Dirk Kuijt can no longer do any good after five defeats in his first ten games as coach of ADO Den Haag. The gloating about the 104-time international, who played a hero role in his very last match for Feyenoord in 2017, is great. The transition from “folk hero to clown Bassie” was a five-year process. A reconstruction.
“Hij is de laatste weken verworden van volksheld tot een soort clown Bassie”, schreef Ronald Waterreus recentelijk over oud-collega Kuijt in zijn column in De Limburger.
Oud-doelman Waterreus had gezien hoe ADO Den Haag thuis had verloren van Jong PSV in een erbarmelijke wedstrijd. Daardoor zakte de club uit de derde stad van Nederland af naar de zeventiende plaats in de Keuken Kampioen Divisie. Kuijt verkondigde toen hij bij ADO aan zijn eerste klus als hoofdcoach begon dat hij voor promotie wilde gaan.
Daar komt hoongelach van. “Typisch Nederlands”, vindt Kuijt dat. Waarna het hoongelach nog verder toenam. Kuijt is inderdaad verworden tot mikpunt van spot, maar in tegenstelling tot Bassie buiten zijn eigen wens om.
Ook wat de tijdspanne betreft sloeg Waterreus de plank mis. Wie Kuijts post-voetballoopbaan volgt, ziet dat zijn imago vijf jaar geleden al aan het kantelen sloeg, niet lang nadat hij zijn imposante voetbalcarrière op grootse, zelden vertoonde wijze had afgesloten.
For eternity
“A goal for eternity”, commentator Frank Snoeks yelled. In 2017, Kuijt led Feyenoord to its first national title in eighteen years with three hits, the first of which was within forty seconds.
An ultimate award for his career, which took him past FC Utrecht, Feyenoord, Liverpool, Fenerbahçe and Feyenoord again. He played 104 caps, won World Cup silver and bronze and was knighted, kissed and crowned and admired by almost everyone.
Kuijt achieved all this not so much on the basis of innate football talent, but through willpower, inquisitiveness, tactical insight, adaptability, good relationships with trainers and fellow players and an indestructible belief in himself. But there was always the perspective of Kuijt himself. He was not a hero, he was a team player. His mantra: “Achieving something together is the best.”
As a starting head coach, he should have a huge head start in public opinion. But after five defeats in ten games as the brand new head coach of ADO Den Haag, his head is already being asked here and there. While there are quite a few mitigating circumstances.
Based on (many) statistics, ADO lost a number of times unjustly. Kuijt works with one of the youngest teams in the Kitchen Champion Division, at a club that was scarred by the narrowly missed promotion and the subsequent disturbances. ADO is in any case a club that seems to cherish the troubled waters.
But whatever Kuijt says, there is always an avalanche of scorn. Kuijt lacks the credit that normally protects a former top football player of his stature against a mediocre start to a coaching career (see Frank Rijkaard, Phillip Cocu and Giovanni van Bronckhorst).
Spelersloopbaan Dirk Kuijt
- 1998-2003: FC Utrecht
- 2003-2006: Feyenoord
- 2006-2012: Liverpool
- 2012-2015: Fenerbahçe
- 2015-2017: Feyenoord
The revulsion arose in stages
The aversion to Kuijt has steadily piled up. It all started on a sunny Saturday afternoon in early April 2018 at the Nieuw Zuid sports park in Katwijk. Kuijt, the son of a fisherman, grew up there with the Quick Boys player, hanging out at the first on Saturdays and playing football endlessly before and after, like his three sons do today.
It is packed around the main field, the people are even standing in the dunes. The Dirk Kuijt grandstand and the beautiful business space, which could be built thanks to the most famous pupil, are bulging. What is going on? After twenty years, Kuijt is making his comeback for Quick Boys, where he had played four games in the first as a seventeen-year-old and then embarked on a twenty-year dream journey.
Shortly after his glorious retirement as a professional football player, he started working for Quick Boys as an intern alongside friend and head coach Gert Aandewiel. Immediately he was very present, sketching initiates. Quick Boys striker Yordi Teijsse exploded after an altercation with Kuijt and was subsequently suspended. Kuij then decides to put on his football boots again.
The news of The Return leaks out prematurely via RTV West, the press and the public turn out en masse and are treated to an outright disappointment. Quick Boys lose 0-2, Kuijt is no longer the Kuijt of the two decades before. He looks angular and rigid, which is not surprising given his age and a period of almost a year without serious competitions and training.
Afterwards, he will speak to the press. Opposite the former überprof two teammates still in uniform set fire to a cigarette, bottle of beer clutched between their knees. There is clapping from spectators, home teams, volunteers and board members drinking beer in the sun all around the main field. Kuijt says: “This should not have been the big Dirk Kuijt show.”
It was not, from a sporting point of view. Well, from a media point of view. That creates resentment. ‘Die Kuijt, he still had to do it, who thought he was superman and could still make the difference between the amateurs’, is the tenor. The addition of Kuijt that he uses the matches at Quick Boys to get fit for his honorary match in De Kuip does not help either.
