Latest news with #Beenhakker
Times
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Times
Leo Beenhakker obituary: football manager who revived Real Madrid
When Bobby Robson took England to the World Cup semi-final in 1990, he first had to outwit his charismatic Dutch counterpart Leo Beenhakker. Stalking the touchline and smoking a cheroot, Beenhakker had a face like thunder as a Paul Gascoigne-inspired England had the better of a 0-0 draw and went on to top the group. Holland were the European champions with a glittering array of talent, including Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and Ronald Koeman, but they were soon dumped out of the World Cup in the second round after a bad-tempered defeat to West Germany. When Beenhakker had agreed to become coach before the tournament, players were already bickering about who would play in which position and reportedly wanted Johan Cruyff to be appointed coach. Not even Beenhakker's famed motivational skills could bring harmony. Yet his pedigree as a coach was not in doubt. Between 1987 and 1989 Beenhakker had won three consecutive La Liga titles for Real Madrid, doing so in a style and swagger that earned him the sobriquet 'Don Leo' in the Spanish press. A slightly professorial figure with long fair hair, he studiously built a team around the five young homegrown players Emilio Butragueño, Manolo Sanchís, Rafael Martín Vázquez, Míchel and Miguel Pardeza, who became known as the 'La Quinta del Buitre' (the Vulture's Cohort). They were augmented by the Mexican goal machine Hugo Sánchez, and Beenhakker added the temperamental but gifted German midfielder Bernd Schuster to create a team good enough to win the European Cup (now the Champions League) for the first time in two decades. Yet in each of his seasons there the club was knocked out in the semi-final. In his final year at the club he dropped the talismanic Butragueño (nicknamed 'the Vulture'). 'Will the Madrid public and the press accept this from me, a foreigner?' asked Beenhakker, a man of dry, knowing humour. 'Emilio is one of the untouchables here yet what I did was the best for the team. It was my risk.' The gamble did not pay off. Beenhakker left the club in April 1989 after Real lost 6-1 on aggregate to AC Milan. As a young coach in Holland, Beenhakker had been a student of Rinus Michels, the father of 'Total Football', characterised by fluid movement and interchanging of positions and perfected by the great Ajax side of the early Seventies and the Holland team that reached the final of the World Cup in 1974 and 1978. Beenhakker would go on to manage Ajax and win the Dutch title in 1980. Despite success he had to deal with sniping from Cruyff, Holland's most celebrated player, who was critical of the fact that Beenhakker had never been a top-level player. Beenhakker produced one of his characteristic aphorisms in response, 'You can be a very good milkman without having ever been a cow.' Leo Beenhakker was born in Rotterdam in 1942 after the city had been all but obliterated by German bombs, and what was left of it was under Nazi occupation. After the early death of his father Hendrik from leukaemia, Leo trained as an electrician to support his mother Neeltje. His playing career as a right winger at amateur level in the Netherlands ended when he was forced to retire aged 26 because of a knee injury. Beenhakker would manage smaller Dutch clubs. After a spell as the youth coach at Feyenoord, he was surprisingly given his chance at Ajax in 1979. He would go on to manage Real Zaragoza in Spain for three years before being appointed coach of a faltering Holland side in 1985, failing to steer them to qualification for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In his second spell at Ajax from 1989, he nurtured a young Dennis Bergkamp, who would go on to become a Premier League legend at Arsenal. Ajax won the title again under Beenhakker in 1990. For much of the Nineties he coached around the world, and was notably sacked as the coach of Saudi Arabia before the World Cup in 1994 after the players rejected his demand that they train every day. That year he nearly realised his dream of managing in Premier League. He was reportedly close to agreeing to take charge at Tottenham Hotspur, but unable to commit himself to the club immediately. Beenhakker, who was divorced and is survived by a son, Erwin, and a daughter, Mariska, went on to win his third Dutch title, this time with Feyenoord, in 1999. In 2000 he returned to Ajax as technical director and signed a young striker called Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Of all his 30 or so managerial posts, arguably his greatest achievement was with Trinidad and Tobago. When he arrived in April 2005, the small Caribbean nation of 1.3 million people sat last in the North American, Central American and Caribbean qualifying group. By giving a squad of mostly modest talents belief in themselves, Beenhakker moulded them into a competitive team that became the smallest nation to qualify for the Fifa World Cup when they beat Bahrain 1-0 in November 2005, prompting wild celebrations in the capital, Port of Spain. At the finals in Germany in 2006, the 'Soca Warriors' held Sweden to a 0-0 draw. They then prevented England from scoring for 83 minutes until Peter Crouch scored a contentious goal and Steven Gerrard added a second in the last minute to make the result seem more comfortable than it was. Trinidad and Tobago exited the tournament with honour; Beenhakker was awarded the Chaconia Medal (Gold Class), the second highest state decoration of Trinidad and Tobago. Asked if it had taken a miracle to get Trinidad and Tobago to the World Cup, he replied: 'No, we just came by plane.'
