Arne Slot: the overachiever and ‘good guy’ who can spark a revolution
Liverpool’s move for the Feyenoord coach, Arne Slot, has been described by Ajax fans as “the best news of the year”. Troubled Ajax have been blown away this season, losing 4-0 at home and 6-0 away against their arch-rivals.
So superior were Feyenoord in every area – tactics, intensity, power, unity, intelligence – that it could have been worse for Ajax. Only in their finishing might Feyenoord have done better.
Their growth over the past three seasons bears the signature of Slot, who came to the club in 2021. When he arrived, Feyenoord were in a situation similar to Ajax’s now: they had finished fifth (Ajax’s position), had no money or remaining prestige and had embarrassed themselves in the Europa League, losing twice to Austria’s Wolfsberger. Players were not fit, there was uncertainty about the style of play, and their captain and top scorer Steven Berghuis had left (for Ajax). In short, there was no real hope.
Slot has changed everything. In his first season, with a mix of revitalised, loaned and cheap players, Feyenoord reached the Europa Conference League final before losing narrowly to Roma.
That campaign marked the start of Orkun Kökcü’s transformation, perhaps the best example of Slot’s impact. The Turkey international had never fulfilled his talent but realised if he wanted to survive in Slot’s high-speed game he had to become fitter, better and more versatile. Kökcü lifted the Eredivisie trophy in Slot’s second season, as captain, and within a month his transfer to Benfica had earned Feyenoord a record fee of €25m plus add-ons.
This season, Feyenoord could end with more points than when taking that title and have won the KNVB Cup. Barring an improbable set of results they will finish second behind PSV and qualify again for the Champions League. They provide more players for the Netherlands (Mats Wieffer, Quinten Timber, Quilindschy Hartman, Lutsharel Geertruida) than any other club.
Slot is an overachiever who can spark a revolution. In many respects he resembles Jürgen Klopp. He is intelligent, relies on attacking football and high pressing, is didactically strong, surrounds himself with skilled assistants, brings wit into his media dealings and is searingly ambitious. His voice in transfer politics has grown at Feyenoord.
Just like Klopp, Slot did not make a big impression as a player. He was a slow, old-fashioned No 10 who played at mediocre clubs (PEC Zwolle, NAC Breda and Sparta Rotterdam).
Slot grew up in Bergentheim, a small village in the Netherlands’ socalled Bible belt. Ali Boussaboun, a former teammate at NAC, says: “I never heard him swear, never heard him say goddamn. In that self-control I could already see a coach.”
The “good guy” from the small village was toughened at NAC most notably by Henk ten Cate, a streetwise former assistant coach at Barcelona and Chelsea. “Ten Cate demanded more aggressiveness,” Boussaboun says. “Arne had to stretch his limits to the maximum at NAC and even then he did not always play.”
After Slot retired as a player in 2013, he considered studying but started a company selling captain’s armbands with his brother Jakko while working as a youth coach at PEC. The coaching grew on him, which is perhaps no coincidence. From the age of five he had spent Saturdays listening in changing rooms to how his father, Arend, a school teacher, instructed the amateur teams