What has Steve McClaren been doing right?
Steve McClaren has done it. P34 W27 D5 L2, and top of the league for all but six weeks of the campaign, he has won the Eredivisie title for the first time in the history of FC Twente.
The key to Twente’s success has been stability. When McClaren arrived at the club in 2008, he stuck with the loose 4-3-3 system Twente had been playing for the previous couple of seasons, and has played it even when faced with injury problems (with a relatively weak squad) or a brief loss of form.
Equally as important as stability in shape has been stability in personnel. In a 34-game season, nine players have started more than thirty games – Theo Janssen and Dwight Tiendalli being the exceptions.
McClaren managed to completely revamp the side and stamp his authority upon it, whilst retaining the resilience that had seen them finish 4th the season before he arrived. This truly is his side – seven of the eleven first-choice players are his signings, but he identified a solid spine of existing players that would remain – the Boschker-Douglas-Brama-Nkufo axis was there when McClaren arrived, and he clearly built around it.
Although Twente have been successful because of their discipline and organisation, there is no dedicated holding player in the centre of midfield. Wout Brama and Theo Janssen are two combative players who dovetail well and sit infront of the back four when Twente are not in possession, whilst the silky, left-footed veteran Kenneth Perez acts as the link between midfield and attack, and has few defensive responsibilities.
The wide players are difficult to categorize as forwards, creative wingers or hard-working wide midfielders – their role is a combination of all three. When in possession they move high up the pitch against the opposition full-backs, and Twente regularly look to play diagonal balls, but when the opposition have the ball the wide players get through far more work than Perez, dropping deep and closing down.
McClaren’s system has been widely defined as a 4-3-3, but Twente’s shape is more complex than that, and depends entirely on whether they have the ball or not. If they do, it’s a 4-2-1-3, when they don’t it is more like a 4-2-3-1, or even a 4-4-1-1 – the latter would probably be more appropriate, because as mentioned earlier, the two central midfielders are not ‘holding’ players in the usual sense.
Twente's regular starting XI
This has been a problem when Twente have travelled away to big sides – they were thrashed 0-3 at Ajax, deservedly lost 0-1 to AZ, and found themselves 0-3 down after thirty minutes at Werder Bremen in the Europa League, in a match they went onto lose 1-4.
In a sense, it’s difficult to blame McClaren for this – the mentality needed to beat bottom-half Eredivisie sides is completely different to the one needed to grind out a 0-0 against a top-class side, and it’s difficult to switch your side for those rare matches, especially when you have built your side around the concept of stability.
Nevertheless, Twente will have to be slightly less tactically naive if they are to make an impact in next year’s Champions League – whether McClaren will be around to direct them is another question.
What McClaren’s success should not give way to is a revisionist attitude to his spell as manager of the England side, as happened last year when Twente finishing second raised eyebrows. The claims that he was ‘hounded out of England’ are slightly difficult to take, when he was merely sacked and disliked for being bad at his job. He made poor decisions both in terms of tactics and selection, and failed to get to Euro 2008 -unquestionably a sackable offence.
There was no suggestion (at least from any intelligent source) when he was removed from his job that he was a useless football manager, merely that he wasn’t up to being England boss. Widely regarded as an excellent coach rather than a skilled tactician or motivator, it’s relatively little surprise that he has prospered in a club role on the continent, where he is working with intelligent players day in, day out, and is able to do what he does best – coach them.
That should not detract from his achievement. One of the slightly odd comments repeated over the weekend was that McClaren became ‘the first English manager to win a major foreign league since Bobby Robson at Porto in 1996′. A major foreign league? No English manager has won the English league title in that time either.
What next for McClaren? Offers are apparently flooding in, and with respect to Twente, he would be a fool not to move on now. It will be difficult for him to advance his current club further; the only way is down in the Eredivisie, and making a real impact on the Champions League will be very difficult. Whether his reputation will ever recover in his home country remains doubtful – even this triumph was ‘celebrated’ in England by links to an old YouTube video where he puts on a slightly questionable Dutch accent.
If fulfilling his potential as a coach means spending the vast majority of his career abroad, then so be it; at least he is now known for something positive – aside from appearing on the banner of a football tactics website.
