Edwin de Graaf is leading the training sessions of NAC Breda for the time being, the club reports on Thursday afternoon. Last season, the former football player worked as an assistant to Maurice Steijn, who has since left. He will be assisted by Hans Visser, newcomer Anthony Lurling and goalkeeper coach Gábor Babos. On Friday, De Graaf will face the group for the first time: then NAC will start preparing for the new season. Steijn stepped down as trainer of NAC on Saturday.
De Graaf himself played for NAC between 2006 and 2010. Thanks to four goals in the summer of 2009 in the preliminary rounds of the Europa League, he is even NAC’s all-time European top scorer. The former midfielder was also under contract with clubs such as RBC Roosendaal, Feyenoord and Excelsior. After his career, he started working as a youth coach for Feyenoord, until he started working as an assistant coach for ADO Den Haag in 2017. He was sent home in December 2019 after a serious fight with player Donny Gorter and a month later he was permanently evicted. In July 2020, he returned to NAC as an assistant coach.
NAC now offers him the opportunity to lead the training sessions, although it is unclear how long De Graaf will remain at the helm. The club from the Kitchen Champion Division, which missed promotion against NEC in the final of the play-offs, only reports that he will be at the helm ‘in the coming period’. The 41-year-old former professional has already obtained his UEFA Pro diploma and thus has the highest achievable trainer’s diploma in the Netherlands. He will receive assistance from Lurling, whose arrival as a youth trainer and assistant coach was already announced in February for the 2021/22 season.
It has been restless at NAC since last week. Besides Steijn, technical director Ton Lokhoff also resigned. ‘Appropriate actions’ were even planned by the supporters of NAC, should Steijn not have left Breda before Saturday 19 June at 23.59 hours. NAC reports that up to a hundred supporters are welcome during training on Saturday, but after Saturday the training sessions will remain closed until further notice.
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