New Socceroos assistant Rene Meulensteen is no Dutch coaching clone

Rene Meulensteen knew the Socceroos assistant coaching role was too good to knock back.

Graham Arnold’s new assistant coach at the Socceroos is Dutchman Rene Meulensteen. Picture: Getty Images

When Rene Meulensteen answered a phone call from Graham Arnold earlier this year he thought the then Sydney FC coach was just looking for another Dutch player to bolster his ranks.

Good friends since the early 2000s, Meulensteen has been a sounding board in the past for ­Arnold, who had good success in recruiting Dutch players during his time with Central Coast Mariners and the Sky Blues in the A-League.

But this time the call wasn’t about player recruitment. Arnold wanted the Dutchman by his side as his assistant when he took over the Socceroos at the end of the World Cup in Russia in July.

According to Meulensteen, whose resume includes a five-year stint as Alex Ferguson’s right-hand man at Manchester United between 2008 and 2013 when they won three Premier League titles and the Champions League, the timing was perfect.

Since 2013, he has been involved with Fulham as well as clubs in Israel and India and was looking for a new challenge.

“I was looking for something different after being involved in club football for so long,” Meulensteen said yesterday. “For me, ­national team football is the purest form of the game. There are no finances, you can’t go out and buy the best players, you don’t deal with agents and you have to work with the players you have from the 17s all the way through.

“It was something I always wanted to do in my career. The fact it would be with Australia was also a factor. There was no doubt when I put the phone down that I wanted to do it.”

While his knowledge of the A-League is not great, Meulensteen says he knows the character of Australian players, having dealt with several during his time with various clubs as well as observing them at various World Cups.

“Australia has a big pulling power for me because Australians have such a good attitude towards sports and football,” he said. “I give them a lot of credit at the last World Cup (in Russia). They were very unlucky against France and Denmark. They are very fit, very competitive, work hard and are very well organised. For sure any country that knows they have to play Australia knows they will have a hard game.”

As for Ferguson’s influence, Meulensteen had nothing but praise for the former Manchester United boss.

“What made him so good? It was a combination of many things,” he said. “His man management with both players and his staff, he was a good listener, tactically he was superb because he could pick up something others couldn’t see. He had an enormous drive and appetite for work.”

While the Dutch footballing philosophy has been part of the game over here for the past 12 years or so, Meulensteen was quick to say he is not a disciple. Far from it.

He claims it is “too rigid”.

“Yes, 100 per cent … it is too rigid, too static” he said. “Holland is still in that rigid 4-3-3 (formation) scenario. Nowadays teams have moved and are more clever. They (the Dutch) have a challenge on their hands.

“I wasn’t one for that rigidity. The fact I moved on to England and became involved in one of the greatest clubs in the world … that silenced a lot of people because everything I achieved was the ­result of what I did outside of ­Holland and did not come as a result of the KNVB (Dutch Football Association). I am what I am and I say what I stand for.”