coldasice199
Well-Known Member
- Aug 20, 2005
- 1,401
- 216
I'm going to start this post by stating that last year after our bad start, and constantly using the board, I eventually succumbed to the opinion of a lot of people on this board in thinking that Martin Jol had to go.
I was stupid! I'm putting my hands up, and I hope others here will as well. With proper backing for Martin and the players he wanted he probably would have got us exactly where we want to be at the present moment. If anyone else on this forum would like to admit to the same stupidity as myself within this thread please feel free too.
The following is an article today by Martin Jol in the Sunday Times:
Martin Jol is waiting at the main door of the Nordbank Arena. I know what is coming. “Heey, ma maaan!” is his greeting, best Tony Van Soprano style. It’s good to see the big guy. English football misses a friend.
Yards away is a piece of public art, a dugout flanked by concrete footballs that visitors pass en route from the car park. The message seems unmistakeable. Hamburger Sport-Verein (SV Hamburg to Brits who remember Kevin Keegan playing there) is a place built around its team and coaching staff. A manager’s club. Could the same be said of Jol’s previous employer?
It is almost 12 months since Jol was dismissed by Tottenham despite consecutive top five finishes, Spurs’ best league performance in 25 years. Now he is creating more history, leading Hamburg to the top of the Bundesliga for the first time this century, and yet for all the happiness and pride his new job brings, a cockerel still crows in a corner of his heart. The Germans came up with the word “schadenfreude”, but that is not Jol’s feeling as he keeps an eye on Spurs’ travails. He simply wants better for a club of which, after all, he is a supporter: “I’ve got a habit of putting all my, it’s called, leidenschaft - passion - into something. At Hamburg, because I spoke German and it’s a nice club, I’ve been able to develop that feeling. At Spurs I had it from the first day. I’ve always been in love with that club.
“Even after I was sacked I still got a great feeling from Spurs fans and hopefully I’ll get the same here. But the sort of connection I had with Spurs fans . . . maybe you get that just once in your life.” Later, back at Jol’s, the first thing he does is go to the lounge and flick through his satellite channels to find Sky Sports News. Spurs stay in his thoughts. He is not a bitter person, enabling him to forgive Daniel Levy, the chairman who knifed him, and keep his counsel regarding Damien Comolli, the director of football behind the coup to replace him with Juande Ramos. Despite Spurs’ scraped result versus Wisla Krakow, only Wall Street stock is falling faster than that of Comolli, Levy and Ramos.
Jol does not question individuals but the club’s general direction. From when he succeeded Jacques Santini in November 2004 until the end of the 2006-07 season, Tottenham progressed via a careful transfer policy focused on recruiting English talent and Jol’s ability to improve those players. Only £14m, net, was spent. Then Levy demanded an immediate leap into the top four and there came a massive change of tack. With Comolli increasingly directing recruitment, Jol’s last summer saw £40m splurged on Darren Bent, Younes Kaboul, Kevin Boateng, Adel Taarabt and Gareth Bale. Ramos heralded an era of expensive foreign arrivals. “If you work for an English club you need an English identity and that worked for Spurs,” Jol says. “We were developing young players and were in Europe every year, structurally. I’m not sure if we were good enough to be in the top four. I’m almost 100% certain it was impossible without signing some experienced players I wanted, although we were in the top four for five months (in 2005-06) and I was proud because I had six players in the England squad plus Robbie Keane, a player bred in England. Now there is Corluka, Giovani, Gilberto, Modric, Pavlyuchenko . . . and Spurs have a different philosophy.
“They’ve got players from abroad, internationals, good footballers, but they’ve changed the team’s identity. Spending £18m on someone, £15m on another. Could you imagine that before? It would have seemed ridiculous. They are so desperate for success I almost . . . pray . . . I certainly hopeon their behalf. Because if they are not successful it will be a disaster.”
The Nordbank Arena is spotless, a perfect modern football theatre. Chosen to host the 2010 Uefa Cup final, its average attendance of more than 55,000 is Europe’s 10th highest. Bernd Hoffmann, the club’s sparky, young, Anglophile chairman, explains why he went for Jol: “I wanted not a coach who was weak, or another former player, but someone with a big personality and if you can survive at Spurs and be successful, you can do it anywhere. Since we were European champions 25 years ago, Bayern Munich have won 26 trophies. We’ve won one. Winning something - anything - is the priority.” Jol smiles. “Big personality? He said that? Then he could have also gone for Tommy Cooper . . . ” Winning something “will not be easy” in a country where as well as Bayern there is a top Werder Bremen side to contend with, a strong Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen, and Wolfsburg and TSG Hof-fenheim are spending big money.
