An old video clip showed that Dutchman Eric Ten Hag, the current coach of Manchester United, had leadership qualities during his childhood that qualified him to be a coach in the future.
The newspaper “Marca” (BRAND) Spanish via its website, a video clip in which Ten Hag appeared, at the age of 13, in one of the TV episodes, with a group of children in a dialogue with the Dutch and world football legend, the late Johan Cruyff.
Erik Ten Hag, 13, tells Johan Cruyff how a coach should communicate with his players:pic.twitter.com/Ifu0uAxNUH
— Lig Radio (@LigRadyo) January 17, 2023
During that program, which was broadcast on one of the Dutch channels in 1984 – the period that preceded the start of the training career of the flying wing by one year – “Ten Hag” told his compatriot Cruyff the way he should follow in dealing with young players.
In that episode, Cruyff – three-time Ballon d’Or winner for the best player in the world – asked the children what they thought about the coach’s yelling at the players.
Cruyff said, “For the coach to shout this thing happens a lot, or did this not happen with you guys?”
The answer comes from Ten Hag, “I think you should be careful not to yell at young people too much, because in this way you can break a player and destroy him psychologically, but at a higher level (adults) like the first Ajax team, you are able to say anything.”
He added, “These players train almost every day during the week, if they keep making the same mistakes, you should be able to deal with them.”
This prompted Cruyff to ask another question, as he said, “So you mean that you should differentiate between youth football and adult football?” Ten Hag replied, “Yes.”
It seems that Ten Hag, the coach, remained faithful to Cruyff’s ideas related to “total football”, and achieved many titles with it.
Ten Hag said in April 2022, “There is a reason that there are pictures of Cruyff in my office. Winning is important, but you want to win in a certain way.”
— follow @TenHagBall (@hagholic) January 18, 2023
He added, “You have to win and play attractive football, because we play it for people, so Johan Cruyff’s legacy remains, and you can feel his DNA.”
Ten Hag did not deny in that interview that he was influenced by a number of other coaches, namely Louis van Gaal and Rinus Michels, in addition to Cruyff, whom he described as the “three inspirations”.
Ten Hag, 52, began his coaching career with Tenti Enschede, when he supervised the U-17 and U-19 teams in 2002, before becoming an assistant coach for 3 with the first team of the same club in 2006.
As for his first personal experience, it was with PSV in 2012, then Go Ahead Eagles, the youth team of Bayern Munich, Utrecht, Ajax Amsterdam and finally Manchester United.
Ten Hag was crowned with Ajax with 7 championships, 3 of which were in the Dutch League, and he also led Bayern youth to win the German League title in the 2013-2014 season.
