Dated 15 May 2023
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While Napoli have felt like the story of European football this season there is something almost as extraordinary taking place in Holland that even rivals Leicester City’s amazing Premier League title win in 2016.
The Feyenoord team of Arne Slot play some of the most exciting, high-energy, attacking football on the continent alongside Napoli and they have taken the Eredivisie by storm, leading by eight points over Ajax with just one defeat in 28 league games.
They are also into the last eight of the Europa League after beating Shakhtar Donetsk 7-1 at home in the last round and face Roma on Thursday. This brings Slot, who is being looked at by a number of Premier League clubs, back up against Jose Mourinho for a rematch of last year's Uefa Conference League Final, when Roma beat Feyenoord.
And
all of this is being achieved on a shoestring.
Feyenoord may traditionally be the third biggest club in Holland behind Ajax and PSV Eindhoven, but that gives a false impression. They are not only far behind the Dutch giants in terms of budget but also have been, in recent years, one of its most boring, defensive teams, especially under Slot’s predecessor Dick Advocaat. How that has changed.
Examining the financial disparity gives a sense of how well Slot has done since he
left AZ Alkmaar, having achieved their highest-ever points total, to take over at Feyenoord in the summer of 2021.
So impressive has been the work of the 44-year-old former midfielder, who is a disciple of Pep Guardiola, that more Premier League clubs are taking a keen interest.
Leeds United tried to hire him in February after sacking Jesse Marsch (and he would be a natural successor to Marcelo Bielsa) but he stayed in Rotterdam.
There are vacancies at Tottenham Hotspur and, in the summer, Chelsea and Crystal Palace – it would be remiss of them not to consider Slot.
It does feel that it is only a matter of time before Slot makes his move to England, where
there are strong similarities in the way he coaches and the playing style he demands to Mikel Arteta at Arsenal and Brighton’s Roberto De Zerbi. He is also friends with Liverpool’s assistant manager Pep Lijnders while there is, of course, an obvious comparison with Manchester United’s Erik ten Hag, who moved from Ajax. Except
Slot’s football is even more attacking and it was he, not Ten Hag, who won the Rinus Michels Award for Eredivisie manager of the season last year.
Radically changing how the team play
Mention of Ajax draws the most stark comparison.
When Slot took over, Feyenoord sold top-scorer Steven Berghuis, with 18 goals, to Ajax for 6.5 million euros and used 4.5 million euros to buy Gernot Trauner, Marcus Pedersen and Fredrik Aursnes, who all improved the squad.
Feyenoord finished third, having been fifth the season before, but that does not provide the full picture as Slot completely overhauled their defensive playing style. The club wanted him to do it and, interestingly so did the players. The coach exploding the myth that ‘you can only work with what you have got’. Instead,
with a fierce pressing game in which Feyenoord go man-for-man with their opponents all over the pitch, he showed that players can change.
Interestingly it was one of his main motivations for joining Feyenoord: to show the world it can be done.
In Slot’s first team meeting he played clips of the 2021 Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester City and asked the simple question: why were there so few chances despite there being so many good attacking players?
The answer was equally as simple: it was because all those attackers also made incredible defensive runs to nullify their opponents. Slot then contrasted that with the lack of running Feyenoord had done the season before and compared the distance covered – far less – to his AZ side.
His approach was also simple, as is his mantra: his teams defend by attacking. While Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, for example, wait for ‘pressing triggers’ Slot asks his players to press all the time. It sounds exhausting but, after a few weeks, it becomes second nature.
The next part of that is to try and control games by emphasising ball possession, which is straight out of Guardiola’s playbook. Slot believes that more defensive football is not only more tiring but less stimulating for the players. Slot argues they cannot improve by primarily thinking about defending.
In Holland they call it indoctrineren (indoctrinate) and
Slot bombarded the players with stats, with clips and with far more sophisticated and intense training sessions in which every minute is accounted for. City and Napoli are reference points to this train-the-way-you-play approach. In a recent presentation –
with a multi-national squad, all meetings are conducted in English – Slot used Casemiro of Manchester United as an example.
Slot highlighted the player's desire to win as exemplified by Casemiro's determination to head the opening goal in the Carabao Cup final. And this from a Brazilian international who has won the Champions League five times.
Creating an exciting team on a shoestring budget
Then last summer the changes that were made were even more dramatic as 70 million euros worth of players, led by Tyrell Malacia, who joined United and Luis Sinisterra, who was signed by Leeds, were sold. Incredibly, Slot lost seven players from his starting XI and also lost three loanees including Arsenal’s Reiss Nelson.
In came no fewer than 17 players in one transfer window with just 30 million euros spent. So Feyenoord made a significant profit but have a far better team. Two of those players, midfielder Quinten Timber and defender David Hancko, cost 6.5 million euros each, which meant
just 17 million euros was spent on 15 players.
To put that in context the 17 were signed for the same amount Ajax spent to bring in Steven Bergwijn from Tottenham. Feyenoord’s highest paid player earns 1.5 million euros from a total budget of just 22 million euros – less than a third of Ajax’s best earners
And
yet with a transfer surplus of 40 million euros, Slot has created a team that is one of the most exciting in Europe.
Players such as 23-year-old midfielder Mats Wieffer and right-back Lutsharel Geertruida, both just called up for latest Dutch squad, are catching the eye while Turkish international Orkun Kokcu has been transformed into one of the best midfielders in the Eredivisie and will be in demand next summer. Again, Premier League clubs are watching.
Slot's astounding attention to detail
Such is Slot’s attention to detail that the ‘rondo’ – the training drill whereby players attempt to keep the ball while a smaller group aim to intercept – is even extremely specific.
Slot is concerned the drill does not allow players to ‘scan’ (to check the options on the pitch) which is one of the fundamentals of passing and so he insists that they can only take one touch, that they cannot return possession to the player who passed to them and, crucially, that the ball always stays below the knee. Players are even encouraged to consider which foot they are passing with.
Given the style of play is so demanding it is impressive that Feyenoord have suffered so few injuries, especially in contrast to Bielsa when he was at Leeds which is maybe, also, why they were interested in hiring Slot.
With this Slot is again precise in how he trains. For example he has concluded that in sessions for the days immediately after games the players should work in a space no longer than 40 metres. If they play in bigger areas it means they have to accelerate more and sports medical science has proved that running above 20km/h risks more muscle injuries.
Slot does not play games of 11 v 11 in training as most coaches do and works hard on the mental side of the sport. He has even convinced the Feyenoord players that the more games they play the stronger they will become.
What next for Slot, who has two years left on his contract at Feyenoord, will be fascinating especially if, as seems likely, he wins the Dutch title and leads them back into the Champions League. He will undoubtedly be a coach in demand. For now, though, something extraordinary is taking place in Holland.
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