Maarten Martens has been able to call himself head coach of AZ since last Wednesday. The 39-year-old Belgian was Pascal Jansen’s assistant until then, but took over after his resignation. Martens announces that he will change a number of things compared to his predecessor, but remains unclear what exactly will be different.
Opposite The Telegraph Martens calls it ‘pretty special’ that he is now getting the chance to lead AZ. He managed Jong AZ for the past two seasons before he started working as Jansen’s assistant. It was planned that he would one day coach the main team, but it nevertheless came unexpectedly: “I couldn’t have imagined that it would happen so quickly.” to happen.”
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The message that Jansen had to leave the field caused Martens to ask himself a number of questions: “What could I have done differently as an assistant, for example? Assist the trainer even more than I did? Should I have entered into more discussion with Pascal , should we look more at solutions, at things that could be done even better?” In any case, the two did not agree on everything during their collaboration. Martens will therefore change things: “Yes, but then you are talking about purely technical and tactical matters in the way of playing. I am not going to put it on the table here what those were. But you just think a little differently about some things, there. Then you discuss it. Maybe I should have done that with more conviction.”
Parting
On Thursday, Jansen personally said goodbye to his staff and playing group. Martens finds this admirable: “Pascal was here to address everyone. I thought it was quite clever how he did that. He wanted to look everyone in the eye one more time and thanked each and every one of us. I really appreciate what he did towards the group said about me. Later we spoke one-on-one. It remains difficult, but you know these kinds of things happen in football.”