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Leo Beenhakker, Winning Soccer Coach Without Borders, Dies at 82
Leo Beenhakker, a globe-trotting soccer coach who managed his native Netherlands during the 1990 World Cup, won three Spanish League titles with Real Madrid in the 1980s and, perhaps most impressively and improbably, guided Trinidad and Tobago to the 2006 World Cup as the smallest nation at the time ever to compete in soccer's global championship, died on April 10. He was 82. His death was announced by the Dutch soccer federation and by Ajax, the powerful Amsterdam club that Beenhakker coached to two Dutch League titles. The announcement did not cite a cause or say where he died. His own playing career, as a winger, did not carry him beyond the amateur level. But neither did it prevent him from achieving national and international success as a coach. In that role, Beenhakker displayed wit and charm as well as the ability to engage with and inspire his players and to immerse himself in various cultures in the soccer diaspora. One of his accomplishments was to coach Poland to its first appearance in the European championships, in 2008. He dismissed the idea that to coach at a high level, one needed to have played at a high level. 'You can be a very good milkman,' he once said, 'without having ever been a cow.' Beenhakker (pronounced bin-HACK-er) never possessed the authority or standing of Johan Cruyff, who captained the Netherlands to second place at the 1974 World Cup and is considered one of the greatest players of all time. Nor did he have the tactical skill of Guus Hiddink, who in 1988 coached PSV Eindhoven to both the Dutch League title and the European Cup, the forerunner of the European Champions League title. But Beenhakker was of their generation, and as a manager he embraced the Dutch philosophy known as total football, which revolutionized soccer in the 1970s with its style of fluid movement and interchanging positions. Simon Kuper, a leading soccer journalist whose highly regarded books include 'Soccernomics' (2009), said in an interview that because Beenhakker had not been a high-level player, he had to find another way to gain credibility as a manager. 'I don't think he was a tactical genius,' said Kuper, who grew up in the Netherlands. 'What he had was the gift of gab. He was a great speaker, a kind of actor who played an almost film noir, sort of hard-boiled kind of person, who was able to bluff his way based on his acting and speaking skills.' Beenhakker, who sometimes wore a trench coat that conveyed a Bogart-type image, coached Ajax to Dutch League titles in 1980 and 1990 and its fierce rival, Feyenoord, to the league championship in 1999. In 1987, '88 and '89, he won Spanish League titles with Real Madrid, the most decorated soccer club in Europe. He became known in Spain as 'Don Leo.' In 2000, returning to Ajax as the club's technical director, Beenhakker influenced the rising Swedish star forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic. 'What he saw, I became,' Ibrahimovic said of Beenhakker. 'And that is the best.' But Beenhakker's time coaching in the Netherlands was not without its complications. In 1980, Cruyff publicly humiliated him during a televised Ajax match, using a dismissive term, 'schoolteacher,' for coaches who had not played at the top levels of soccer and who relied on training courses. During a match in which Ajax was losing to a league opponent, FC Twente, Cruyff, then an adviser for Ajax, left the stands, sat next to Beenhakker on the bench and emphatically instructed him to change tactics. Ajax prevailed. Years later, an embarrassed Beenhakker said of Cruyff, 'I should have punched him twice.' In his second stint as manager of the Dutch national team, during the 1990 World Cup in Italy, Beenhakker could not coax a single victory from a team that was the 1988 European champion and featured such stars as Ruud Gullitt, Frank Rijkaard and Marco van Basten. The players had wanted Cruyff to be their manager. Rumors emerged that Beenhakker had scuffled with van Basten. Instead of winning the World Cup as they had expected, the Dutch exited meekly in the second round. 