'PSV had to do something, so they roll the dice on a club icon' – Inside Europe on Ruud van Nistelrooy

In case you missed it, on Wednesday evening Eredivise side PSV confirmed that club legend Ruud van Nistelrooy will take over as the new manager.

Van Nistelrooy spent three seasons with PSV where he scored 77 goals in 90 games, lifting the league title twice before moving on to Manchester United.

The legendary forward returned to PSV at the end of his playing career to work on his coaching. He has spent time with the U17s, U19s and B team, as well as being an assistant with the Dutch senior team.

Now he will step up to the senior team at the end of the season to replace Roger Schmidt, who will reportedly take over Benfica.

In order to find out more about the move to appoint Van Nistelrooy we got in touch with Kevin van Nunen from Eurosport Netherlands.

As soon as Van Nistelrooy discovered that being back was fun and he was good at coaching at a lower level, it has been the plan to appoint him as PSV manager. When you look at the short term, maybe it’s a different story.

The past couple of months Van Nistelrooy said ‘no’ twice when PSV approached him to become head coach. Van Nistelrooy rejected an offer in December and again in January. But then there were some regrets and as PSV still didn’t have a new manager, the position was still vacant.

Van Nistelrooy is backed by assistant Fred Rutten, who has a lot of experience as head coach, also at PSV. Rutten didn’t win a single trophy at PSV, which is quite remarkable, but he’s still valued quite highly in the Netherlands.

Van Nistelrooy said that becoming head coach of PSV was always a target and he was intensively supervised by the club. He was convinced to fully direct his own coaching career, which required an extra season of experience of Jong PSV, but as always in football: it turns out you can’t direct your own career path.

It’s worth pointing out, Van Nistelrooy is being appointed in by Marcel Brands, who is the new general manager after a spell as sporting director at PSV and later Everton. He now returns to Eindhoven in a new job.

In Van Nistelrooy’s own words… It's at least one year too early. Of course he has some experience: he coached the youth of PSV and was assistant at the national team. It’s quite a popular route to take for Dutch coaches: start with youth and a role as assistant of the national team. Frank de Boer did it, Phillip Cocu as well, sort of.

The thing is, the national team didn’t enjoy a lot of success when Van Nistelrooy was involved. As an assistant that’s not his fault of course, but the Dutch squad played a World Cup final when De Boer was involved as an assistant.

Does this say anything about future success or failure? No, not at all. The story of Frank de Boer is well known by now: successful at Ajax but he left when the wonder drink stopped working and then failure after failure followed.

My point is: De Boer wasn’t very versatile as a manager. He played 4-3-3 and that was it. Mark van Bommel experienced more or less the same problem. He inherited a good team and during his first half season PSV won literally everything. But then it turned sour, very sour… He didn’t manage to turn this around and was fired eventually. As an icon of the club, Van Bommel left with his status very much crumbled.

Van Nistelrooy follows in the footsteps of Cocu and Van Bommel. Both Cocu and Van Bommel experienced some initial success at PSV, but sooner or later they failed. Cocu won some titles, Van Bommel didn’t even manage that and when they went abroad, it was really, really bad.

So, Van Nistelrooy is taking a risk. How big? I don’t know, difficult to say. Like I explained in the Gakpo article, it could work for Van Nistelrooy that expectations are not that high at PSV. Ajax are the so-called Bayern Munich of the Netherlands and PSV can’t really compete.

Also, Van Nistelrooy has the popular vote. Van Bommel didn’t, current manager Schmidt doesn’t. I think a lot of PSV supporters are happy to see him go. Van Nistelrooy has sympathy, also from supporters of rival clubs. It’s the first time in many, many years PSV will have a manager the whole country feels sympathy for!

Whether all this will help him succeed? Impossible to predict!

This is the trickiest question on the list. I find it difficult to say, but if I look at Van Nistelrooy as a person he must be a man-manager. He’s smart, doesn’t do crazy things and has a good relationship with the media. All things Schmidt doesn't really possess, so this means progress for PSV image wise, although Van Nistelrooy of course has to deliver on the pitch too.

Schmidt has had some arguments with PSV players, but I think Van Nistelrooy will do better in this regard. The Brabant province (farmers) is a lot more jovial than the highbrow Amsterdam area and this suits Van Nistelrooy, I think better than Schmidt who’s not really the PSV prototype. He will probably bring in some more attacking football, as he did with Jong PSV.

See my explanation about the popularity vote! His beard does wonders as well!

Slightly off-topic but this is a funny thing that’s worth noting: believe it or not, Van Nistelrooy and Patrick Kluivert share the same day of birth (July 1, 1976). In their playing days Kluivert was the superstar from 18-25 but afterwards, Van Nistelrooy rose to shine while Kluivert’s star faded. The same can maybe be said from their managerial careers, although we have to wait and see. But while Kluivert hops from PSG to Barcelona and his spells didn’t last long, Van Nistelrooy took the gradual approach again and may outlast him again.

Extremely positive!

Van Nistelrooy is still very much loved, although this was also the case with Van Bommel, but this relationship has pretty much been damaged during his stint as manager. Cocu was also quite popular, but the timing was right to leave before everything ended in shambles.

This is an easy question, but the answer is rather difficult. PSV are like Borussia Dortmund in comparison to Bayern Munich/Ajax. Ajax have won the title the last few years and are out to dominate the Eredivisie, but that’s the big difference between Bayern and Ajax: Bayern are ruthless, Ajax aren’t. As soon as Ajax start to dominate, sooner or later mental issues come into play. Ajax think they can win the title again on half strength, thought in November they were champions already this season, but this has come back to haunt them although they’re still in the lead.

PSV are still very much in the title race and becoming champions isn’t out of the question… far from it. But Ajax should walk the Eredivisie really. Until a few weeks ago they only had conceded five goals, but the train has derailed and things look way more insecure. The last three matches Ajax won 3-2 three times, sometimes after falling behind or letting a 2-0 advantage slip. Ajax fans are really scared about their fading title hopes.

PSV are still in it, thanks to Ajax. They played some wonderful football earlier in the season and scored a lot of goals in the Eredivisie and on European nights, but it is tough right now.

PSV have scored 12 goals fewer and have conceded 18 goals more than Ajax this season, yet they still have a proper title chance as they have won exactly as many matches. And PSV know how to hijack a championship or two, where Ajax are almost sublime in throwing certain championships away.

PSV really had to do something. Schmidt is whining all the time, having arguments with referees and so on. He’s also rotating players and systems over and over again, to the point no one is able to follow him anymore. No one is able to predict his next starting XI or tactics. When Schmidt came in he and the club promised power football as Schmidt was said to be a mix of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, but this has been a big joke.

PSV played like they always do: a bit boring, not really attractive. But when asked in case of a negative score, they will accelerate to do just enough to win. They do get more games over the line this year in comparison with last seasons.

He used up his credits and fans are not sad to see him go. More relieved, I would say. Schmidt didn’t bring PSV much if you look back on his reign over two years, he didn’t really build up anything. He ‘watched the store’, so to say. Maybe Van Nistelrooy is able to strengthen the core foundation again for the coming years.

After crashing out of the Champions League and Europa League, PSV are still in the Conference League, reached the Cup final (last won in 2012) and are hunting down Ajax in hopes of their first title since 2018, yet everyone is cheering the appointment of Van Nistelrooy and are not sad about Schmidt who’s leaving. That tells all…