It has been a month since Remko Bicentini unwittingly and without any notion of it himself was caught in the middle of an unprecedented storm. The 52-year old exercise master had to learn through the media that his function as national coach of Curaçao was taken over by Guus Hiddink after four successful years. A reconstruction of how he experienced an extremely turbulent month, in which the pieces of the puzzle slowly collapsed for him and the completion of his contract up to and including 2022 came to nothing. “It’s too bizarre for words, man.”

By Chris Meijer

As soon as Football zone Bicentini, he just hung up a call from North America. His phone has been red-hot for a month now, because people everywhere want to know what’s going on on Curaçao. “These are mainly people from football associations, who show support, don’t know what’s going on and wonder why this change has taken place. Occasionally I get a little tired of that, because you have to keep explaining it”, sighs Bicentini. From Curaçao he heard nothing for the time being. A conversation with Shaheen Elhage, who took office in September 2019, has not yet been held. Nor was there a meeting with successor Hiddink. The only thing he heard through his lawyer from Curaçao was an ultimatum to agree with the conditions set to terminate his contract running up to and including the World Cup of 2022.

Bicentini worked for the last fourteen years at the football association of Curacao.

Since the ultimatum, in Bicentini’s words, it has gone the ‘legal way’. As far as he is concerned, there are two possibilities: either the decision to appoint Hiddink is reversed and everything will be back to the way it was or the football association of Curaçao ‘has to sit on the blisters’ and pay off the contract neatly. “I have received back from the board that the Bicentini era is over, probably because they have already arranged everything with Hiddink. They have made a very scandalous financial proposal and from that time on my lawyer is working on it. We’re now a month on. A month, huh? You think these things could be settled in a few days, but that’s not the case for now.”

On 21 August at exactly 18.00 hours Bicentini’s life was completely turned upside down. “I will never forget that day in my life”, he laughs like a farmer with a toothache. Bicentini was on his bicycle together with his wife, when his daughter called. Look at teletext, because it says there that Guus Hiddink is going to be the national coach of Curaçao’, his wife was told on the other side of the line. “So my wife says that to me and I respond, ‘Ah, keep on cycling. That’s bullshit, a joke. Within half an hour my phone exploded and I received messages and calls from various media, also because my name was not mentioned anywhere. I knew absolutely nothing, I was stunned.”

Only half an hour after it appeared in the media that Hiddink would take up the position of national coach and technical director on Curaçao, Bicentini received a message from president Elhage via WhatsApp. Good evening Remko, I tried to reach you by telephone. But no answer. An e-mail is on its way to you’, Bicentini quotes the message. “So I look into my phone, also at messages. No missed calls. He didn’t call me at all, but apparently he wanted to fix it. Indeed, an hour later an e-mail came in about the termination of my contract.”

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In the days and sleepless nights that followed, Bicentini was left with one important question: why? Why did Curaçao’s most successful national coach suddenly have to clear the field? Bicentini was born in Nijmegen and has been working for the Antillean Football Association for fourteen years, initially as an assistant and interim union coach. His name is track record since his final appointment in 2016 as Patrick Kluivert’s successor is impressive. Curacao became Carabian champion in 2017, first appeared at the Gold Cup in the same year, reached the quarterfinals two years later for countries from North America, Central America and the Caribbean and maintained itself without any problems in Division A of the CONCACAF-Nations League six months ago. In 2021 Curacao will once again be present at the Gold Cup. “The only thing missing is a World Cup. That was my goal, that’s what we worked towards and that’s why my contract has been extended in the meantime. Because of the good results, but also because of the way we work and where we stand. That’s why it hurts so much, that you are put away by a double agenda. I got calls from America, with: “Remko, what’s happening? Are you going to a big country?’ Nobody got it.”

When a press conference is held in Curaçao after a four-day radio silence, the puzzle slowly falls into place. A barrage of questions is answered by the board. Did Remko Bicentini know about this?’, ‘has Remko Bicentini been spoken to?’, ‘has Remko Bicentini spoken to Guus Hiddink?’ and ‘is there a division of roles?’ the journalists wanted to know, but no answers were given. The technical director stated that the decision to put Bicentini aside had been discussed with the players’ council, which consists of Cuco Martina, Eloy Room and Leandro Bacuna. “Those guys didn’t know anything about it, they all disagree and don’t understand why this happened. They didn’t talk about it at all. I know that most players find it unimaginable and are angry, because they think you don’t handle a trainer who is so good with the team”, responds Bicentini. It was also said that he didn’t want to work under Hiddink, something he doesn’t think has been talked about at all.

However, Bicentini mainly focuses his ears when it is told that Hiddink had already reached a verbal agreement with the football association of Curaçao in January. After all, a month later he himself sat around the table with Hiddink, partly to talk about an advisory role. “I have been going to an advisory meeting with experienced trainers for years. I have also spoken with Dwight Lodeweges and Art Langeler. Types like Louis van Gaal, Bert van Marwijk and Hiddink have experienced World Championships and a baggage from which I can pick something up. With this in mind: this is there, can I do something else? Am I missing something? What are your experiences,” he explains. In mid-January, he sat down with Lodeweges and KNVB director Eric Gudde and asked the latter whether there might be a discussion with Van Gaal, Van Marwijk or Hiddink. Two days later, Gudde hung up on the phone with Bicentini. I have good news for you. It hasn’t become Van Gaal, because he’s in Portugal and that’s difficult. But Hiddink knows about it, likes it very much and is going to call you the day after tomorrow’, said the KNVB director. Hiddink indeed called Bicentini to make an appointment and told him in the same telephone conversation that a few weeks earlier, on behalf of the football association of Curaçao, he had had a visit from general practitioner Walid Elhage (the brother of the new chairman of the association) and Bertus Holkema, who had worked briefly as a team manager in Bicentini’s staff and now eventually joined Hiddink to the island in the same position.