'At the highest level, he didn't quite have the trust of players in his tactical skills,' Kuper said. Leo Beenhakker was born on Aug. 2, 1942, in Rotterdam, during Nazi Germany's occupation of the Netherlands. According to some news accounts, he worked as an electrician to help support his family after his father died. An injury apparently ended his modest playing career when he was 19. Information on survivors was not immediately available. As a manager, Beenhakker had his most unlikely success when he coached the Caribbean nation Trinidad and Tobago to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The country had never reached soccer's global championship tournament, and when Beenhakker was hired in April 2005, at 62, Trinidad and Tobago sat last in its qualifying group in the North American, Central American and Caribbean region. Beenhakker motivated his new team, instilling discipline and confidence on the field and reaching the players on a personal level off the field. He relied on players with experience in the English Premier League, including the forward Dwight Yorke, who had been a star at Manchester United. On Nov. 16, 2005, when Trinidad and Tobago won a final playoff in Bahrain to reach the World Cup, thousands took to the streets of Port of Spain, the capital, in celebration. The day is considered a highlight of the nation's history. Beenhakker was awarded the Chaconia Medal, the country's second-highest honor. 'He was more than a tactician — he was a leader who respected the culture, earned our trust and inspired a nation,' Yorke, Trinidad and Tobago's current national coach, posted on the soccer federation's website after Beenhakker's death. When players from that tiny nation, which then had a population of roughly 1.3 million, arrived in Germany in 2006 for the monthlong tournament, Beenhakker was asked if their success was a miracle. 'A miracle to be here?' he replied. 'No, we just came by plane.' The Soca Warriors, as the national team is nicknamed, were hardly intimidated. They opened by holding Sweden to a scoreless tie. In the second match, they kept England without a goal until the 83rd of the game's 90 minutes before succumbing 2-0. Another 2-0 loss, to Paraguay, sent Trinidad and Tobago home after group play. Iceland, with a population of approximately 350,000 at the time, superseded Trinidad and Tobago in 2018 as the smallest nation to qualify for the World Cup. No matter. Beenhakker's contribution to the nation's soccer history remained undiminished at his death. Kelvin Jack, a goalkeeper on the 2006 World Cup team, told the Trinidad and Tobago sports website 'I always felt as though I could run through a wall for this man.'
Washington Post
11-04-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Leo Beenhakker, Dutch soccer great who coached Real Madrid and two World Cup teams, dies at 82
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Leo Beenhakker, the Dutch soccer coach who led two national teams at World Cups and won three league titles with Real Madrid, has died. He was 82. 'Beenhakker was a coaching icon and a truly unique figure at Ajax,' the storied Amsterdam club said in a statement announcing his death late Thursday. The cause of death was not given.