We certainly shouldn’t slide into revisionism. McClaren was an appalling England manager, mainly due to his tactic of firing long balls at midget strikers and desperately trying to crowbar players into the starting eleven on reputation alone. Lampard at left-wing anyone?
However, his achievements at Twente are nothing short of miraculous. This is the equivilant of Raymond Domenech rocking up at Birmingham and winning the title in his second season. English managers constantly whine about foreigners stealing their jobs, but how many of them are brave enough to turn the tables? Why is that Sam Allardyce’s willingness to embrace technology falls short of a buying a Rosetta Stone pack?
McClaren’s courage has been rewarded but I only hope that he doesn’t ruin it by coming back to England now. For all the plaudits that he is rightfully receiving, would any English fan rejoice his arrival at their club? Of course not. In their eyes he is still ‘the wally with the brolly.’ He shouldn’t worry, he is far too big for the likes of West Ham now. Why would he take on a near-bankrupt team of relegation contenders when the Bundesliga and Champions League football beckons?
Good luck to him, I say. I’ve been incredibly mean about him in the past and, while I’ll never take back a word of it, I’m delighted to see that he’s managed to pick himself up, dust himself down and go off to win something.
«his achievements at Twente are nothing short of miraculous». Not really, Twente had been growing steadily for a few years even before McClaren arrived (the previous coach had gotten the chance to go to the Bundesliga because of it). I think the main merit goes to the intelligent strategy by the club’s directors. Still, McClaren did rather well.
I think you’d be hard pushed to put two good seasons on the pitch down as an achievement of the directors. While there’s a lot to be said for structure, it’s still McClaren picking, motivating, training and deploying the team, week-in, week-out.
As for their previous growth, that just makes McClaren’s feat all the more impressive. This was a team that had apparently peaked. They came fourth, sneaked into the CL, lost their manager and then their best player (Engelaar). With no significant funds to play with, he still took them on and lifted them up.
The poor sod, he goes and wins a league and people are still picking on him!
Well, the amount of money Steve McClaren could work with is double the money of his predecessor (mind you Fred Rutten left only 2 years ago), because the club has been grown so much in all directions. Despite that, Steve did indeed a very good job. But if you have twice the amount than your predecessor, you are bound to do better than those before you. Bryan Ruiz was bought for example, with a record fee. More than twice what has ever been paid for a player before. (The second most expensive being Cheik Tiote, who’s on the bench btw).
“With no significant funds to play with, he still took them on and lifted them up.”
This is not entirely fair to Fred Rutten. The wingers used by McClaren in his first season were Elia and Arnautovic and were already brought in by Rutten (Elia from Den Haag and Arnautovic through the youth ranks). Elia was already playing at the end of the season under Rutten (and did well). A player like Janssen (who was replacing Engelaar) was also already transfered under Rutten. Rutten really laid the foundation for McClaren’s work. That and a player like Perez was brought in because Van Basten didn’t need him at Ajax anymore.
This doesn’t mean McClaren hasn’t done well. It’s just that Twente has a very fine organization. They continue to find good replacements for their players regardless of their coach.
Oh besides, Perez is right footed (but has a good left foot).
About the discussion on Dutch coaches: I’ll agree that they are a little overrated in general, but Van Gaal and Hiddink are top notch. Good point about Van Marwijk being nothing special. He’s awfully overrated in Holland. Jol is a fine manager (saying as an Ajax-fan). Rijkaard is obviously good too (mostly one of the most talented people-managers around I’d say).
Just a little Dutch perspective on the matter. Great site by the way.
Good point about the work previously done by Rutten. He even lifted a player like Engelaar who was, in my opinion, highly overrated (but Rutten did a good job with him).
About the coaches you mention, my only disagreement is with Rijkaard. I still believe the jury is still out. On the others I already agreed that van Gaal and Hiddink are top notch (even if I personally dislike van Gaal) and that Jol is actually quite good (he did a fantastic job at Tottenham, but wasn’t recognised for it).
Now Maclaren has proven (again) he can do a good job perhaps we should revise his tenure as England manager.
