Johan Derksen launched a fierce attack on Nigel de Jong and Clarence Seedorf on Vandaag Inside after Xavi was presented as the new head coach of the Netherlands national team. The analyst trusts the Spaniard's football background, but is deeply concerned about the people at the KNVB involved in technical policy.
"I think Xavi is a likeable man and you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because he has an incredibly good CV," Derksen began. "As a player, you don't need to tell him anything about football. I like that, but I think those two directors hovering around him are extremely dangerous. One of them lacks all personality: Nigel de Jong."
During the presentation, De Jong first spoke at length about the KNVB's search and looked visibly tense as he did so. "That lad is bursting with nerves," Derksen said, before also laying into Seedorf: "And that other smart alec, Seedorf, actually thinks he should have been the director. Of course he doesn't like being the number two."
René van der Gijp then joined in and pointed to the lack of experience at the table during the presentation. "There are two rookies sitting there, aren't there, Johan?" he said about De Jong and Xavi, to which Derksen agreed: "Yes, two rookies."
Derksen then questioned how De Jong and Seedorf ended up in their current positions. "On what basis did they get this job?" Derksen wondered. "De Jong has never coached a club, so why is he a good technical director? The other one has coached clubs, but has failed everywhere. And now they are going to decide who the new national team coach is." He later added about Seedorf: "He has also won a lot, I have to say. But as a coach he has failed everywhere."
Derksen also had little time for the way De Jong expressed himself during the press conference. The director of top-level football explained that after the World Cup evaluation the KNVB had arrived at four candidates, after which Pep Guardiola and Arne Slot dropped out and Xavi was ultimately chosen, with Michael Reiziger as the internal candidate. "He's probably taken a public speaking course," Derksen sneered. "He is politically very correct and watches his words because he thinks that comes with the role. But then you're not a personality. He is playing a part that doesn't suit him."
Van der Gijp was particularly struck by the route through the various candidates. "You start with Guardiola, then you go to Slot and then you go to Reiziger. That's strange, isn't it?" said the former footballer. Derksen even called the idea of making Reiziger national team coach "ridiculous": "He has never had responsibility anywhere. That poor lad is now going to have the whole of the Netherlands on his back. They (De Jong and Seedorf, ed.) caused that."
For Derksen, Peter Bosz should also have been much higher on the KNVB's list. "It was clear: they didn't want Peter Bosz," he said, again holding De Jong and Seedorf responsible for that choice. "Peter Bosz is of course a bit of a football professor and that will probably have gone down badly with them, but he was extremely suitable and had the age and experience for it. It is clear: they simply ignored him."