The KNVB announced on Wednesday evening that Frank de Boer is the new national coach of the Dutch national team up to and including the 2022 World Cup. After the European Championship next year, an evaluation will take place with the former coach of Ajax. If the collaboration is satisfactory, De Boer will continue up to and including the global final tournament. The question is what he has learned from his hard learning moments abroad and what he will take with him to Orange. For example, has he become smarter in his dealings with celebrities?

De Boer clashed with Mounir El Hamdoui at Ajax and also had to deal with eccentric football players in his time at Internazionale and Atlanta United. “Look at Josef Martínez at Atlanta,” Ronald de Boer said in Thursday Algemeen Dagblad. “That was really the Romario of that team, an asshole, but Frank triggered him perfectly. Sometimes by tackling him hard, then again by tackling it a bit more sensitively. ”

Guido Albers, childhood friend and agent of Frank de Boer, understands that the former defender as national coach will first have to overcome some skepticism because he is accused that Ajax played boring and slow football in his time. “As if that at Ajax wasn’t simply due to the player material,” counter the advocate. “But I am convinced that Frank is ready for Orange. When he can focus on football and with a staff he can trust, he’s a great coach. He always has been on the field. Outside of that he has only become more mature and wiser. ”

Ronald de Boer emphasizes that his brother is by nature in good faith and does not have double agendas himself. That’s why he doesn’t expect that from others either. At Internazionale and Crystal Palace he mainly focused on the peripheral matters. “Sometimes it helps to see the pitfalls in advance, the lines. At Atlanta he dealt well with that right away ”, says the former midfielder annex attacker. Albers agrees that Frank de Boer has no natural talent for political games. “He just wants to work with people he can rely on, enjoy playing football, make the team stronger.”

“That is his strength and weakness at the same time. On the one hand, it makes that such a good, passionate and honest coach. On the other hand, he has sometimes been naive about it. You cannot always deny certain force fields, you have to deal with them. ” Albers does not rule out that his client has thought for too long that the way of working at Ajax, ‘where he was respected in all areas as a person and trainer’, was also possible elsewhere. “But at Inter there were suddenly a few Chinese on the field to film the training.”

“Had to be from the Chinese owner. At such a club you are irrevocably drawn into the entire power game. ” De Boer will immediately start his work as national coach. As a result, he is already on the bench at the next exhibition game for the Dutch, a game against Mexico on October 7. De Boer will be officially presented in Zeist on Friday.