There were 4 teams in the qualification group with a realistic chance of progression Croatia, England, Israel and Russia. Only using the results between these 4 teams the group would have finished;
1. Croatia 14pts 2. England 7pts 3. Russia 6pts 4 Israel 5pts.
What became obvious during the tournament was the strength of this group that had been dismissed as soft by large sections of the press. The performances of Croatia and Russia during the finals lend weight to the argument this was a very strong group particularly as it included a good England side and an extremely resilient Israeli team.
The obvious rebuffal to only using results between the 4 aforementioned sides is that there were actually 7 teams in the group, however if we look at the results between the top 4 teams and the bottom 3 teams there are only 2 instances of a top team not beating a bottom team; Macedonia defeated Croatia after qualification had been assured and Macedonia drew in England early on in the campaign. If we look at the table again but include 18 points assuming the top 4 win all the games against the bottom 3 and then deduct points they have have dropped;
1. Croatia 14pts + 18pts = 32pts (-3 defeat away to Macedonia after qualification)
2. England 7pts + 18pts = 25pts (-2 draw at home to Macedonia early in campaign)
3. Russia 6pts + 18pts = 24pts (-0)
4. Israel 5pts + 18pts = 23pts (-0)
It can be reasonably argued England failed to qualify due to their failure to defeat Macedonia at home, in a game where England had more than enough chances to score – something the manager can’t really be blamed for.
Yeah, he was fine if you ask me, England’s world cup group has been significantly weaker. We’re talking about semi-finalists Russia and a very strong Croatia side that was missing key players when the finals came around.
McClaren’s very failing was not beating Macedonia at home, or Israel away. The Russia and Croatia results were disappointing but acceptable, but not beating Macedonia is not, if it results in elimination.
Either way, fracturing the league table like that doesn’t really help anyway. His job was to try and qualify – and he didn’t. Partly thank to a host of tactical blunders and poor selection decisions.
I don’t see why this success changes the impression of his England job at all.
I don’t think a draw away to Israel was such a disasterous result, Russia failed to beat them home or away in the campaign and Switzerland, France and Ireland had failed to beat them home or away in the previous qualifying. What did for England was the home defeat against Croatia, you simply can’t lose home games when you are aiming for qualification.
Its useful to fragment the table to show that although failure to qualify was unacceptable it was only by a very fine margin in an extremely difficult group, if we take into account the failure to beat Macedonia was nothing to do with tactics or selection it is perhaps unfair to say failure to get to Euro 2008 was unquestionably a sackable offence.
I take the point that some of his decisions were questionable to say the least and no matter how you argue; not qualifying is still a failure. But is Cappello really playing such a different system (a central midfielder playing wide with two strikers in a 442 of sorts).
Croatia finished third in the recent round of qualifiers, but I don’t think that unquestionably necessitates sacking the manager.
RJF, this is an extraordinary way of looking at things. So Mclaren took 7 points from a possible 18 against England’s key competitors, and that’s your defense of him?
By saying that we were in a strong qualification group, and I’d agree with you, are you implying that finishing third to Croatia and Russia was acceptable, given the players available to Mclaren? I’d expect the Scotland or Wales manager to say this given their pool of players, but surely if you were to manage a squad of players you’d take England’s over Russia’s?
steve,
I’m not suggesting McClaren did a particularly good job, as you point out 7pts from 18 isn’t a particularly great return. However this was still 1 more than Russia managed. During the finals the 4 best sides were (in no particular order) Spain, Russia, Croatia and Holland. ZM is also quite correct to point out there were many failings with his tactics and team selections, however that could also be said of Hiddink’s performance as the Russian manager during the same period. My suggestion is that McClaren’s tenure as England manager shouldn’t be solely judged on the qualifying campaign given what Croatia and Russia achieved in the finals.
Failing to qualify out of that group was understandable despite also being unacceptable but by judging the results alone you can’t assert he did a bad job.
The changes that McClaren brought to Twente were in their training methods. Dutch soccer is replete with the use of small-sided games and nothing much else at times as the main method of coaching players. The KNVB coaching manual posits that small-sided games can be used effectively for fitness training, and next to no speed, agility, endurance or power exercises are needed. What McClaren has probably done is changed this mentality to having dedicated fitness programmes set out which don’t involve the ball. The fact that Twente won the league possibly points to their increased fitness as much as anything tactical that may have changed.
