UEFA Futsal EURO 2022 will be held in the Netherlands from January 19 to February 6, 2022. In Fables of Futsal Voetbalzone tells the stories behind the participants in this European Championship. In this second edition, record international Jamal El Ghannouti and national coach Max Tjaden of the Netherlands talk about the origin of the passion for their sport and the opportunities for the Dutch Futsal. A story of two enthusiasts who fought their way up through the squares to the national top and may be on the eve of their last major international tournament.
By Tim Klijn
In a room on the KNVB Campus in Zeist, Jamal El Ghannouti smiles when he starts talking about futsal. As a youth player he played in field football as a right half and attacking right back at Spartaan’20, the club where players such as Bruno Martins Indi and Denzel Dumfries were also trained. El Ghannouti then went to the Saturday amateurs of Heerjansdam and combined that with indoor football. He turned out to master futsal excellently and he could therefore count on an invitation for the national team. His choice to exchange the football for the flop turned out to be an easy one. After El Ghannouti heard the national anthem and played in an the Dutch shirt for the first time, he didn’t want anything else. In the Netherlands that means a part-time top sport career. In the Eredivisie futsal, training takes place twice a week in the evening and almost every player is busy with work or study during the day. In addition to being a defender, El Ghannouti is project leader at NOC*NSF in the sports participation department, where he is committed to making sports possible for everyone.
For the record international himself, sport has been particularly important. He grew up in a family with eight children in Hillesluis, a deprived area in Rotterdam. He praises his upbringing in conversation with Voetbalzone: “My parents told me that the Netherlands is a country with many opportunities. If you try your best you can achieve anything here, but a lot of guys in the neighborhood have slipped. My family, my friends, the love of football and the belief in my Lord Allah have kept me on the right path.”
The former captain of the Dutch Futsal has experienced many highlights in his career. He once scored five times in an international match against Andorra, played at the European Championship 2014, was knighted by the KNVB and became a record international with 155 international matches so far. “I am extremely grateful and proud. I have experienced three national coaches in seventeen years with the Dutch. They have given me a lot of confidence. I have always trained very hard and kept myself fit and focused. In addition to the training sessions with the team, I have also done a lot for futsal in my daily life and had to let it go. When others were watching Netflix on the couch in the evening, I would go for a run in the rain. If I got injured, I’d already have the physio on the phone in the car when I could come over and search the freezer for ice packs as soon as I got home. Anything to speed up recovery. Even though I do the sport as an amateur, I live for it like a pro.”
The 38-year-old Rotterdammer will probably be working on his last major tournament. He has been thinking a lot about his approaching retirement in the last year: “I want to be remembered as an example for everyone who dreams. I would never have dreamed that I would become a record international. I’m really just a simple player and I hope to leave something behind for children in deprived areas. Because if I can reach the top with hard work, anyone can. I want to pass that on to others.”
According to El Ghannouti, what will benefit the Netherlands a lot at the upcoming European Championship is national coach Max Tjaden. The coach is tactically well versed, analyzes the opponents down to the last detail and always has a plan ready. As a player, Tjaden played football on the field at ToNeGiDo, at the highest amateur level. As a boy with Indonesian roots, he played a lot on the street in the middle class neighborhood of Morgenstond in The Hague, where he was brought up with great discipline by his parents. Things also went well in the hall: Tjaden became international and played for top club FC Marlène.
After his active career as a futsal player, Tjaden became a coach, which was always in him. “I remember it very well. We had gym class in sixth grade. I said back then: I want to be like Miss Jenny. Not a woman, but a gym teacher!” he smiles back. “I knew this was my thing and I was good at this. During my career I already took several courses of the KNVB. That’s how I automatically rolled into the coaching profession. When I left as a player in 2008, I said: one day I want to become a national coach.”
Tjaden started coaching fanatically and once again made it to the Dutch national team, this time as assistant coach under Marcel Loosveld. After the European Championship in 2014, he took a break to develop further as a club coach. After Loosveld’s contract expired, the KNVB chose Tjaden as successor and his long-cherished dream finally came true. Unlike his players, Tjaden is involved in futsal full-time. His contract runs until 2022 and he does not yet know whether he will extend it: “I do not know yet whether it is good for me and for the players if I remain national coach.” When asked about a possible next step, he says: “I will not be working on it in the short term and of course I will focus on the European Championship first. It would be attractive for me to become national coach of another country. A real futsal country like Indonesia attracts me. However, this is not a step I would make very quickly. My wife is a successful business woman, I stick to her rather than me, if you know what I mean.”
Since Tjaden became national coach, he has contributed to a new competition format, among other things. The Eredivisie is now a competition with a split-16. That means that the sixteen participating teams will be split up when half the number of games have been played. In the second phase, the top eight teams and bottom eight teams compete against each other. According to the coach, this improves the tension and the level. In 2014 he described himself in an interview with RTV Rijnmond as a ‘mini-mini-mini’ Louis van Gaal: “Just like me, he did the ALO, there you receive a very broad education. He involves everyone, prepares everything down to the last detail and leaves nothing to chance.”
That influence is also reflected in the preparation for the approaching European Championship. The Netherlands practiced against Argentina, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and France on the same fast floor that will be played in the group stage in January. Even the official European Championship ball was used, everything to start the tournament ahead of the opponents. According to Tjaden, the team is able to compete with the European top, although El Ghannouti still points out the training gap: “The players from other countries can train six times a week. We can’t do that, we have to constantly switch between top sport and work. If players in the Netherlands could fully focus on futsal, we would probably belong to the European and world top structurally.”
The Netherlands has been classified in a very tough group for the European Championship. It currently ranks 19th in the European rankings, while its opponents are all in the top 10. Portugal (3) is the reigning European champion and Ukraine (10) and Serbia (6) are also clear favorites based on the ranking. The the Dutch Lions will do everything they can to survive the group stage. Portugal is normally too strong and, if nothing crazy happens, will claim first place. The battle will be with Ukraine and Serbia for second place. Despite the fact that the Netherlands is the underdog, the coach has confidence in his players: “At the European Championships, nobody has to motivate anymore. My boys will go like the fire brigade, watch out!”