Erik ten Hag was never really one of those people who made it clear that he had big ambitions to become one of the best coaches in the world. He is a very humble man and a humble coach.
That has a lot to do with his origins. He comes from the east of the Netherlands, where there is a very down-to-earth mentality and where people speak with a very heavy accent. They are a little less conspicuous there, looking up to those from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, the places where the country’s major offices, industry and parliament are located.
But despite that background – and he has a heavy accent – Ten Hag’s situation is different. Financially there is no motivation and no need to pursue the big jobs at any point in his career as he comes from a very wealthy family and his father and brothers are multi-millionaires. You own a real estate company and other financial companies.
His father wanted him to join the company, but Erik was such a brilliant footballer from a young age – he was a star for FC Twente as a defender – that he made it clear he had no interest in pursuing the profession.
However, that family fortune means he doesn’t need the big jobs. He knows he doesn’t need football to survive, so he can follow his own principles where other managers might compromise to stay in their job.
His football philosophy has always been that of Pep Guardiola and Johan Cruyff. He likes attacking, creating things on the pitch.
I followed PSV Eindhoven for a while when he was assistant coach there, just as he was Steve McClaren’s assistant coach at FC Twente. He was instrumental in these clubs. He never tried to break in, but the managers depended on him so much because he was so strong tactically. It was a pleasure for her to have him and that says a lot about him.
When he was reserve manager at Bayern Munich, he loved it. It was almost like a dream come true for him to have a manager in Guardiola who works the way he wanted to work. He once told me that he loved spending time with Guardiola, loved talking to him. As a reserve manager, he had to produce players for the first team, so the whole setup worked for him.
Players can have a hard time with him because, like Guardiola, he seems a bit obsessive. In order to achieve a style like that of Ajax – Dutch Total Football – it basically takes a lot of work and a lot of attacking players. It leaves a lot of room and you want your defenders to play really high up. It’s risky and you have to be a bit insane to teach your players that every pass has to be spot on, that there can’t be any mistakes.
But his man management is excellent and all his players say they learned so much from him.
While many coaches focus on the first eleven, Ten Hag will spend an incredible amount of time on the training ground. At Manchester United he will not only pay attention to the star players like Cristiano Ronaldo or Harry Maguire, but also go to the 19th or 20th most important player. He hired players with different characters and he doesn’t mind how many hours he has to spend with them, he will devote all his time to them.
He gets respect from the players because they see how much effort he puts into improving them individually. Even with those with the toughest backgrounds – maybe some sort of baggage – he will make sure they fit in if he thinks the talent is there.
He’s not afraid to take the job at Manchester United. But he will want to be in a tracksuit for many hours a day. He doesn’t consider himself an office person – otherwise he would have gone into his father’s company. He would hate to be constantly on the phone with agents and I have a feeling this is one of the main talking points about his potential appointment. There he wishes for a sporting director or an assistant with the ability to do that.
For me it would be a mistake if he thought that some of his work fits into the traditional English way of management.
He won’t want to go in there because he thinks he has to take on the whole of Manchester United. He will want to focus on restoring identity to the club – and the best way to do that is by donning a tracksuit.
Another possible problem is that Ten Hag has never felt more comfortable in front of the camera. It will be a challenge and he may find it difficult to get his message across. If he went to a German club – and there is serious interest there – he would be completely in his comfort zone because he lives on the German border. Everyone in this area has German as a second language.
The level of media scrutiny at Manchester United could pose a challenge for Ten Hag
However, English is far from his comfort zone and I think a manager running one of the biggest clubs in the world based in the UK with all the public and media around him should be able to speak English very well. It won’t stop him from being successful, but it would help tremendously if he improved. As far as I know, he practiced a lot of English.
At the beginning of his time at Ajax he was very critical in my own newspaper about certain tactical decisions and the players found it difficult to get used to his very long training sessions and long conversations on the pitch.
Yes, he built a good team, but by Dutch standards he got good players. Immediate success was demanded of him but what blew people away was how Ajax performed against Real Madrid in the 2018/19 Champions League when they won 4-1 at the Bernabeu to knock them out and then against Juventus in the quarter-finals .
But what was perhaps most impressive was that when Ajax sold their best players, Matthijs de Ligt to Juve and Frenkie de Jong to Barcelona, they had given the club and squad such an identity that it made sense for new players was easy to fit in.
If United fans are curious about his approach, a reflection from the man himself might be instructive.
His idol was Dutch international Epi Drost, who came from the same area and club as Ten Hag and was his coach at FC Twente.
“Epi had a soft spot for me because I was by far the youngest in the squad,” Ten Hag recalled. “He let me play in the U23 team when I was 15. He was a mega fan of skillful and adventurous football. He wanted to stimulate creativity because that was the most important aspect of the game. I learned so much from him. “
If I had to compare him to anyone, I would compare him to Ronald Koeman. They both played as centre-backs, leaders in defence, overseeing the game and the team from that position. As managers, both are big fans of Total Football but Koeman never wanted to be as adventurous as Guardiola. If there’s one big difference between the Manchester City manager and Ten Hag, it’s that the Dutchman has the same slightly more realistic approach as Koeman. They keep an eye on the defense more than Guardiola.
If he goes to Manchester United the people he works with will quickly learn that he is a very loyal person – it’s one of his most important qualities.
Starting at FC Twente’s academy around the age of 14, he quickly rose through the under-18s and played with the same guys for many years, most of whom remained friends with him and still are.
But while he was there, two of his best friends died, one in a plane crash in Suriname. Andy Scharmin, a boy destined to play for the Netherlands, was selected for an exhibition game by Suriname, who had no formal national team, and he chose to do so. The plane he was on crashed, killing much of the team. He was one of Ten Hag’s closest friends – they did everything together. That was a big surprise in his life.
Another friend took his own life and a third suffered a horrible injury. All three were destined for an international career. It has had quite an impact on him and he has found inspiration to succeed where his friends never had the chance.
A lot came from the heartbreak of losing friends. That still drives him today.
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