He didn’t wait to see what would happen next—instead he blew his whistle, sent Lehmann off and Barcelona got a free kick just outside the area. Doubtless a technically perfect decision.
Only he missed the fact that Ludovic Giuly, following through in that same run, got the ball and scored a simple goal. Had Hauge given the advantage and awarded Barcelona’s goal, then Lehmann would not have had to be sent off and a yellow card would have sufficed. That’s what I would expect from a ref with common sense, rather than his spoiling a match in the eighteenth minute that millions in and outside Europe had sat down to watch. Hauge could have taken a wise decision without trampling over the rules and everyone would have felt that justice had been done. I realize that you can’t bend the rules, because that’s a slippery slope, but common sense should prevail.
How to treat a referee
Southern European referees are often proud, which means there’s no point in offending them. Never shout at a Southern European or gesticulate wildly as you try to explain that the decision was mistaken. As long as you don’t disrespect an official in public they won’t be offended by a normal remark. Referees are used to complaints, but don’t even think about cursing. Southern European referees appreciate humility, so make yourself a little smaller, bow a little and keep your hands folded.
That’s how Italian players approach the ref, while they can also carp and criticize like their life depended on it. Spanish referees are similar. In England players immediately launch into “You f*** this” and “You f*** that.” English referees shrug it off. But never try to use language like that against a Spanish or Italian ref.
The English have an antipathy toward diving. If you only give someone a vicious kick, an English referee will tell you to “Play on” and signal a circle to say: he played the ball, not the player. If you lie down and make a theatrical show of being injured then you’ll get an instant yellow card, because you’re cheating the referee as well as the opponent, and refs don’t like that.
All this relates to the cultural differences between Western and Southern Europe. If you enter the penalty area, look for an opponent to touch you and then start rolling on the ground to win a penalty, then the Brits will call you a cheat, but an Italian will say: “Furbo”— “Well done.”
It is interesting to see how players adapt to each other’s culture. In the Premier League, Spaniards, Italians and Germans tend to dive less than they usually do. By contrast, English players soon learn how to dive when they play on the Continent in the Champions League or the Europa League.
Influencing referees
Referees are under enormous pressure and are often nervous too. Players, managers, fans, media and television audiences—everyone is watching. There is nowhere for the referee to hide, as players do when they have an off-day. And everyone knows that a referee never sees everything, because refs are people too . . . but if you really don’t want the ref to see everything you have to manipulate and influence him. Few could do so as successfully as Roy Keane.
I hardly ever complained to the referee if he had made a mistake. Before the kickoff I would have a relaxed chat, making sure the ref felt comfortable, saying that I hoped it would be a good game. A smile and a bit of eye contact: it’s all part of influencing the referee. The referees’ guild appreciated my explicit support. Of course, I hoped that in the process the officials might favor my team a little more if necessary.
There was one Italian referee, Rosario Lo Bello, who I found insufferable. He always gave us a hard time at A
C Milan. Really. Against Verona he showed us four red cards: Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, “Billy” Costacurta and the manager, Arrigo Sacchi. We only asked him: “What are you doing, ref?” We all felt that something wasn’t right.
Later, it was revealed that Lo Bello had a real aversion to AC Milan. After that he never refereed us again. Until then he had regularly officiated at some of our most difficult games. Not that it made any difference, because we were never given an easy fixture when Lo Bello was due to officiate. It was just that he made things even tougher than necessary.
For me, the golden rule for a referee remains: the less you notice him, the better—not like those overinsistent officials, constantly blowing their whistles to get into the picture without a thought of steering the game to a successful conclusion. On the other hand, players can be pretty annoying too. Some don’t even know the rules of the game, or break them deliberately. Then you deserve to be penalized, in my opinion.
Measured response is not every coach’s greatest asset. Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and especially José Mourinho begin to manipulate referees a week before the game: “We never get penalties from that official,” or “So-and-so in the other side is always diving” and similar helpful suggestions for the referee. Sometimes it works, but it may just as easily backfire. Which goes equally for players who can’t stop complaining.
Remember: referees watch Match of the Day too when they get home and can see how players provoke other players and dramatize, and try to pull the wool over their colleagues’ eyes. It was all going well for Chelsea’s Diego Costa, for example, until he appeared to be about to bite an opponent in a game against Everton, only to draw back at the last second. Yet that was enough for the referee to send him off—it was a foregone conclusion. Naturally a player will contest a decision like that, and quite rightly. In doubtful situations referees have to follow their conscience.