MANAGER Robert Eenhoorn is leaving soccer club AZ at the end of the season. Remember back in the day? That’s when you had soccer clubs with a president, a coach and a team. What you never saw, and what didn’t exist, were a director of soccer affairs or a technical director.
Now they exist. At least, except at Ajax. They did have one there, but he was fired on suspicion of tampering. The director provides coaches with the material with which to put together a good soccer team, and with which the club as a corporation with shareholders makes good money.
WHAT DOES this have to do with America? Surprisingly much. The Dutch premier soccer league currently has four top teams, Feyenoord, PSV, AZ and Ajax. Not only is Ajax the only one without a real technical director, it is also the only club that did not bring a director from America. Feyenoord pulled Dennis te Kloese from Los Angeles where he was L.A. Galaxy’s top manager. AZ got Billy Beane from Oakland, where his successes as a baseball manager were so striking that Hollywood made a movie about him, starring Brad Pitt. Beans and Eenhoorn have been friends since forever – Robert played shortstop at the NY Yankees. And PSV dislodged Earnie Stewart from the U.S. Soccer Federation, and they are smarting about that in Chicago, at USSF’s headquarters.
Kicking at an open door: soccer has long since ceased to be what it was back in 1974, or even in 2004. Not only because clubs are now businesses, corporations. But mainly because a winning team no longer consists of the best players. Billy Beane showed how a technical director builds a winning team with the best-matching players with weaknesses but very much also with offsetting strengths. In that respect, soccer and baseball are the same: both play Moneyball. Smart directors no longer buy the most expensive players for the most money, but the least expensive players who have something vital to contribute to the aggregate. Soccer today, more than ever, is a true team sport. Sven Mislintat from Germany gave it a shot at Ajax, but he failed.
AMERICA’S SOCCER has lagged behind the rest of the world for a century. That is largely over. Ajax and Feyenoord attract no larger audiences on average than does L.A. Galaxy, PSV no more than Charlotte FC. Even more telling: Dutch coaches are failing in US soccer. Frank de Boer, Jaap Stam, Ron Jans all slinked back with the tail between their legs. The team that America brought to the World Cup two years ago was its youngest ever and, without individual stars, it played remarkable soccer before the Dutch eliminated them. Reason: America has the organization of both its soccer federation and clubs down pat, a result of generally clever team building management.
Holland still plays one of the finest forms of soccer and is an example to other countries. It keeps producing surprisingly good players all the time. That’s increasingly because Dutch top teams are being managed the American way. Three of the four draw their knowledge from the US. Wonder how long it will take for Ajax to join them.
