Scott Musgrave

  

The man who helped Ajax and AC Milan to countless titles and in the process gained legendary status has agreed to become a club coach with Ajax. For those of you in the dark over the Dutch national team, Mr Van Basten is the current Head Coach and has been since the beginning of the 2006 World Cup campaign. With the Oranje he recorded an unbeaten record to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, easily brushing aside 2nd placed Czech Republic. However his reign has not been without its controversies as he dumped stars of the likes of Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids and more recently Mark Van Bommel.

A no nonsense coach perhaps, but what did he really accomplish thus far? A Round of 16 exit in the World Cup at the hand of rivals Portugal who had beaten them on the road to the Euro 2004 final.

His decision to gamble on talented youngsters ultimately led to the defeat as their inexperience showed at critical moments. Though Van Basten has defended himself by declaring that Euro 2008 was always the ultimate goal he was striving towards, his inability to change from the traditional 4-3-3 system of the Dutch teams of old to a more versatile 4-4-2 ultimately cost Holland particularly in their games against Romania. The group favourites staggered to qualify for the European Championships and for much of the campaign Van Basten was greatly criticized by Oranje fans particularly for limping wins over virtual minnows, i.e Luxembourg and Belarus.

To the relief of many fans however the once great striker has announced he will step down from the national team after Euro 2008. It is reported he will sign on to become the manager of Ajax Amsterdam on July 1st replacing Adrie Costa. It is hoped that he will bring back the Eredivisie title which has eluded them for the last 3 seasons under the leadership of both Henk Ten Cate and Danny Blind.

Marco Van Basten has a great challenge to attend to; as a newcomer to club coaching and the expectations of an internationally reknowned club and its fans. He will be coming up against the likes of Huub Stevens, soon to be of PSV, Bert Van Marwijk (assuming he doesn’t replace Van Basten as Holland national coach) of Feyenoord and Fred Rutten of FC Twente. These coaches, particularly Stevens and Van Marwijk, have years upon years of experience and tactical nous that will make the former legend quiver.

It would be unwise to say that Marco Van Basten will be the solution to Ajax‘s problems, however one cannot easily come to a conclusion as to how the Oranje man will go.

It is fair to say that although he has had limited success with a talented Holland squad, the team has been lacking talent in defence. Therein is the place where Van Basten may succeed at Ajax.

At the Amsterdam club he will have better quality defenders (when looking comparatively between international and Eredivisie level) and thus a better foundation to create a successful squad.

Tactically, Van Basten isn’t the brightest but with time and experience he may well become a manager of some talent. A virtual youngster in the managerial world, Marco Van Basten has plenty of time to become a great manager it’s just a matter of his chairman giving him time to learn.