Arne Slot played ‘like a snail’ but forced Dutch legend to resign with miracle coaching but Diego Simeone thought he was the kit man
Arne Slot has already done what predecessor Jurgen Klopp could never do with Liverpool and beat Real Madrid. And yet just three years ago, city rivals Atletico Madrid thought he was the kit man. Slot is absolutely flying as Liverpool managerGetty The Dutchman is arguably the biggest story in European football so far this season, taking the Reds to the top of the Premier League and Champions League with 17 wins from 19 for the best start of any manager at the legendary club. While everyone felt there could be collapse with eerie similarities to when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, the opposite has happened. And things could get even better with a win over Manchester City on Sunday. Liverpool have the chance to go 11 points clear of their bruised rivals at Anfield and Slot could become a legend in record time, but his real target may be beating Pep Guardiola and earning his respect. Because Slot hasn’t always had that, as one of the men who knows him best has explained. Mikos Gouka is a reporter as leading Dutch outlet AD and has covered Slot and Feyenoord for the past three years. Through his new book ‘Slot-bal’ he details how the 46-year-old went from relative obscurity to the top of the game, and talkSPORT was lucky enough to get a glimpse of that remarkable journey. Born in the small Dutch village of Bergentheim, both of Slot’s parents were teachers, but his father was also an amateur football coach who would invite his two sons along to matches where they got an insight of how football, but more importantly communication and tactics worked. Slot would go on to play for local side PEC Zwolle, and drifted between the first and second tiers, verging on a call-up to the Netherlands national team which never came. Recalling what the former midfielder was like as a player, Gouka said: “He was quite a good player but not top level. He was always trying to convince people he was good as a player, but when they were losing he was always the first one to come off because he wasn’t working hard and didn’t have dirty kit, he wasn’t Roy Keane he was more Matt Le Tissier. “At the end of his career he told us ‘I was not very quick, somebody told me I was like a snail’ but he said ‘so I have to do everything right on the pitch, I was in the midfield so the players around me had to stand in the right way and be in the right position’ he was almost a coach on the pitch.” It was clear to Slot’s teammates that he would go on to be a great coachGetty At one point, Slot quite literally became the coach on the pitch, with outstanding results. Taking on an Ajax side led by arguably the nation’s greatest ever sportsmen, Marco van Basten, Slot had a plan. “Sparta Rotterdam had a tactical plan for that game but Slot changed it,” Gouka explained. “He was talking with the coach, Foeke Booy, and told him ‘if we do it that way and you play me on the right wing it might be the best solution’. Booy thought about it for an hour and said ‘we’ll do it that way’ and Sparta won 4-0. “It was a miracle and Van Basten quit after the game. All the Sparta players said it was his tactical switch that won the game so I thought ‘maybe he will go a long way’.” Not all of Slot’s ingenuity always worked out, though, as one famous viral moment from his playing days caused some giggles across the country. Gouka remembered: “He was at PEC Zwolle as a player and wanted to try something new at the kick-off and tried to get the ball behind the other team’s defence by launching the ball into the sky. “He tried it and it worked a few times, but one time he tried it and the ball went the wrong way because he didn’t have the technical skills. “That footage was picked out by several programmes that made fun of him. He was a bit frustrated by that and when he came to Feyenoord the players didn’t know about it, but when they saw it on television they started doing it in training and saying ‘Arne can we try this in the next game’. “He was always laughing about it and I asked him if he was annoyed and he said ‘they can make fun of me, but as long as they don’t do it too much’ he knows where to stop it and knows when to laugh about it. The players said he was always there as one of us, but he was always the gaffer, he had a smooth way about him.” So smooth was Slot that he quickly convinced everyone around him. Take former assistant and Netherlands international John de Wolf, who told Slot his enthusiasm and understanding of the game made him want to start playing again. De Wolf had retired with a knee injury that stopped him from even light exercise. Or there’s Jens Toornstra, a Feyenoord regular before Slot arrived, but he soon departed for Utrecht after becoming a bench player. Still, he will tell Gouka that Slot is the best coach he’s ever worked with because “he’s so good at communicating”. Slot’s ‘two biggest career f
Arne Slot has already done what predecessor Jurgen Klopp could never do with Liverpool and beat Real Madrid.
And yet just three years ago, city rivals Atletico Madrid thought he was the kit man.
The Dutchman is arguably the biggest story in European football so far this season, taking the Reds to the top of the Premier League and Champions League with 17 wins from 19 for the best start of any manager at the legendary club.
While everyone felt there could be collapse with eerie similarities to when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, the opposite has happened.
And things could get even better with a win over Manchester City on Sunday.
Liverpool have the chance to go 11 points clear of their bruised rivals at Anfield and Slot could become a legend in record time, but his real target may be beating Pep Guardiola and earning his respect.
Because Slot hasn’t always had that, as one of the men who knows him best has explained.
Mikos Gouka is a reporter as leading Dutch outlet AD and has covered Slot and Feyenoord for the past three years. Through his new book ‘Slot-bal’ he details how the 46-year-old went from relative obscurity to the top of the game, and talkSPORT was lucky enough to get a glimpse of that remarkable journey.
Born in the small Dutch village of Bergentheim, both of Slot’s parents were teachers, but his father was also an amateur football coach who would invite his two sons along to matches where they got an insight of how football, but more importantly communication and tactics worked.
Slot would go on to play for local side PEC Zwolle, and drifted between the first and second tiers, verging on a call-up to the Netherlands national team which never came.
Recalling what the former midfielder was like as a player, Gouka said: “He was quite a good player but not top level. He was always trying to convince people he was good as a player, but when they were losing he was always the first one to come off because he wasn’t working hard and didn’t have dirty kit, he wasn’t Roy Keane he was more Matt Le Tissier.