Sentiment among Feyenoord players tilted before
Kuijt was unable to do any good for many ‘Kattukers’ because of his move to a newly built villa with football field and swimming pool in the neighboring municipality of Noordwijk, which is the opposite of Katwijk in terms of mentality, population and appearance. Despite Kuijt’s efforts on and off the field, Quick Boys will not be promoted that season.
Kuijt will start at Feyenoord the following season, with the most highly regarded youth team. Assisted by the experienced Cor Adriaanse, that is. He is not always there, writes Willem van Hanegem in his column in the AD. Kuijt sometimes wants to watch Liverpool or is unable to attend for other reasons. Kuijt contradicts that in his column in The Telegraph.
The sentiment among many Feyenoord players has already been tilted by a book written by Jaap de Groot in which Kuijt quite emphatically takes the national title. A movie about that last season will also be released, in which his wealth is certainly not hidden, as is his struggles with coach Van Bronckhorst. Stories about an extramarital affair appear in the gossip media. This was followed by a divorce from his wife Gertrude, also from Katwijk and by his side for 22 years.
All in all, it was in stark contrast to his image as a footballer: a faithful family man who works hard and self-effacing for the team’s interests, a striker who runs everywhere to help the team, right back at the 2014 World Cup. Never, ever an ill-conceived word. It always got on the nerves of Johan Derksen, who described him as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a people’s advocate, a politically correct chatterbox who never farts. (“I do, you know. Just ask my wife,” said Kuijt when asked.)
There is surprisingly little fuss when it becomes known that Feyenoord is saying goodbye to him.
The notorious provocateur Derksen stood alone in his Kuijt aversion for a long time, but has gained more and more supporters in recent years. There is surprisingly little fuss when it becomes known that Feyenoord is saying goodbye to him. Director Frank Arnesen does not want him as head coach, despite an earlier promise from his predecessor. Arnesen chooses Arne Slot, who brings Feyenoord back to the European spotlight. That moment divides all the ghosts about Kuijt, who takes a step back, also to settle the divorce with Gertrude. But a shitcart will only really come over him when he returns to the spotlight, at the beginning of February 2021 in the Ziggo program Rondo. The reason: a new look. Instead of the gel-packed curls, his hair is blow-dried back, his face looks more toned.
Grist to the mill of Derksen, but also of many other analysts. Even former teammate Ibrahim Afellay jokes about it in Studio Football. Then comes through the AD revealed that Kuijt gambles at an illegal gambling site. Sometimes with as much as 25,000 euros per day. He was questioned about this by the police. According to Kuijt, “all the fuss has been taken out of context”. “I took a gamble, I think a lot of people have done in their lives,” he acknowledged at RTL 7. “Perhaps a little more than the average Dutchman. I will not deny that I may have been naive. And that I will do it differently in the future is also a fact.”
Moraal Kuijt remains unbroken despite criticism
The image damage is significant. But Kuijt remains convinced of the trainer in himself. He doesn’t like being an assistant. “I’m the type of person who likes to take charge.” He is waiting for his chance, is now an analyst at RTL 7. He is also criticized in that capacity.
His morals, however, are unbroken. He is working hard on a “huge book” with his trainer vision, he says during a telephone conversation. He has visited Liverpool and Manchester City, sparring a lot with Louis van Gaal, who also spends a lot of time in Noordwijk. Enthusiastic: “I can show an interested club exactly what they can expect from me.”
That new club is coming soon: ADO Den Haag. That already served two trainers during the past season and is being held hostage by takeover vicissitudes. It is still an administrative mess and everything is leaking out. In addition to the grass-green head coach, a technical manager with even less experience is appointed: Daryl Janmaat.
Like Kuijt, Janmaat is accompanied by agent Rob Jansen – a good acquaintance at the club in The Hague, but not someone for whom everyone applauds. Like nobody actually does that for each other in The Hague. In this field of forces, Kuijt hopes to be prepared enough with the experienced assistants John Metgod and Chris van der Weerden by his side.
Skepticism prevails, but Kuijt himself is in good spirits. According to a good friend, it is good that Kuijt is returning to the football world. “Dirk needs focus, he has to be able to bite into something.” It soon becomes apparent that he has greatly overestimated his selection.
Selection ADO Den Haag mainly lacks self-confidence
It actually lacks everything. Especially self confidence. Kuijt tries to pump it in, doesn’t hide. With angelic patience, he continues to explain to the press that he continues to have faith in his team. It still rains jokes and curses afterwards. His face was too serious, too relaxed, or too tight. He was either too clichéd or too outspoken.
Even after a win over the highly ranked FC Eindhoven last weekend (1-0), there was still grumbling. Kuijt had said afterwards to ESPN that he “has never doubted himself”. The fact that he subsequently reported that he did indeed take into account that he would have been fired in the event of a loss completely disappeared in the opinion circuit.
Dirk Kuijt can no longer do any good. And yet, if anyone can reverse this sentiment, it is Dirk Kuijt. As a seventeen-year-old FC Utrecht player, he already had a hard time. He was described in several respects as an ugly footballer who would never get beyond a role as a substitute at FC Utrecht. He even gets a kick out of these kinds of challenges, say his acquaintances. The heavier the storm, the harder it will work to plow through it.
Bart Vlietstra followed Dirk Kuijt throughout his career and spoke with many acquaintances.
