Andries Jonker interview: Women don’t change off like males however Xavi is the most effective I’ve coached, says Netherlands boss

Ask Andries Jonker to elucidate the distinction between teaching women and men and he reaches again into his previous for an instance. It is December 2002 and he’s assistant supervisor to Louis van Gaal at Barcelona and can’t consider what he has simply seen.

Newcastle are the guests to the Camp Nou for a Champions League tie and a participant is guarding the far put up for a Barcelona nook. Except he has his left hand on the put up and his proper hand on his hip. Those arms are nonetheless there when Thiago Motta heads in.

“He really took a rest,” Jonker tells Sky Sports. He doesn’t identify the participant however Newcastle supporters will want no reminding that it was Kieron Dyer. The Dutchman nonetheless remembers the second 23 years on. This was an opposition participant, bear in mind. “With men, I cannot stand that. I get angry. You should not do that. That is impossible.”

And ladies? “Women do not do that. They just don’t. I have never seen a woman stand like that as the ball goes in. He was not even our player, of course. But it is an example of the different behaviours between men and women, and therefore my different behaviours.

“It doesn’t make sense for me to get indignant now as a result of, in my view, the ladies that I work with at all times give their greatest. You should not have to wake them up. With males, you generally have the sensation, come on, listen. This is your job. You must work.”

Jonker, who will lead Netherlands at Euro 2025, is an outlier within the ladies’s recreation. As his story about that evening in Barcelona suggests, this can be a coach who labored on the prime of the boys’s recreation for a few years, later aiding Van Gaal at Bayern Munich too.

Arjen Robben praised him for bringing the enjoyment again to coaching at Bayern. Arsene Wenger, with whom he went on to work at Arsenal, credit him with enjoying a key position in growing the constructions that helped produce a era of top-class Dutch expertise.

But the most effective participant that Jonker has ever labored with is a Catalan. “It has to be Xavi at Barcelona,” he replies, with out hesitation. “He wasn’t tall. He wasn’t quick. He wasn’t really strong physically. But in the head, I have not seen any player better than he was.”

He provides: “He was outstanding. It was his orientation on the pitch, always scanning, always positioning his body into the best position. He was two footed and never in trouble. There was always time and space for him to play but he created it by himself.

“You noticed gamers getting prizes for being the most effective participant. It was at all times for the highest scorer, for Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. Of course, they’re excellent as nicely. But we must always have given Xavi a prize for being, for 10 years, the most effective midfielder on the earth.”

At 62 years previous, having labored with the easiest, what retains Jonker out on the grass? To clarify this, he has one other story, this one slightly extra private. His mom, 86, has had to enter a care dwelling. Jonker and his brother set about cleansing the household dwelling.

“We have found all kinds of things related to football when I was just eight or nine years old,” he says, smiling. There are previous boots. There is a e book gathering footage of gamers from the 1969/70 season. There is even a mannequin of a soccer participant that he made as a child.

“At least it looked like a football player. I must have been seven. But it shows that it was in the bones. I was really passionate about football even then. It is really great to see it all again, to feel that passion. It does not disappear. It is still there. I just love football.”

Naturally, he names Van Gaal as considered one of his largest influences. The others are not any nice shock both. “I am from Amsterdam,” he says, as if that is all the reason required. “The influence of Rinus Michels, of Johan Cruyff… that made me the football lover I am.”

He has needed to adapt his concepts, in fact. “The men and women of this century cannot be compared to the men and women of the last century. The game has developed very much physically, it is at a higher tempo so the brain and the feet have to be quicker.”

He stops wanting saying the soccer is healthier. But he does consider he’s a greater coach. “You develop with the game, new influences come. In the end, you find yourself becoming a completely different coach. I am much better now than I was 20 years ago.”

Jonker’s first expertise teaching within the ladies’s recreation got here even earlier than that, working with Dutch children. It was then that he first seen the way it introduced out completely different qualities in him as a coach. “Immediately, I felt I was doing it differently,” he reveals.

“At the time, I thought about it. Why am I talking differently to the girls than the boys? I spoke in a different tone. I had more patience. Maybe it was how I was brought up, the time I was brought up. But it just went that way and I have decided that is the way it is.”

It isn’t as if he isn’t demanding. He has huge expectations of his crew forward of Euro 2025 and was disenchanted by their displaying in opposition to Germany and Scotland at the beginning of June. The hope is {that a} quick break has rejuvenated a squad he maintains is robust.

“On paper, this is maybe the best team we have ever had.” Bold speak on condition that Sarina Wiegman, whose England crew they may face through the group stage in Switzerland, received this match with Netherlands in 2017, happening to achieve a World Cup last.

“Sarina had success with 10 or 11 outstanding players and managed to keep them fit. Of course, the others helped. But we had 15, 16 or 17 players at the highest level.” Now, there are extra choices. “I have some difficult choices. That is a big difference.”

Many of what Jonker describes as Netherlands’ “golden generation” – suppose Vivianne Miedema, Sherida Spitse, Danielle van de Donk, Jackie Groenen, Shanice van de Sanden, Dominique Janssen and Jill Roord – are nonetheless round for this match.

Miedema has fought to be prepared, scoring twice in opposition to Finland within the last warm-up recreation. “She is a world-class player and worked very hard, bringing a physio with her on holiday, training with [partner] Beth [Mead]. We are doing everything to get her fit.”

But others are actually rising too. “With the young talents like Veerle Buurman, Esmee Brugts and Wieke Kaptein, it is special. And this is the chance. When the older ones stop, Arjan Veurink has to do a lot of work on creating and building a new team.”

The point out of Veurink, who, in a scrumptious coincidence, will assist put together England to face Netherlands in his position as Wiegman’s assistant, is a reference to the truth that Jonker is to get replaced on the finish of Euro 2025. The change was not his alternative.

“I was surprised and disappointed. There are a lot of other things to say but that is what I can tell you.” Between from time to time, his process is to organize his crew for group video games in opposition to England and France – however solely after their opening fixture in opposition to Wales.

“Everybody in my environment seems to think Wales are a piece of cake. And I think they are all wrong. I think Wales is tough. I do not have any sand in my eyes.” The group favourites? “It will be who is in the best shape or maybe who has the most luck.”

For Jonker, the hope is that he can bow out in model. “When I accepted the job, I said two things. One, I wanted to enjoy a World Cup and a European Championship. The second thing was to help women’s football make a few steps forward. I think we did that.”

He explains: “We play very attractive football and we try to inspire, especially, children who love to play football. And that is what we managed to do. And it would be the crown of my work if we could do this tournament very, very well.” But what does that imply?

“The best thing that we can do is win the tournament,” he says. But maybe in a nod to these inspirations of the previous, Michels and Cruyff, in addition to the little boy who simply beloved the sport of soccer, he provides: “At the very least, we have to play a great tournament.”