“In one year we won’t go for really great things but if you give me two, maybe more, there are a few little positions where I can improve the team. The spirit’s good and if you’ve a philosophy and can stick to it you can be as good as you want. Hamburg, I feel, are still one of the biggest clubs in Europe. We can’t compete with the Man Citys and Chelseas because we’re a real club who have to earn what we spend but our budget of 115m euros isn’t bad.”
Jol lost seven players over the summer, including Rafael Van Der Vaart, Vincent Kompany and Juan Pablo Sorin, and recruited four replacements, Croatian striker Mladen Petric, Marcell Jansen, the Germany left-back, and Brazilians Alex Silva and Thiago Neves. His net spend was €4m. In Hamburg’s opening league game – Bayern away – they roared back from 0-2 to draw 2-2. Buccaneering comebacks have become Hamburg’s theme. Leverkusen and Arminia Bielefeld were also given two-goal starts but were beaten 3-2 and 4-2. Top after defeating Borussia Mönchengladbach last week, they can reclaim the position by drawing with Energie Cottbus today. Jol has also piloted his team safely into the Uefa Cup group stages and last 16 of the German Cup.
He was offered a €5m tax-free salary to coach in Ukraine, invited to manage Aus-tralia and Iran, and approached by clubs in England, Russia and Holland but, postSpurs, was determined to wait for “the right job” – and appears to have found it. Nicole, his bright and hospitable wife, found a historic former merchant’s villa, cosy yet big enough to display many of the paintings and sculptures in her husband’s art collection. The Jols’ new home is 10 minutes from the Nordbank Arena and close to the international school which Marit, their young daughter, attends.
A house guest is Cornelis, Jol’s older brother. A German language professor and qualified coach, he was Jol’s No 2 at ADO Den Haag and now assists him at Hamburg. Zeljko Petrovic, one of his former players, is first team coach and skills coach is Ricardo Moniz, once of Spurs. “I was allowed to bring my own people and it was a big thing for the club because it’s a bigger staff than they’re used to, and I’m not a cheap guy, but they’ve backed me. If the Germans do something they do it 100%. I came in May and the gym was great but not perfect so I told them. I returned a month later and they’d changed everything.
“When they wanted me they did little things. They gave me two seats on the plane when I flew over and we had a meeting, me, the chairman, and the board at the house of the sporting director, Diet-mar Beiersdorfer. His wife kept cooking us food. I had a house within weeks. I remember my first two months in England, it was a nightmare. I went from one hotel to another with my family. But Nicole and Marit are amazing, they support me and adapt.”
Having played in Germany, he already loved the country’s football mania (“the only place similar to England”) and “you get better value in the transfer market. £5m to buy another Bundesliga player is the same as £15m in the Premier League”. Downsides? “In England there’s a camera-derie between managers. I saw Mark Hughes when Manchester City came here preseason and felt a great affection for him. In Germany there’s not a manager’s room, there’s not even a bottle of wine. We go to our own players’ lounge. So Mark came and said ‘where’s the wine?’ I said, ’Sorry . . .’ and ordered a big keg of beer. It was the hottest day of my life and Mark kept his suit on. ‘It’s my image,’ he told me. He’s a cool mother.
“Training is different, it’s always in public. We post on the internet details of all our sessions and there can be 1,000 fans watching – and the press. You can’t keep secrets from opposing teams in Germany.”
He retains a house in Chigwell, five minutes from Spurs’ training ground. When he left he said he felt one day he’d be back and wants to work in England again, but that won’t be any time soon. “Of course I think I should have stayed [at Spurs] but I had four years and that’s a blessing.
“Glenn Hoddle, Spurs’ best ever player along with Jimmy Greaves, was gone in two years. If it happens to Hoddle of course it can happen to me. There were one or two people - and I’ve never had this in my life – that when I left Spurs I felt ‘I’ll never talk to them again’ but after a couple of months you get rid even of that feeling. I’m glad I took a break and cleared my head because it was hard. I knew Comolli was trying to get Ramos in the summer, even when we had just finished fifth.”
Levy’s football director/head coach system is blamed for Spurs’ plight but Jol makes an observation that may surprise people. “It’s a good structure. Here, Beiersdorfer is such a nice bloke. Honest. I need that. People who support me, give me a push and say ‘come on’. At Spurs I had that . . . when things were going well.
“If you work with a football director who’s your choice, or you’re his choice, the system functions. When Frank [Arnesen] was at Spurs it was perfect. In business you do tests, interviews, assessments: football’s the only industry where you hire someone, a player, only by looking at them. With a football director and coach at least there are two people sharing their knowledge. It’s designed to provide stability. But if one coach leaves and the next one is changing 10 or 12 players, what’s the value of having the structure?”
