Socceroos coach Bert van Marwijk reveals the fire that drives him ahead of 2018 World Cup
DON’T be fooled by appearances. There is a fire that burns within new Socceroos coach Bert van Marwijk, for all the austerity of the Dutchman’s look.
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DON’T be fooled by appearances. There is a fire that burns within Bert van Marwijk, for all the austerity of his look.
There’s more than one fire in fact; first there’s the spark that comes when the new Socceroos coach leaps from his chair in a Sydney hotel room to act out a particular tactic.
Then there’s the sudden flare of disdain when he describes the slating he took from certain parts of Dutch football for the manner in which the Holland side he coached reached the World Cup final in 2010.
Eight years later, on the eve of coaching at another World Cup as Ange Postecoglou’s replacement, van Marwijk’s distaste is palpable at the memory of Johan Cruyff calling his tactics “anti-football”.
“After that I went to (work in) Germany and I was the vizeweltmeister, the “vice-champion of the world” and they celebrate me there. In Holland, you’re a loser because you’re second.
“Such a small country and (apart from) the final, all the other games we were the best team so we deserved to win. But, that’s typically Dutch.
“Yeah, Cruyff … he visited us for one day so I spent a whole day with him talking about football and he never mentioned things like that.
“After that I was in Brazil (in 2013) for the draw and Pele was there and all the famous people and I don’t like that so I was standing in the corner. Somebody came to me and I said, do I recognise you?
“Then he hugs me and compliments the way of playing for such a small country, so well the football and second in the world. That was (former Brazilian star) Zico. You know Zico?
“We had a lot of compliments around the world. But in Holland, only a few. I said in the press conference, when you see the statistics of the World Championships you will never ask that question, because they say something else.”
In part it seems to rankle because he is a student of the game and its evolving tactics. Take Pep Guardiola, whose coaching progression van Marwijk maps out from Barcelona to Manchester City to show how the game is changing.
“Barcelona under Guardiola 10 years ago, they always played on the half of the opponent. They never had transition goals. All 22 players in one half and they play tiki taka and score goals.
“Now, the same Guardiola plays the best football and he scores goals out of transition. That’s a development in football.
“Guardiola started at Barcelona, everybody is talking about pressure. When you lose the ball back, you need to pressure directly.
“Guardiola started with that. You have to think, ‘why did he do that?’ I think he did it because he had Messi and two, three other world-class players who are individually very, very, very good.
“But those are not transition players. When they lose the ball they don’t run back for 20, 30m.
“So he convinced Messi, when you lose the ball here, I expect only one thing of you. Try to get it back there. And the other players have to come close. That’s transition and he did it because his weakness was his defence. He tried to avoid the counter-attack.
“And then, everybody is thinking about that and then you have another kind of football. Now Guardiola is at City and he creates space for himself. Sometimes you see City come a little bit back and stay close. And then (he claps) they get the ball and they’re out. Very quick, score goals.”
As he breaks down a tactical surprise he threw at Japan in Saudi Arabia’s last game — the win that took them to the World Cup ahead of Australia — he talks of the need to have a system but be flexible within it.
“It’s much more difficult to play in the system and to teach the players what to do in every circumstance and within the system try to be flexible so you can surprise the opponent.”
That’s an ambitious aim given that the World Cup is some four months away, and he is yet to even meet his players. The crucial thing, he says, is to get out of the group in Russia. Then a momentum can take over, as he found with Holland in 2010.
“We didn’t have the best players but a really good team. We were improving every game. In the second game, that feeling was even stronger.
“Then we played against Brazil (in the quarter-final that Holland won 2-1). I was sitting on the bench and the first 20 minutes my players were impressed (by them).
“I was disappointed because we spoke about it, we trained and one of the most important things is you have to be yourself, also against Brazil. The first 25 minutes we played bad and we were [too] impressed. Brazil only scored one goal and then I saw we came a little bit back. I was very mad at halftime but the second half we could have won with 4-1 or 5-1. We were much better than Brazil.
“For the rest we were growing every game, that’s the experience of a world championship. In a tournament, most of the times you have to grow.”