Arne Slot looks back on his first months as trainer of Feyenoord. Slot notices that he is much more in the spotlight than in his period at AZ.
“In general, everything I say matters a lot more than when I wasn’t linked to Feyenoord yet. I really have to be aware of that”, says Slot in the General newspaper. ”Someone in Zwolle wearing an Ajax shirt recently asked me: ‘Can I have a picture with you?’ Ten seconds after that photo was taken, I thought for a moment: if he wants to be annoying, then we have it again.”
“On the other hand, I live simply. I am aware at every insignificant moment that I am also the trainer of Feyenoord, but above all I want to be myself. That’s also possible, because I don’t pass by RTL Boulevard. I now know: whether we win or lose, it really is about Feyenoord every day.”
Since his arrival, Slot has only received compliments, but can the trainer also take criticism? “As a footballer I have had quite a lot of criticism. I sometimes found that difficult. On the field I felt that the criticism that had been on television or in the newspapers was taken to the stadium. Then you heard the buzz or things people yelled at you when something went wrong.”
“As a coach, I can handle criticism much better. Although a real test is yet to come if things don’t go well here structurally. I can imagine that if you lose a lot and you have to hear a lot of opinions from others about the team, with the cry that it has to be different, that it does a lot more to you than it does now.”
Sporting risk
Slot realizes that things could have turned out very differently. “I think Feyenoord has taken a sporting risk. There was no other way, because there was no money. But if you hire a new coach, who doesn’t have the name like some of his predecessors, and you let him work at the beginning of the season with the roster he was supposed to work with, so a lot of players gone and no one back , that is a very big risk. What if we had simply lost 1-3 against FC Drita.”