“At the end of his career he told us ‘I was not very quick, somebody told me I was like a snail’ but he said ‘so I have to do everything right on the pitch, I was in the midfield so the players around me had to stand in the right way and be in the right position’ he was almost a coach on the pitch.”
At one point, Slot quite literally became the coach on the pitch, with outstanding results. Taking on an Ajax side led by arguably the nation’s greatest ever sportsmen, Marco van Basten, Slot had a plan.
“Sparta Rotterdam had a tactical plan for that game but Slot changed it,” Gouka explained. “He was talking with the coach, Foeke Booy, and told him ‘if we do it that way and you play me on the right wing it might be the best solution’. Booy thought about it for an hour and said ‘we’ll do it that way’ and Sparta won 4-0.
“It was a miracle and Van Basten quit after the game. All the Sparta players said it was his tactical switch that won the game so I thought ‘maybe he will go a long way’.”
Not all of Slot’s ingenuity always worked out, though, as one famous viral moment from his playing days caused some giggles across the country.
Gouka remembered: “He was at PEC Zwolle as a player and wanted to try something new at the kick-off and tried to get the ball behind the other team’s defence by launching the ball into the sky.
“He tried it and it worked a few times, but one time he tried it and the ball went the wrong way because he didn’t have the technical skills.
“That footage was picked out by several programmes that made fun of him. He was a bit frustrated by that and when he came to Feyenoord the players didn’t know about it, but when they saw it on television they started doing it in training and saying ‘Arne can we try this in the next game’.
“He was always laughing about it and I asked him if he was annoyed and he said ‘they can make fun of me, but as long as they don’t do it too much’ he knows where to stop it and knows when to laugh about it. The players said he was always there as one of us, but he was always the gaffer, he had a smooth way about him.”
So smooth was Slot that he quickly convinced everyone around him. Take former assistant and Netherlands international John de Wolf, who told Slot his enthusiasm and understanding of the game made him want to start playing again. De Wolf had retired with a knee injury that stopped him from even light exercise.
Or there’s Jens Toornstra, a Feyenoord regular before Slot arrived, but he soon departed for Utrecht after becoming a bench player. Still, he will tell Gouka that Slot is the best coach he’s ever worked with because “he’s so good at communicating”.
Slot’s ‘two biggest career frustrations’ would come at AZ. The first was his title challenge against Ajax getting called off by Covid in 2020 with the Eredivisie cancelled, and the second AZ dismissing him after finding out he was talking to Feyenoord.
Regretful as he was, Slot did book the Feyenoord job and one of his first matches came in a pre-season friendly when he came up against the first iconic manager of his iconic career – Diego Simeone.
The legendary Atletico Madrid boss was a dream rival for Slot, but he soon became frustrated by a lack of respect in rather amusing fashion.
Gouka recounted: “Feyenoord won it in the last minute and they were celebrating and Slot wanted to shake hands with Simeone but Simeone didn’t realise he was the head coach, he thought he might be the kit man or someone of that level.
“Slot started to laugh and then Simeone thought he was laughing at him and wanted to punch him.
“After that he had some fights with [Jose] Mourinho as well but he said ‘I had to take that one because I lost’. There were two times when big managers didn’t take him seriously, but now he’d beaten Ancelotti and next could be Guardiola. Three years ago they thought he was the kit man.”
Slot would go through another spell of feeling underappreciated in during 2023/24 when he failed to to follow up his Eredivisie title win as PSV bulldozed the league in astonishing circumstances.
Slot later admitted that he rejected Tottenham in the summer of 2023, and Gouka has also revealed that he shared a private jet with Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, while Brighton also made a move.
He decided to stay, though, and after failing to secure back-to-back titles, the media began speculating that he shouldn’t have stuck around, and that clubs like Nottingham Forest were more his level.
Little did they know that Slot was already in talks with Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes, and a deal was almost agreed, but kept quiet to avoid a repeat of his AZ regrets.
At the time he had to read about his future team being linked to club legend Xabi Alonso, and the disappointment from fans when the Spaniard didn’t arrive. Spurred again, Slot made sure respect was put on his name once more.
The coach has somehow made Liverpool even better after Klopp’s departure, and as Gouka explains ‘Slot-bal’ is already in full effect.
“I think what you’re seeing already is what Slot is about,” he said. “He always says he wants to create a good chance, more than half a chance, so you have to be patient on the ball, and that’s the big difference.
“At Feyenoord he changed that in just a few weeks. He likes to press high and have defenders high up the pitch in the midfield, but the main thing is the patience.
“There were high expectations because Liverpool has a good squad, but if you put Arne Slot on the training pitch he will work it out with the players, they all say that, if you give him six weeks to work on a system they will get better and better.”
The question now is, with Slot’s career one of constant progression, what happens when things start to go wrong?
It’s all been plain sailing on Merseyside so far, and with Slot a master of press conferences, many are wondering how long this will last.
“In Holland it was the same,” Gouka revealed. “We always said we wanted to see what he was like when he loses three times in a row, but he never did.
“So we asked him that as well, ‘you’re always calm and collected but what happens when you lose three in a row?’ and he said ‘well I never did’ and started laughing.
“That’s what a lot of opponents say about him, but he’s always leading in conversations, he’s always explaining, he doesn’t get angry so I don’t think he will change even if he starts losing.”
Well one way or another, we’re likely to find out. Or we won’t and we’re witnessing one of the new greatest coaches of the modern era.
Let’s see what Guardiola thinks on Sunday night…
Mikos Gouka’s ‘Slot-bol’ is available to buy HERE, with an English version expected to be produced for the new year.
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