Tottenham and Martin Jol. Divorce in haste, repent at leisure, to vary an old saying.
I was stupid! I'm putting my hands up, and I hope others here will as well. With proper backing for Martin and the players he wanted he probably would have got us exactly where we want to be at the present moment. If anyone else on this forum would like to admit to the same stupidity as myself within this thread please feel free too.
The following is an article today by Martin Jol in the Sunday Times:
Martin Jol is waiting at the main door of the Nordbank Arena. I know what is coming. “Heey, ma maaan!” is his greeting, best Tony Van Soprano style. It’s good to see the big guy. English football misses a friend.
Yards away is a piece of public art, a dugout flanked by concrete footballs that visitors pass en route from the car park. The message seems unmistakeable. Hamburger Sport-Verein (SV Hamburg to Brits who remember Kevin Keegan playing there) is a place built around its team and coaching staff. A manager’s club. Could the same be said of Jol’s previous employer?
It is almost 12 months since Jol was dismissed by Tottenham despite consecutive top five finishes, Spurs’ best league performance in 25 years. Now he is creating more history, leading Hamburg to the top of the Bundesliga for the first time this century, and yet for all the happiness and pride his new job brings, a cockerel still crows in a corner of his heart. The Germans came up with the word “schadenfreude”, but that is not Jol’s feeling as he keeps an eye on Spurs’ travails. He simply wants better for a club of which, after all, he is a supporter: “I’ve got a habit of putting all my, it’s called, leidenschaft - passion - into something. At Hamburg, because I spoke German and it’s a nice club, I’ve been able to develop that feeling. At Spurs I had it from the first day. I’ve always been in love with that club.
“Even after I was sacked I still got a great feeling from Spurs fans and hopefully I’ll get the same here. But the sort of connection I had with Spurs fans . . . maybe you get that just once in your life.” Later, back at Jol’s, the first thing he does is go to the lounge and flick through his satellite channels to find Sky Sports News. Spurs stay in his thoughts. He is not a bitter person, enabling him to forgive Daniel Levy, the chairman who knifed him, and keep his counsel regarding Damien Comolli, the director of football behind the coup to replace him with Juande Ramos. Despite Spurs’ scraped result versus Wisla Krakow, only Wall Street stock is falling faster than that of Comolli, Levy and Ramos.
Jol does not question individuals but the club’s general direction. From when he succeeded Jacques Santini in November 2004 until the end of the 2006-07 season, Tottenham progressed via a careful transfer policy focused on recruiting English talent and Jol’s ability to improve those players. Only £14m, net, was spent. Then Levy demanded an immediate leap into the top four and there came a massive change of tack. With Comolli increasingly directing recruitment, Jol’s last summer saw £40m splurged on Darren Bent, Younes Kaboul, Kevin Boateng, Adel Taarabt and Gareth Bale. Ramos heralded an era of expensive foreign arrivals. “If you work for an English club you need an English identity and that worked for Spurs,” Jol says. “We were developing young players and were in Europe every year, structurally. I’m not sure if we were good enough to be in the top four. I’m almost 100% certain it was impossible without signing some experienced players I wanted, although we were in the top four for five months (in 2005-06) and I was proud because I had six players in the England squad plus Robbie Keane, a player bred in England. Now there is Corluka, Giovani, Gilberto, Modric, Pavlyuchenko . . . and Spurs have a different philosophy.
“They’ve got players from abroad, internationals, good footballers, but they’ve changed the team’s identity. Spending £18m on someone, £15m on another. Could you imagine that before? It would have seemed ridiculous. They are so desperate for success I almost . . . pray . . . I certainly hopeon their behalf. Because if they are not successful it will be a disaster.”
The Nordbank Arena is spotless, a perfect modern football theatre. Chosen to host the 2010 Uefa Cup final, its average attendance of more than 55,000 is Europe’s 10th highest. Bernd Hoffmann, the club’s sparky, young, Anglophile chairman, explains why he went for Jol: “I wanted not a coach who was weak, or another former player, but someone with a big personality and if you can survive at Spurs and be successful, you can do it anywhere. Since we were European champions 25 years ago, Bayern Munich have won 26 trophies. We’ve won one. Winning something - anything - is the priority.” Jol smiles. “Big personality? He said that? Then he could have also gone for Tommy Cooper . . . ” Winning something “will not be easy” in a country where as well as Bayern there is a top Werder Bremen side to contend with, a strong Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen, and Wolfsburg and TSG Hof-fenheim are spending big money.
