The internal history of the crazy coaching idea of Arne Slot: “It was a brilliant failure”
It was, to mention a Dutch title, “a brilliant failure”. Translation: a brilliant failure.
Or, to put it in another way, Arne Slot had better ideas during his 30 -year career as a professional footballer and now manager, who led him to the cusp of the title of Premier League this season with Liverpool.
At the time he was 32 years old, playing for Pec Zwolle in the Dutch second division, and was an improvisation kick that brought a former Dutch international, Rene Van der Gijp, close to the spontaneous combustion point in his television chat show.
“If you show this at (winner of the Spain World Cup) Andres Iniesta, he will think this is a completely different sport,” said Van der Gijp to Vandaag spectators inside. “This has nothing to do with professional football. If you do it in a coffee team, with 12 people among the crowd, you are immediately removed. And everyone says:” It’s crazy “.”
In what way can you explain the scene in 2011 when Slot sought the approval of his coaches in Zwolle to try something a little new, a little extravagant, in an attempt to capture the players of the Cambuur opposition?
To give him the benefit of doubt, it is a reminder that the slot, even as a younger man, was A tactical passionate who liked to think out of the box.
It is also worth noting that, having devised this plan, he had the courage to manage it from Art Langeler, the director of Zwolle at the time, as well as his assistant, Jaap Stam, the former International Defender of Manchester United and Netherlands.
“But it was still a ridiculous idea,” says Jan Evere, another former Zwolle coach, Atleticobarely suppress laughter. “Arne has many ideas – this, unfortunately, was one of its worst.”
Arne Slot was fascinated by the tactics while an Zwolle Pec player (MI Images via Getty Images)
That plane was to make mistakes the ball, directly from the kick -off, and then launch an omnipotent in the middle of the opposition, with the intention that would have fallen into the penalty area. And, while the ball was in mid -air, the attackers of Zwolle had to run to the penalty area to meet her as she descended and, ideally, overcome it over an exposed goalkeeper. After all, they could not be leaves because everyone would start behind the ball. And if it worked, the defense of the opposition would be caught by surprise.
“What they did not seem to understand is that, if you kick the ball to the penalty area directly from the kick -off, it should be a very easy capture for the goalkeeper,” says Everse, who still seems completely disconcerted today, over a decade. “Also, how long does the ball be in the air? Maybe three seconds? Do you think only how quickly the players should be recovered. You would need someone to beat a world record just to get there. No. This was a bad idea.”
But what happens if Slot, the team director, could get the ball Truly high?
During training, the move went well.
“Three times too,” said Langeler recently in an interview with the journalist Vincent De Vries for the De Spaling newspaper based in Zwolle. “That’s why Jaap and I said to it:” Let’s try it. “But he needed the right execution, of course.”
What is followed can be a surprise for those fans of Liverpool who saw slot bring the team to the top of the table in his year of debut without any tactical ideas that could be described as non -Orthodox (or simple) since they dealt with Jurgen Klopp.
Unfortunately for the slot, the Internet never forgets and the video shows that it was not close to the level of execution required at all. Joey Van Den Berg’s tap was fine. So it was the slot movie to stand. So … everything went hopelessly wrong.
Interesting Arne Slot Kickoff technique while he was a Dutch League player.
The slot obtained permission from Zwolle’s coaches to take the kick -off in this way, even if Liverpool’s future manager eventually abandoned the idea after realizing that it was not his best idea ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/zieejeetb9
– Daniel Taylor (@dtathletic) April 1, 2025
“Arne wanted to shoot him in the penalty area, but instead, he kicked the ball almost straight,” said Langeler, with a laugh.
Not completely straight. The ball actually descends backwards, in the air and then goes down, landing on the left edge of the central circle in the middle of Zwolle, to the sound of applause slightly bewildered by the crowd.
“We started this game between Zwolle and Cambuur …” Vincent Schildkamp, television commentator, announces. “And this is extraordinarily strange. It could be the tension … you rarely see this, an extraordinary moment from Arne Slot.”
Everse, an Ajax and Feyenoord player in the 70s, says that the video was still shown on television in the Netherlands: “Arne had spoken to the other players and coaches during the week.” We have to change the kick -off. If we do it in this way, they will be surprised. “But football was not what he wanted. He had totally wrong.”
The slot seems to lose his bearings and the ball falls behind him in anyone’s land. They are the players of Zwolle who are caught by surprise and, in a few moments, Cambuur is in attack.
Was there a method for madness? “Sometimes the opponents could have the sun in their eyes and could not control him”, explains Ben Hendriks, who was director of Zwolle from 1992 to 1995, and later worked for the club as Scout. “Other times it was his way of saying:” Here, we would like to have the second ball. “People laugh here.
Hendriks recalls that Slot always thought of new ways to try to get an advantage over Zwolle’s opponents: “When he slept, he was thinking about football. He always had a football brain and was very good at making people believe in themselves.”
Langeler also has a little sympathy: “Shooting the ball as high as possible in the penalty area, the idea was that our three attackers would have worked forward and would have been there (for when he dropped) on the margins of the area. And who knows what would come?
“It seemed fun, of course. And if I didn’t know the background, you would think:” What the hell are they doing? Only the ball take in the air. “No, this was a brilliant failure, let’s leave us.”
The slot had an extraordinary first season in Liverpool (Henry Nicholls / AFP via Getty Images)
The slot, however, was not ready to leave it – in order not to start, however. Undaunted, he tried the routine again later that year. Once again, the opponents were Cambuur and, again, it went badly.
“He made himself ridiculous – it was incredible,” says Everse, who wonders if the intention was “that the opponent broke out laughing, does not recover and could profit from it”.
Everse, for the context, had two spells with slots, evaluates him as a better coach than Klopp and talks about his pride he sees The “fantastic work” is doing his former player with Liverpool. There is no malice in what he says, only for fun. And laughter.
It is a reminder, he says, of how, in football, even the smartest people can make mistakes: “Johan Cruyff, the best footballer and coach, has always said:” Football is a very easy game – but it is very difficult to play it easily “. Sometimes, however, there are players or coaches who try to invent football again. And this, from Arne, is an example.”
Additional reports: James Pearce
(Photo above: images through Getty Images)