As for the 4-3-3 shape, this is a standard Dutch formation, and again is prescribed by the KNVB. What is most telling though is that Dutch soccer still, to a large extent, works around a loose man-marking system, especially in midfield. Anything that comes along that is different to that is bound to cause the opposition problems – look at Ajax and their enormous goal difference. It would be fair to say that Jol is an atypical Dutch coach, in that he believes in zonal defending, which lends a team a better shape for counter-attacking. I don’t think too much store can be put into the roles of the players in the Twente formation, as they are pretty typical for Dutch football. Instead, we should be looking at how they defend, and consequently how they are able to transition, in order to see what McClaren has done right. If we want to go deeper, then we would have to look at how he changed training, specifically fitness training, to see more of what made FC Twente Dutch champions this year.
Good analysis. Spot on.
Interesting stuff, cheers.
I agree with your comments on the fitness level of the Twente squad. After I heard RVP talk about the tough treatment Arsenals fitness coaches gave him when he arrived in 2005, I wondered why Dutch coaches dont work on that aspect more. You do not have to be a great football player to be in good shape, right? As Heracles Almelo’s Gert Jan Verbeek is known for his tough trainingsessions, to me it is not a coincidence that they also overpreformed this year.
Credit must also go to the Twente players. I recall how in ‘Brilliant Orange”, someone was commenting on Bobby Robson’s tenure at PSV and just how different the dressing-room culture he encountered was. Whereas Bobby was expecting complete subordination to “The Gaffer” and no pretences of those who would be know-it-alls, the Dutch players expected themselves to be involved in detailed tactical discussions; an apparent inheritance from old Dutch Calvinist culture whereby every man in a Bible Study group was expected to hold forth and defend his opinion; to do otherwise, was to be seen to be weak and prevaricating. And that such attitudes pervade even working class culture in the Netherlands; contrast that to the anti-intellectual and laddish postures of supposed British working-class culture. Where Brian McClair was derided as “Professor” for having completed A-levels.
…so the likelyhood is that McClaren must have found it a godsend to be able to coach players who were willing and eager to learn.
Exactly, Roberticus. Fascinating that McClaren’s infinite patience for explaining his ideas may have been a weakness in English football culture and a strength in the Dutch culture.
[stereotypes]
English player: “When will this git shut it?”
Dutch player: “But wouldn’t it be better if I pressed here? No? Why? Oh, good. I see.”
[/stereotypes]
It’s a relative concept. I’ve been working and living in the Netherlands for the past 6 and a half years and I can guarantee that this system has very strong flaws. Whereas it has the mentioned advantage of motivating people to contribute, the fact that there is a contribution is what’s valued, not the quality of the contribution itself. This means that a mediocre view can frequently win an argument in a discussion as long as it is presented in a more attractive way. For the dutch, there is no absolute advantage in higher office, studies or experience. Any and everything can (and should) be challenged. Up to a point that is good, but beyond it, it just fosters mediocrity.
That’s not to say anything about McClaren. It’s just a general observation about dutch culture. Presentation is everything and performance is secondary. Maybe that’s one ot the reasons why there are (in my opinion) essentially only two really good dutch managers, both above 55 years old: Louis van Gaal and Guus Hiddink (maybe Martin Jol could be added though). And at least one of them doesn’t really accept interference with his command.
What about Frank Rijkaard, Co Adriaanse, Fred Rutten, Mario Been, Bert van Marwijk, and Ron Jans? All fine managers, no? Dutch managers have a history of greatness (Rinus Michels was named manager of the century by FIFA) so your argument doesn’t really hold up.
Well, I mentioned the present ones, so Rinus Michels doesn’t apply.
About the others you’re probably pulling my leg. Rutten, Been and Jans haven’t proved a single thing outside the Netherlands. About van Marwijk, I guess it depends on your perspective, but whilst being a good coach, he’s nothing special. He had a decent run with Dortmund, and certainly had a good result by winning the UEFA Cup with Feyenoord, but he can at most be considered amongst the best dutch coaches, not really on the levels of others.
Adriaanse is a joke. Occasionally does well but there is certainly a reason he hasn’t been picked by the best teams (or even the second best teams) in Europe. Maybe he knows about football (and his press conferences whilst at Porto were a delight) but his man-management skills are rubbish.
Rijkaard is a different case altogether, because he does have good trophies to speak for himself. Still, I think his managerial profile is based mainly on image. He did nothing special with the national team (semi finals with that team and playing home is almost the minimum services), did OK with a Barcelona team that included a Ronaldinho in his best years and a few other brilliant players (although most of the credit should actually go to Ten Cate) and did next to nothing with Sparta. With Galatasaray, I reserve judgement. He was a true “coach” on the field as a player, so I do think he can still do well, if he starts actually working to improve himself, instead of his image.
Dutch coaches are neither better nor worse than those of other countries. It’s just that they have a very good image because of three or four who did well and because of what I mentioned earlier: dutch do spend a very solid part of their time working on their image.
Isn’t it the case that nowadays everyone is preoccupied with fancied prestentations and slick images? Especially in football? Not only the dutch.
At first glance, it looks like half of the starting XI is non-Dutch
That’s fascinating stuff, André. I would have thought the main disadvantage with this Dutch outspokenness is that in the end, nobody agrees with anything, no clear leadership and the inevitable principled walkouts/sulking on the bench. Striking a pose, you might say; but to what extent is this selfish and egotistical or is it seen as a matter of rational self-assertive behaviour?
Well Roberticus, that can happen. Dutch teams, especially the national team, frequently have that problem. During the Euro08, van Persie and Sneijder had a problem because both wanted to take a free-kick when they were losing against Russia. We should never forget the amount of players who have been cut out of the national team at one time or another because of their strong personality (van Bommel, Seedorf, Davids, etc). If there is an agreed peace or an uncontested leader, the things go well (like when Michels guided the team) and when things go well it’s easy to keep the peace. When there isn’t, things do not go well and the peace becomes uneasy.
When I write that dutch worry a lot about their image, I’m not talking of it in terms of “pop image”. That is a minor concern. They do not care so much about being seen doing cool stuff or looking cool. On that, dutch are extremely down to earth. I mean in terms of work: even more important that working well, is pretending that the work is being well done. In a company, a dutch will talk for a long time about his methods of work and how hard s/he works and will always downplay the influence of talent. A simple example could be (I don’t know if it is, it’s just a possibility) Sneijder appearing in videos describing how much he works on his free-kick technique, even if he didn’t and mainly relied on pure and raw talent. A dutch prefers to be seen as hard-working than talented. That’s what I mean by image in this case.
“In a company, a dutch will talk for a long time about his methods of work and how hard s/he works and will always downplay the influence of talent. A simple example could be (I don’t know if it is, it’s just a possibility) Sneijder appearing in videos describing how much he works on his free-kick technique, even if he didn’t and mainly relied on pure and raw talent. A dutch prefers to be seen as hard-working than talented. That’s what I mean by image in this case.”
You couldn’t be wider of the mark, the Dutch in general are not people who boast about their own efforts, footballers on the other hand are more egocentric and are only interested in their own interests, Dutch footballers probably even more so, just look at Arjen Robben as an example.
It’ll be interesting to see how van Marwijk will handle this crop of players during a tournament, as he’s never really dealt with players of this calibre and personality, it’ll be make or break for this generation.
Next time you make such a generalisation about zeitgeist of a nation you would be better off to refrain from generalisations.
Well, generalisations are what they are. They do not apply to every single person, they are a general indication.
This one is made on the experience I have from working and living for almost 7 years in the Netherlands while speaking dutch and with dutch people as well as other foreigners who are in the same position as me. Is it for certain a right view? Not necessarily, I thought that much was obvious. But it’s the impression I got. Is it a “sociological study”? Once again, the answer is no. You take it at face value. If you have a similar experience of living and working as a foreigner in the Netherlands for 5 or more years, then by all means give your own view. If not, then you can take it as my own view and accept it or not.
By the way: I didn’t say they boast about their own efforts. No ordinary dutch will “boast” about anything (once again, I am making a generalisation, there are some who will, same as everywhere). What the dutch do is their utmost best to convey the image that what they are doing is good and hard work, even (ans especially) if it is indeed good and hard work (anyone who knows s/he works badly will try to give the impression that is not so, in the Netherlands as everywhere else). What this causes is occasionally a culture of some sloppiness.
João, I’ve lived in the Netherlands for 12 years but have not lived their for the last 12, although I do still visit at least 5 times a year. I don’t think you get the gist of the Dutch mentality quite right. Perhaps it’s just the way you worded your post or my reading comprehension?
Footballers, regardless of their background are very hard to pin down from a sociological point of view. There’s no real point to read to much into this, as for a lot of the Dutch (footballers included) it’s more than anything the norm to voice ones own opinions at any time, as Dutch society is such a level playing field, unlike some other countries.
João André, you get quite a bit of flak for your observations on Dutch culture, but I actually think you’re right (and I am Dutch myself). I can only surmise that people don’t like what they see in the mirror you hold up for them.
There really is no denying that the Dutch are opinionated people who demand to be heard, even at the expense of a better solution. A friend of my sister used to live in Finland for 5 years and he once told me that after that amount of time he started to become weary of the fact that the people around him had little interest in current affairs, didn’t read up on them and as such couldn’t and wouldn’t offer an opinion when pressed, because they didn’t know the facts. My response was that would be a breath of fresh air to me, because many Dutchies don’t know the facts regarding many a subject either, but that doesn’t stop them from very vocally voicing their opinion on the matter regardless.
“aside from appearing on the banner of a football tactics website”
Aside from the umbrella, also get him a bowler hat and Athletic Bilbao would be happy to have him.
Typo: “Been doing right”, not “being doing right”.
Good stuff, ZM.
I’m a little surprised that nobody has compared McClaren to Roy Hodgson yet.
They are both intelligent coaches who shun flamboyancy, and they both have had better results outside of England than within.
Perhaps, like Hodgson, McClaren needs the benefit of overseas experience before he learns how to handle “British” teams?
I think McClaren was desperately unlucky as England manager. As many other have pointed out, it was actually a tough group – Russia became semi-finalists, and Croatia quarter finalists. Therefore its not too much of a stretch to suggest McClaren’s England were not too different from the typical level of England teams – beaten quater-finalists.
Also he had horrendous luck with injuries, rarely playing the same team twice. When he did take brave decisions, like recalling Heskey (remember he was up for being totally slaughtered over that one if it had gone wrong), he was unable to continue for the next match. Rooney was in and out the side.
Capello is widely seen as a big improvement. Well he qualified, so fair enough, he managed that. But the closest challengers were Ukraine, who couldn’t find a way past Greece in the play-offs. Croatia were there of course, but managed to stupidly get a man sent off in the crucial home game against England, and had this time they were the ones with the injury problems. Overall, a shadow of the team they were two years ago.
You can only beat the teams put in front of you, people might say. The trouble is, England have singularly failed to beat any of the decent teams they have played in friendlies. And overall, England take friendlies more seriously than most. Not only have England not won, they have looked pretty poor too. It isn’t as thought they’ve lost games after making 7 substitutions in the second half. They’ve been inferior from the start.
Are England much improved. I’m not so sure…
I wonder if you might elaborate on the differences between a coach, tactician, and motivator. Certainly I can see the difference between a tactician and a motivator, but I guess I would have thought someone who was a good “coach” was either some combination of both of those categories, or more of a motivator. I guess I’m really just wondering what you mean by a good “coach”?
As a side note, I love the website.
A good coach these days is tactically sound but is first and foremost a motivator, if you can’t motivate a 21 year old millionaire you mights as well pack your bags. Players these days are harder to motive, money is probably the main reason they’re still in the game, so unless you’re dealing with a relatively young squad, like Arsenal. Or like Twente, have a balance of experienced players with younger ones who still have something to prove in order to progress to bigger and “better” things.
McClaren’s tactics are sound for the Dutch League but I’d like to see him taking a proper squad into the Champions League, he’s had some success with Twente in Europe, by sticking to a game plan they went on to beat Schalke, Bremen,Marseille, Stade Rennais, Racing Santander and Fenerbache. All teams that on paper are better than Twente.
It’ll be interesting to see what McClaren does in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg. With their best player possibly leaving he is going to have his work cut out for him.