Fox Sports
11-04-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Leo Beenhakker, Dutch soccer great who coached Real Madrid and two World Cup teams, dies at 82
Associated Press AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Leo Beenhakker, the Dutch soccer coach who led two national teams at World Cups and won three league titles with Real Madrid, has died. He was 82. 'Beenhakker was a coaching icon and a truly unique figure at Ajax,' the storied Amsterdam club said in a statement announcing his death late Thursday. The cause of death was not given. He coached Ajax in the 1970s, '80s and '90s — winning two Dutch league titles, and a third with its fierce rival Feyenoord — and three straight La Liga titles with Madrid from 1987 to '89. In the Netherlands he is credited with calling the iconic European Cup trophy 'the cup with the big ears' though it was a title that eluded him. Beenhakker took his teams to four European Cup semifinals but lost one with Ajax in 1980 and in each of his three seasons during his first spell with Madrid. 'Real Madrid would like to express their condolences and affection to his family, clubs, and loved ones,' the club said in a statement Friday. Beenhakker also had two spells with the Dutch national team, briefly in 1985 then taking the gifted European champions to the 1990 World Cup. With dissent in the camp, the team did not win a game and lost a famously bad-tempered round of 16 clash with eventual champion West Germany. He later steered Trinidad and Tobago through qualifying to its first World Cup in 2006. Beenhakker also coached the national teams of Saudi Arabia and Poland. He led Poland to a first European Championship in 2008. His teams never won a game at a finals tournament. He coached clubs in Mexico, Switzerland and Turkey, and returned to Ajax as technical director in 2000 where he was an influence on a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic. 'What he saw, I became. And that is the best,' Ibrahimovic once said of his early-career mentor. Former Ajax captain Jan Wouters, a member of the 1990 World Cup squad, said Beenhakker "could really motivate a group. A very human coach who understood things beyond football.' ___ AP soccer:
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Leo Beenhakker, Dutch soccer great who coached Real Madrid and two World Cup teams, dies at 82
Leo Beenhakker, Dutch soccer great who coached Real Madrid and two World Cup teams, dies at 82 FILE - Trinidad and Tobago's coach Leo Beenhakker listens to the national anthems before their World Cup Group B soccer match against England in Nuremberg, Germany, Thursday, June 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) FILE - England's David Beckham shakes hands with Trinidad and Tobago's coach Leo Beenhakker, right, during their World Cup Group B soccer match in Nuremberg, Germany, Thursday, June 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File) FILE - England's David Beckham shakes hands with Trinidad and Tobago's coach Leo Beenhakker, right, during their World Cup Group B soccer match in Nuremberg, Germany, Thursday, June 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File) FILE - Trinidad and Tobago's coach Leo Beenhakker listens to the national anthems before their World Cup Group B soccer match against England in Nuremberg, Germany, Thursday, June 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) FILE - England's David Beckham shakes hands with Trinidad and Tobago's coach Leo Beenhakker, right, during their World Cup Group B soccer match in Nuremberg, Germany, Thursday, June 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File) AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Leo Beenhakker, the Dutch soccer coach who led two national teams at World Cups and won three league titles with Real Madrid, has died. He was 82. 'Beenhakker was a coaching icon and a truly unique figure at Ajax,' the storied Amsterdam club said in a statement announcing his death late Thursday. The cause of death was not given. Advertisement He coached Ajax in the 1970s, '80s and '90s — winning two Dutch league titles, and a third with its fierce rival Feyenoord — and three straight La Liga titles with Madrid from 1987 to '89. In the Netherlands he is credited with calling the iconic European Cup trophy 'the cup with the big ears' though it was a title that eluded him. Beenhakker took his teams to four European Cup semifinals but lost one with Ajax in 1980 and in each of his three seasons during his first spell with Madrid. 'Real Madrid would like to express their condolences and affection to his family, clubs, and loved ones,' the club said in a statement Friday. Advertisement Beenhakker also had two spells with the Dutch national team, briefly in 1985 then taking the gifted European champions to the 1990 World Cup. With dissent in the camp, the team did not win a game and lost a famously bad-tempered round of 16 clash with eventual champion West Germany. He later steered Trinidad and Tobago through qualifying to its first World Cup in 2006. Beenhakker also coached the national teams of Saudi Arabia and Poland. He led Poland to a first European Championship in 2008. His teams never won a game at a finals tournament. He coached clubs in Mexico, Switzerland and Turkey, and returned to Ajax as technical director in 2000 where he was an influence on a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Advertisement 'What he saw, I became. And that is the best,' Ibrahimovic once said of his early-career mentor. Former Ajax captain Jan Wouters, a member of the 1990 World Cup squad, said Beenhakker "could really motivate a group. A very human coach who understood things beyond football.' ___ AP soccer:
