After the painful 3-2 defeat against ADO Den Haag, Dick Advocaat did not rule out his departure as trainer of Feyenoord before the end of the season. In the coming week, presumably on Monday, a conversation with the group of players seems to take place in which the confidence question can be discussed and if that turns out to be negative, the 73-year-old trainer can draw his conclusions. Pierre van Hooijdonk dismisses Advocaat’s statements as ‘cabaret’ and believes that the chemistry between the trainer and the players of Feyenoord is ‘completely gone’.
“This is almost cabaret. First the players have to decide if he can stay. Then the journalist asks the question: “So the players control your fate?” ‘No, the players don’t have that at all, I decide that myself’, he answers ”, Van Hooijdonk starts in the program Studio Football of the NOS. “I think the chemistry is completely gone. And that was caused by the fact that Attorney has publicly debunked many players. And then you always hear: ‘Yes, they should all be able to handle that’. ”
Van Hooijdonk points to Sjors Ultee, the trainer of Fortuna Sittard, who is also present. “Sjors knows better than anyone that this is all very sensitive. If you as a coach attract all the success to you and that it is always up to the players in the event of a loss … You saw that today too ”, the former striker points out the lost game against the last player ADO Den Haag. “Those players get multi-million contracts, they just have to do it. He had a few one-liners again, in which he again placed the blame on the players and took no blame himself. ”
It has not been going well between Advocaat and Van Hooijdonk for some time now. The former striker called the Feyenoord trainer old school. Those statements made Lawyer decide to thank them for an invitation to become an analyst for the NOS during the European Championship. Lawyer emphasized again at the press conference on Friday that Van Hooijdonk is never at the training complex of Feyenoord and therefore does not know how he works there.
Dick Advocaat looks upset and does not rule out leaving Feyenoord
Read the statements of Dick Advocaat after ADO – Feyenoord here.
“It is true that I am never on 1908, because no one is allowed there at the moment. All top people work there. But if you don’t use it as a trainer, it stops. What he forgets is that everything leaks at Feyenoord. We really hear things from Feyenoord ”, Van Hooijdonk responds to those words. “When the chemistry between the players and the trainer is completely gone, someone new can try to bring it back. There are zero guarantees, but go on like this … I have the feeling that he is not that sharp anymore. He was also very mild after the red card from Berghuis last week. It is what it is, seemed like he didn’t really care. That attitude does not belong to a coach, it falls to the players. ”
“He can radiate that he still wants to go for it?”, Van Hooijdonk continues. “That has always been the strength of Advocaat. When I talk to former colleagues who have worked under him, he is no wonder tactically. In that piece of the NRC he said that he thinks he is on a par with Guus Hiddink and Louis van Gaal. Well, then you have a wrong self-image. I happened to have seen them all at the Dutch, that was really something else. He did a fantastic repair job after Jaap Stam, but that was last year. Dick is known for not leaving anything behind at clubs. It’s for the short term. You have that now too. ”