Latest news with #PECZwolle
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PEC Zwolle bring in familiar face as new general manager
Joost Broerse has been announced as the new general manager of PEC Zwolle. The Zwolle player comes over from FC Utrecht, where he was commercial director in recent years. The 46-year-old Broerse starts his new job on 1 July. Broerse was already associated with PEC as commercial director between 2015 and 2018. As a player he was active in Zwolle between 2012 and 2015, with the former central defender part of the team that won the KNVB Cup and the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2014. 'I was at a point in my career to take a new path,' Broerse said. 'It's great that PEC approached me at this time to become general manager, something I've been aspiring to for a long time.' This news followed PEC's announcement on Wednesday that Henry van der Vegt (53) will be head coach as of next season. The Kampenaar, currently assistant coach in Zwolle, will succeed the departing Johnny Jansen and will sign a contract until the summer of 2027. PEC almost assured itself of staying in the Eredivisie last weekend with a 1-3 victory at NAC Breda. They host Go Ahead Eagles this Sunday. GBeNeFN | Max Bradfield
Irish Daily Mirror
05-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Hallgrimsson target recognised in latest ranking as ever-present run continues
Ireland Under-21 defender Anselmo Garcia MacNulty has followed up his chat with Heimir Hallgrímsson by making the latest ESPN Eredivisie Team of the Week. The Seville-born youngster featured in PEC Zwolle's 3-1 win away to NAC Breda on Sunday, where his performance earned him a place at centre-back in the weekly-11. It's not MacNulty's first time featuring in the Team of the Week, but this one comes fresh from a meeting with senior boss Hallgrímsson, who watched the 22-year-old play against Feyenoord late last month. PEC lost that one 4-0, but MacNulty's performance in front of the Boys in Green boss had plenty of positives. He is back in his more familiar centre-back role this season after spending last year as a left-back - an area that has been problematic for Ireland for some time now. Hallgrímsson will later this month name a squad for the summer friendlies against Luxembourg and Senegal. The Ireland manager has already stated that Championship players will be disadvantaged by their regular season ending last weekend. The Dutch top-flight will continue into the middle of this month, with Zwolle facing Go Ahead Eagles, Willem II and FC Groningen in their remaining games. So it represents an opportunity for MacNulty, whose mum Maeve hails from Kilmaley in Co Clare, to secure a first senior call-up. He will also hope to finish the season with maximum minutes on the pitch. The former Real Betis and VfL Wolfsburg prospect is currently one of only two ever-present outfield players in the Eredivisie this season, having played every moment of PEC Zwolle's 31 league games to date. Go Ahead Eagles defender Mats Deijl is the other player to have not yet missed any action.
Irish Times
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Heimir Hallgrímsson reviewing his squad options in advance of June friendlies
Heimir Hallgrímsson has stepped up his search for new options for the Republic of Ireland 's friendlies against Senegal and Luxembourg in June, as he keeps tabs on the growing number of Irish players in continental Europe. The Irish manager went to see young centre back Anselmo Garcia MacNulty play for PEC Zwolle against Feyenoord recently in a trip that took in games including Troy Parrott for AZ Alkmaar, Andrew Omobamidele for Strasbourg and John Joe Patrick Finn for Stade Reims (although he was on the bench), and spoke to the four players. Hallgrímsson also said that his management team have been 'watching a lot' of League of Ireland action and said the league was on a 'good trajectory'. The Icelander said his recent scouting was done with the hope of securing two more friendlies in the summer to allow more opportunities in the squad, but those games fell through with another federation. READ MORE He said he is not looking to take any big risks with player fitness for the June games, with 2026 World Cup qualifiers ahead in September. 'We would like to limit the number of Championship players [in the squad] that are finishing this week or next week. We want to give them an extended time off because we need everyone fresh. Everything is about September, October, November. 'The June camp has always been kind of difficult for us, given that is a long Championship season with two games a week, these guys are probably carrying niggles here and there, so these guys need a break.' Gavin Bazunu is set to miss the June friendlies with injury, as will Chiedozie Ogbene with his long-term Achilles injury. Sammie Szmodics is also a doubt with an ankle injury. 