“In one year we won’t go for really great things but if you give me two, maybe more, there are a few little positions where I can improve the team. The spirit’s good and if you’ve a philosophy and can stick to it you can be as good as you want. Hamburg, I feel, are still one of the biggest clubs in Europe. We can’t compete with the Man Citys and Chelseas because we’re a real club who have to earn what we spend but our budget of 115m euros isn’t bad.”
Jol lost seven players over the summer, including Rafael Van Der Vaart, Vincent Kompany and Juan Pablo Sorin, and recruited four replacements, Croatian striker Mladen Petric, Marcell Jansen, the Germany left-back, and Brazilians Alex Silva and Thiago Neves. His net spend was €4m. In Hamburg’s opening league game – Bayern away – they roared back from 0-2 to draw 2-2. Buccaneering comebacks have become Hamburg’s theme. Leverkusen and Arminia Bielefeld were also given two-goal starts but were beaten 3-2 and 4-2. Top after defeating Borussia Mönchengladbach last week, they can reclaim the position by drawing with Energie Cottbus today. Jol has also piloted his team safely into the Uefa Cup group stages and last 16 of the German Cup.
He was offered a €5m tax-free salary to coach in Ukraine, invited to manage Aus-tralia and Iran, and approached by clubs in England, Russia and Holland but, postSpurs, was determined to wait for “the right job” – and appears to have found it. Nicole, his bright and hospitable wife, found a historic former merchant’s villa, cosy yet big enough to display many of the paintings and sculptures in her husband’s art collection. The Jols’ new home is 10 minutes from the Nordbank Arena and close to the international school which Marit, their young daughter, attends.
A house guest is Cornelis, Jol’s older brother. A German language professor and qualified coach, he was Jol’s No 2 at ADO Den Haag and now assists him at Hamburg. Zeljko Petrovic, one of his former players, is first team coach and skills coach is Ricardo Moniz, once of Spurs. “I was allowed to bring my own people and it was a big thing for the club because it’s a bigger staff than they’re used to, and I’m not a cheap guy, but they’ve backed me. If the Germans do something they do it 100%. I came in May and the gym was great but not perfect so I told them. I returned a month later and they’d changed everything.
“When they wanted me they did little things. They gave me two seats on the plane when I flew over and we had a meeting, me, the chairman, and the board at the house of the sporting director, Diet-mar Beiersdorfer. His wife kept cooking us food. I had a house within weeks. I remember my first two months in England, it was a nightmare. I went from one hotel to another with my family. But Nicole and Marit are amazing, they support me and adapt.”
Having played in Germany, he already loved the country’s football mania (“the only place similar to England”) and “you get better value in the transfer market. £5m to buy another Bundesliga player is the same as £15m in the Premier League”. Downsides? “In England there’s a camera-derie between managers. I saw Mark Hughes when Manchester City came here preseason and felt a great affection for him. In Germany there’s not a manager’s room, there’s not even a bottle of wine. We go to our own players’ lounge. So Mark came and said ‘where’s the wine?’ I said, ’Sorry . . .’ and ordered a big keg of beer. It was the hottest day of my life and Mark kept his suit on. ‘It’s my image,’ he told me. He’s a cool mother.
“Training is different, it’s always in public. We post on the internet details of all our sessions and there can be 1,000 fans watching – and the press. You can’t keep secrets from opposing teams in Germany.”
He retains a house in Chigwell, five minutes from Spurs’ training ground. When he left he said he felt one day he’d be back and wants to work in England again, but that won’t be any time soon. “Of course I think I should have stayed [at Spurs] but I had four years and that’s a blessing.
“Glenn Hoddle, Spurs’ best ever player along with Jimmy Greaves, was gone in two years. If it happens to Hoddle of course it can happen to me. There were one or two people - and I’ve never had this in my life – that when I left Spurs I felt ‘I’ll never talk to them again’ but after a couple of months you get rid even of that feeling. I’m glad I took a break and cleared my head because it was hard. I knew Comolli was trying to get Ramos in the summer, even when we had just finished fifth.”
Levy’s football director/head coach system is blamed for Spurs’ plight but Jol makes an observation that may surprise people. “It’s a good structure. Here, Beiersdorfer is such a nice bloke. Honest. I need that. People who support me, give me a push and say ‘come on’. At Spurs I had that . . . when things were going well.
“If you work with a football director who’s your choice, or you’re his choice, the system functions. When Frank [Arnesen] was at Spurs it was perfect. In business you do tests, interviews, assessments: football’s the only industry where you hire someone, a player, only by looking at them. With a football director and coach at least there are two people sharing their knowledge. It’s designed to provide stability. But if one coach leaves and the next one is changing 10 or 12 players, what’s the value of having the structure?”
Tottenham and Martin Jol. Divorce in haste, repent at leisure, to vary an old saying.