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“So I was wondering why. “No, nothing,” replied Hiddink. We then ended the conversation and would meet on February 3. I immediately called the union doctor and asked how things were going. “Have things been discussed? Why? Nothing wrong, I got back. He also said it shouldn’t have happened like this.” For Bicentini the stocking was finished, despite the fact that Hiddink came up with a list of players during their conversation with the federation doctor Elhage. There were names on it that Bicentini hadn’t used for a while, but he thought it was a bit strange. “So I asked again why they had exactly that meeting, but he assured again that there was nothing there. I didn’t think about it any more.”

In his own words Bicentini then had a ‘fantastic conversation’ with Hiddink. He talked about a possible advisory role, as he did in the past with Phillip Cocu at PSV. “Well, I really liked that. He would start thinking about it. After a week I hadn’t heard anything yet. After two weeks I hadn’t heard anything either. Well, within that time frame I would have called back. When I hadn’t heard anything after three weeks, I was like: too bad, but he won’t have time for it. Just as good friends. Until August 21 Hiddink was no longer in my system at all.”

The moment Hiddink returns to Bicentini’s system during a bike ride, the evil seems to have already happened. Not only was his function forgiven, but also part of his staff has been dismantled behind his back and redecorated with, among others, Hedwiges Maduro as advisor. A day after the press conference on Curaçao, Hiddink announced that he is waiting to sign his contract until everything with Bicentini is neatly settled, as the ‘code of honor’ of the Coaches Betaald Voetbal (CBV) prescribes. It mainly stings Bicentini that he still hasn’t heard from Hiddink. “I sent him a neat app myself after three days, with what I thought of it. He didn’t react to that. Hiddink could have called me when he spoke to the federation about the position of national coach, couldn’t he? He could have called at any stage, to ask if everything had been handled properly with me. Usually, with such an offer, especially in the case of a successful country and a national coach with an ongoing contract, you call the person from whom you are taking over to see what is going on. There has never been anything in the eight months that have passed. In June and July I even went to Curacao and I haven’t heard anything about it”.

“He might think: I’m getting in now and if we make it to the World Cup, I’ve got something on my mind. If we don’t make it, he says: ‘We started too late, this is Curaçao. It is a small country, but I found it a nice challenge’. I can’t think of anything else for someone of his calibre, I had him very high up. Now it feels as if he wants to bow with my honour. Because there is a very realistic chance that Curacao can now make it to the World Cup. We have some luggage, we won’t lose the matches against the big countries 7-0”, Bicentini is looking for an explanation. The ‘most important task’ that Hiddink according to FOX Sports Getting along on Curacao, is ‘professionalizing the organization around the national team’. “The new federal chairman and his brother are the pivot behind this change, because they want to do something different from the previous, successful board. I can’t make something else out of it. The federation had thought: we’ll come with Hiddink and then it’ll be solved in an hour. Very naive.”

So it hasn’t been solved yet. Recently, sounds sounded from Curaçao that everything was settled; according to Bicentini to make sure that Hiddink could already take care of the team in September for a training camp at De Veluwe. Mainly young players would have been invited to that training camp, including Tahith Chong and Jurriën Timer. “Hiddink also called Sontje Hansen. He is eighteen, who plays for the youth teams of the Dutch National Team and I have never asked him before. I know them, I talk to them about other things. I find that disrespectful! Why is it disrespectful? That boy here plays for the representative teams and thinks Orange, boys like that should do the same. They grew up here. When they’re 21 or 22 and Orange isn’t gonna make it, they’re gonna come to us.”

As the settlement with Bicentini is still ‘minus three’ according to him, the training camp could not take place this month. “In the end, they threw it on corona. Listen to what I’m saying now. They told a physiotherapist, who has been on the staff for twenty years, that he tested positive for corona. He didn’t know they’d turned him in at all. He has his own practice and at one point people stopped coming because they heard he tested positive for corona. But that wasn’t the case at all. They had to have something to cancel that training camp,” says Bicentini. Time is running out for Curacao’s soccer association now, because in October and November the internationals will meet again. Hiddink said after the press conference that he won’t start until the union has dealt with Bicentini properly and if that hasn’t been done in time, it seems that a training camp will have to be called off for the second time in October. It makes a difference that the start of the World Cup qualification cycle, in which Curaçao takes on Guatemala, Cuba, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the British Virgin Islands, has been postponed from October 2020 to March 2021 due to the corona crisis. Secretly, Bicentini still hopes to complete his mission.

“Look, there’s always a better Remko Bicentini,” he confesses in all honesty. “But the cooperation I have with the players and vice versa, apparently, works. If it’s your turn after a series of defeats, I would understand. It’s not that you’re just a national coach of a country, take it from Hungary or Serbia. Then I would also find it painful if my contract is terminated after one and a half of the two years. But that gives me a completely different feeling. It’s like your child is being taken away, that’s really true. Otherwise I wouldn’t say it, I wouldn’t have to be vulnerable. I keep feeling that pain. It’s not about the ransom. If they call me tomorrow and I can work with my old staff, I’ll do it right away. Curaçao is my baby and the players are my kids. Players who have played less call and support me. While you would think that they would be fine with having a new national coach.” Bicentini calls that confirmation the ‘positive feeling’ he gets out of the negative. “But character I can whimper and that will stay that way for a while.”