'I think it's more important, instead of risking players in June, that they are ready, fit and flying in September,' Hallgrímsson said. He said both games will provide good preparation as the 'amazing' Senegal will be a big defensive test, while Luxembourg have been 'on the up' for some time now. Heimir Hallgrímsson: 'It's more important, instead of risking players in June, that they are ready, fit and flying in September.' Photograph: Kostadin Andonov/Inpnho Last weekend, Caoimhín Kelleher became the first Republic of Ireland player to win a Premier League medal since John O'Shea and Darron Gibson in 2011, and speculation continues about his future after the return of Alisson as Liverpool's number one goalkeeper. With Georgian keeper Giorgi Mamardashvili arriving in the summer, the Cork man's time left at the club could be limited. Hallgrímsson said he wants Kelleher to go to a club where he will play on a regular basis. 'I'm not so bothered [where], he has shown everyone he can play at whatever level. But I know he wants to be playing at the highest level. I know that and I guess – I don't know for sure – he will be playing at the highest level,' he said. The Ireland manager said he met Stephen Bradley over a coffee recently and had a 'really good' chat. The Shamrock Rovers manager had criticised Hallgrímsson for being 'out of touch' in February . 'He's just outspoken,' Hallgrímsson said. 'If he feels something, he just expresses it and sometimes it's a quality that gets in your face but that's [him being] honest. 'This is the team of all Irish people and everybody should have an opinion. If nobody would have an opinion we would be doing something majorly wrong. I need to accept that people have an opinion on the national team, whether I agree with them or not.' Hallgrímsson did not anticipate the departure of chief football officer Marc Canham, who stepped down from his job after three years last week 'to explore new personal and professional opportunities'. He said the FAI informed him the day before it was announced and praised Canham for being 'trustworthy'. 'I'm going to miss him,' Hallgrímsson said. 'I know he's been under pressure, he's been criticised for some of the things he has implemented but whatever he did, I know it came from a good place. He was trying to help Irish football to improve.' Meanwhile, in the Championship, Swansea have appointed Irishman Alan Sheehan as permanent head coach on a three-year contract. The Athlone native, who had five caps for Ireland under-21s, picked up 23 points from 36 since taking over as interim manager in mid-February and has been rewarded with the full-time job. 'It's a privilege to be at this football club and now I've the honour of officially being head coach, it's somewhat surreal,' Sheehan said.
BBC News
10-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Hibs to discuss Vente future in May
Manager David Gray has confirmed that Hibernian will hold talks with Dylan Vente at the end of this season, with the Dutch striker having scored 13 Eredivisie goals on loan at PEC Zwolle. (Edinburgh Evening News), externalRead the rest of Thursday's Scottish gossip.
New York Times
02-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
The inside story of Arne Slot's craziest coaching idea: ‘It was a brilliant failure'
It was, to quote one Dutch headline, 'een briljante mislukking'. Translation: a brilliant failure. Or, to put it another way, Arne Slot has had better ideas during his 30-year career as a professional footballer and now a manager, which has brought him to the cusp of this season's Premier League title with Liverpool. Advertisement He was 32 at the time, playing for PEC Zwolle in the Dutch second division, and it was an improvisational kick-off that brought one former Netherlands international, Rene van der Gijp, close to the point of spontaneous combustion on his television chat show. 'If you show this to (Spain's World Cup winner) Andres Iniesta, he'll think this is a completely different sport,' Van der Gijp told viewers of Vandaag Inside. 'This has nothing to do with professional football. If you do this in a cafe team, with 12 people in the crowd, you are immediately taken off. And everybody says, 'He is crazy'.' How else can you explain the scene in 2011 when Slot sought out the approval of his coaches at Zwolle to try something a bit new, a little wacky, in an attempt to catch out the opposition players from Cambuur? To give him the benefit of the doubt, it is a reminder that Slot, even as a younger man, was a keen tactician who liked to think outside the box. It is also worth noting that, having come up with this plan, he had the gumption to run it by Art Langeler, Zwolle's manager at the time, as well as his assistant, Jaap Stam, the former Manchester United and Netherlands international defender. 'But it was still a ridiculous idea,' Jan Everse, another former Zwolle coach, tells The Athletic, barely suppressing laughter. 