Without Ernie - but Bert approaches

While everybody is still shocked by the resignation of our former player and coach Matthias Sammer rumours of his successor are since today confirmed. It looks like there has been a connection between Borussia Dortmund and Feyenoord Rotterdam coach Bert van Marwjk for quite a while already.


As every year several teams have dismissed their coaches and are looking for new ones now. But in contrary to the last years there is quite a high number of well-known names among those coaches this year. The dismissal of former BVB-coach Ottmar Hitzfeld from Bayern Munich appeared to be some sort of beginning. What followed was business as usual, Bayern wanted VfB Stuttgart coach Felix Magath, and of course Bayern always gets what they want. Now Stuttgart looked for a new coach. That brought the BVB on the scene, since on the one hand Matthias Sammer had been criticised by media, fans and apparently by the management as well for quite a long time and on the other hand Stuttgart thought about a new cooperation with their former player Sammer, who had become German champion with the VfB in 1992. What followed was Sammer’s resignation on Sunday; apparently a sudden action from Niebaum, Meier and Zorc, but actually it had been planned a while ago already. So it’s no real surprise that the top-candidate for this position has had contact with the BVB for a longer period of time. But who is this…?
… appears to become our new coach. On the homepage of Feyenoord Rotterdam the Dutchman already admitted that there have been “conversations with a club with great potential” even before Sunday. And although Tottenham Hotspurs and other English Premier League clubs have been connected to van Marwijk by the media one does not need much imagination to realize that Niebaum, Meier and Zorc have been quite busy and have looked for possible successors on the market. In addition to that van Marwijk was about to change to the German Bundesliga last summer already when our friendly neighbours from Gelsenkirchen were looking for a new coach but did not want to pay a transfer fee. So van Marwijk stayed in Rotterdam. His successor, former international Dutchman Ruud Gullit, has been announced several months ago.
He started his career as player with 17 at the Go Ahead Eagles in his place of birth, the dutch Deventer. For the next 20 years left-footed van Marwijk played almost always in the Netherlands, for the Eagles, AZ Alkmaar, MVV from Maastricht and one year for Fortuna Sittard. At the age of 36 he changed for his last season to Assent FC in Belgium. The longest period of time van Marwijk, who is 52 years old now, played as fullback on the left side or as libero.
Even back in Maastricht (’79-’87) one could already see that one day van Marwijk would become coach. From the season 82/83 he was responsible for the youth team of the club. But it should take 8 more years until he would become coach of a senior team in Herderen in Belgium. Having coached some amateur teams in the Netherlands he changed to Fortuna Sittard in the Eredivisie in 1998. His biggest success, except for avoiding relegation, was the reaching of the cup-final, which was lost against Ajax. In 2000 van Marwijk changed to Feyenoord Rotterdam where he reached the 3rd place three times and the 2nd place once. But for the fans a 3rd place means being on the last place because they only look at the other Dutch super powers Ajax Amsterdam and PSV Eindhoven. So his biggest success was winning the UEFA Cup in 2002, unfortunately against Borussia Dortmund. This was also Jürgen Kohler’s last game, he saw the red card in the first half already.

In the Netherlands van Marwijk is considered a gentleman who has a hand for young players as well as for difficult characters. While on the one hand he brought stars such as Pierre van Hooijdonk, Jon Dahl Tomasson and Paul Bosvelt to high performance and formed talents like van Persie and Belgian Thomas Buffel he on the other hand became problems with robin van Persie, did rarely let him play this year and let him change to Arsenal for only few money now. But the relationship to Hooijdonk was not the best, too, and there are still some supporters who claim that Feyenoord has won the UEFA Cup because of the forward and not because of the coach. One must recognize parallels to Sammer and Amoroso. Usually van Marwijk prefers a 4-4-2-system that sometimes changes to a 4-2-1-2-1-system as seen in the finals two years ago. He is described as coach who prefers hard working players with the right attitude to their job. Therefore he defends them and tries to protect them to the end.

Some insiders of the Dutch Football-scene moan that his tactics are not flexible enough. His substitutions are similar to Sammer’s and he rather replaces a place too late than too early.
A difficult, but just question. Although the results in the UEFA Cup 2002 were quite remarkable the results in the league did not satisfy the heavy demands of the club. Many fans still appreciate him as coach and person, but they also realize that the time has come for the club to present a new face and to start new euphoria. On the other hand Bert van Marwijk is looking for new challenges. The step into the Bundesliga and to Borussia Dortmund might add another important position to his biography. His parting may also be due to threats from Ajax-“fans” who claimed that they would try to kill him at open-house in 2002, when some shouted discriminating paroles, among them the name of the radical-Islamite organisation Hamas.
Another important aspect is that van Marvijk is father-in-law to Dutch international Mark van Bommel. Although it is too early to consider such a change most-likely it seems to be not impossible any longer. His contract ends next year and one can expect that he will change this summer. Schlacke, some English clubs (Aston Villa and others) and (especially because of van Marwijk) Dortmund seem to be interested in the player. But this also depends on a future of Frings and Rosicky in Dortmund.
Van Marwijk is from today on with Borussia Dortmund. His salary will be less than Sammer’s (3 Mio. Euro/year), but he will still earn more than many other players in the Bundesliga. A contract over 2 or 3 years seems to be possible. One cannot say what will happen to the coach-assistants de Beer and especially Neuhaus yet, but we will know as soon as a new coach is introduced. There is only one thing left for us to say:

Hartelijk welkom in Dortmund, Bert van Marwijk!

Geschrieben von jonam