Defying his coach as a precocious teen and now bringing the Dutch style to the Premier League. Rob McDonald, a team-mate of Ronald Koeman's at Groningen, recalls a confident character always destined for management...
Wednesday 17 September 2014 23:52, UK
Not many Englishmen know Dutch football better than Rob McDonald. The former Newcastle United striker spent the best part of eight years in the country as a player, winning the Eredivisie title during his time in Eindhoven with a PSV team that included the genius of Ruud Gullit.
But it was at FC Groningen that McDonald made his name, in a team that included another icon of the Dutch game. Mention Ronald Koeman to McDonald and there’s an instant chuckle. “One story that I will always remember is when we went on a trip to play an away game,” he begins.
“We had a coach called Theo Verlangen and he didn’t like us putting mayonnaise on the table for a meal. This waiter through no fault of his own put some mayonnaise on the table. There were some potatoes there and Ronald picked up a chip with a big dollop of mayonnaise on it.
“The coach shouted at him: ‘If you eat that chip it’ll cost you 500 guilders.’ So Ronald put it in his mouth and said: ‘Make it 1000.’ We laughed about it, but he was just a kid so I was sitting there thinking ‘whoa’ and he certainly got a roasting from the older players. But that was the confidence of Ronald.”
At the time, Koeman was just a teenager making his way in the game. The son of Martin Koeman, a Dutch international defender, and younger brother of Erwin Koeman, a team-mate with Groningen and eventually the national side, the pedigree was certainly there.
McDonald spent just one season with Koeman at Groningen. It proved successful as the team qualified for Europe with a fifth-place finish, but the younger man moved on to Ajax at the end of the 1982/83 campaign and his team-mate remembers that Koeman’s quality was obvious.
“He was very confident,” adds McDonald, who still lives in the Netherlands working as a recruiter of Dutch coaches for roles all over the world. “He knew he was good. He played in midfield to start with and then later on in his career he dropped back to be a libero-style central defender.
“He wasn’t quick and he was never good on one-on-ones but he was just so good at reading the game. He was a bit like Bobby Moore but not as good a tackler. He had great vision and superb control. You could tell when a ball was coming he already knew what he was going to do with it.
“You knew he was going to be a top player and you knew he was going to be a coach. It was just there in his mannerisms. He was similar to his father in how he looked, how he played and how he behaved off the field. Some people thought he was arrogant or ignorant but Ronald was one of those people where you had to get to know him.
“His brother Erwin was more open and a more social type so the combination was great. There are a lot of managers who pick their assistant not because of the qualities they have but because they can trust them. Well, if you can’t trust your own brother then who can you trust?”
After pursuing separate coaching careers, Erwin has linked up with Ronald as his assistant at Southampton for what looked likely to be a difficult challenge. Although Saints managed a top-half finish last term, the exits of Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Luke Shaw and Calum Chambers meant a major rebuilding job was required.
Having followed his career, McDonald is confident Koeman can overcome it. “He has come to Southampton as a big name and I don’t know whether Les Reed (head of football development) was thinking maybe the players would change their mind about leaving the club because of such a big name coming in. Instead four or five have left. Lambert was already leaving but not the rest.
“Even so, I’ve got a much better feeling about it now than I had just before the first game. I was there thinking: ‘Please don’t get stuffed four or five to nil.’ He’s got to get used to a lot of things from when you come from the Dutch style. He’s got to get used to players coming in asking for wage increases. He’s not used to all that. Dealing with contracts is something that will have to be left to Les Reed because they’re not used to all that here. Can he cope with that part of the job?
“The English game is a totally different ball game to over here in Holland. There is a different way of motivating. But his training will be great. It will be very methodical and very much the Dutch system. He likes to play. He doesn’t want to be whacking it forward quickly. He’ll want to build it up and play attractive football.
“I think the fact that Mauricio Pochettino has left a good basis will help. Don’t forget that Ronald has already worked in Spain so he’ll be smart enough to know a lot of what they’ve already been doing. I think he’s had a look at the place and can just bring in little bits, change little nuances, to help the team and the players.”
The early signs have been good. After that spirited start at Anfield there was a goalless draw at home to West Brom, but Koeman’s first taste of Capital One Cup action at Millwall sparked a run of three consecutive wins culminating in Saturday’s convincing 4-0 win against Newcastle. Seven points from four matches has done much to dispel some of the early summer doom and gloom.
“He’s got them playing some good stuff and I can see him making a big impact there,” says McDonald. “I saw the game against Liverpool and Southampton were the better team. He has got a great vision of how he wants to play. He reads the game well, just as he did as a player, although he’s never been famous for being a man-manager. It’s quite often been that he has great assistants around him. But obviously, he tells everyone how he wants things to be done.”
Telling everyone how he wants things to be done. As Rob McDonald recalls, Ronald Koeman has been doing that since he defied his old Groningen boss to eat that mayonnaise-slathered chip more than 30 years ago.
Click here to find out more about the career of Rob McDonald, his work as a guest speaker and his role as a head-hunter of top-class coaches on his official website
And to find out more about Rob McDonald's career with PSV, Sporting, Besiktas and others read the full story in our Brits Abroad interview here