'Arne has a lot of ideas — this, unfortunately, was one of his worst ones.' That plan was to flick the ball up, straight from kick-off, and then launch an almighty up-and-under into the opposition half, with the intention that it would drop into the penalty area. And, while the ball was mid-air, Zwolle's attackers were to sprint to the penalty area to meet it on the way down and, ideally, stick it past an exposed goalkeeper. After all, they couldn't be offside as everyone would have started behind the ball. And, if it worked out, the opposition defence would be caught by surprise. Advertisement 'What they didn't seem to realise was that, if you kick the ball all the way to the penalty area straight from kick-off, it should be a very easy catch for the goalkeeper,' says Everse, who still sounds utterly mystified today, over a decade on. 'Also, how long would the ball be in the air? Maybe three seconds? Just think how fast the players would have to be to catch up. You'd need someone to break a world record just to get there. No. This was a very bad idea.' But what if Slot, the team's playmaker, could get the ball really high? During training, the move went well. 'Three times even,' Langeler said recently in an interview with journalist Vincent de Vries for the Zwolle-based De Stentor newspaper. 'That's why Jaap and I said to each other, 'Let's try it'. But it needed the right execution, of course.' What followed may be a surprise to those Liverpool fans who have seen Slot lead the team to the top of the table in his debut year without any tactical ideas that could be described as being unorthodox (or plain hilarious) since taking over from Jurgen Klopp. Unfortunately for Slot, the internet never forgets and the footage shows it was nowhere near the required level of execution. The tap from Joey van den Berg was fine. So was the flick from Slot to set himself up. Then… everything went hopelessly wrong. Interesting kickoff technique from Arne Slot while he was a player in the Dutch got permission from Zwolle's coaches to take kickoffs this way –though the future Liverpool manager did eventually abandon the idea after realising it wasn't his best idea ⬇️ 'Arne wanted to fire it high into the penalty area but instead, he kicked the ball almost straight up,' Langeler recalled, with a chuckle. Not quite straight up. The ball actually goes backwards, high into the air and then comes down again, landing on the left-hand edge of the centre circle in Zwolle's half, to the sound of slightly mystified cheers from the crowd. Advertisement 'We've started this match between Zwolle and Cambuur…' Vincent Schildkamp, the television commentator, announces. 'And that is extraordinarily strange. That might be the tension… you rarely see this, a remarkable moment from Arne Slot.' Everse, an Ajax and Feyenoord player in the 1970s, says the footage is still shown on television in the Netherlands: 'Arne had talked about it with the other players and coaches during the week. 'We have to change the kick-off. If we do it this way, they will be surprised'. But the kick was not what he wanted. He got it totally wrong.' Slot appears to lose his bearings and the ball falls behind him into a no-man's land. It is the Zwolle players who are caught by surprise and, within moments, Cambuur are on the attack. Was there method to the madness? 'Sometimes the opponents might have the sun in their eyes and couldn't control it,' explains Ben Hendriks, who was manager of Zwolle from 1992 to 1995, and later worked for the club as a scout. 'Other times it was his way of saying, 'Here you go, we'd like to have the second ball.' People here used to laugh about it. He would flick the ball up and then (laughing) … zuuuuut! (gestures like a rocket taking off). He would shoot it up to heaven.' Hendriks remembers Slot was always thinking of new ways to try to get an advantage over Zwolle's opponents: 'When he was sleeping, he was thinking about football. He always had a football brain and was very good at making people believe in themselves.' Langeler also has some sympathy: 'By firing the ball as high as possible into the penalty area, the idea was our three strikers would run forward and be there (for when it dropped) on the edge of the area. And who knows what would come of that? 'It looked funny, of course. And if you didn't know the background, you'd think, 'What on earth are they doing? They just shoot the ball into the air'. No, this was a brilliant failure, let's leave it at that.' Slot, however, was not prepared to leave it — not to begin with, anyway. Undeterred, he tried the routine again later that year. Again, the opponents were Cambuur and, again, it went badly. 'He made himself look ridiculous — it was unbelievable,' says Everse, who wonders if the intention was 'that the opponent burst out laughing, doesn't recover and they could profit from that'. Advertisement Everse, for context, had two spells with Slot, rates him as a better coach than Klopp and talks about his pride seeing the 'fantastic job' his former player is doing with Liverpool. There is no malice in what he says, just bemusement. And laughter. It is a reminder, he says, of how, in football, even the smartest people can get it wrong: 'Johan Cruyff, the best footballer and coach, always said, 'Football is a very easy game — but it's very difficult to play it easy'. Sometimes, though, there are players or coaches who try to invent football again. And this, from Arne, is one example.' Additional reporting: James Pearce
