Chelsea go Dutch with Ten Cate

Sean O'Conor

Henk ten Cate formally joined Chelsea from Ajax yesterday after a week of badly concealed negotiation between the two clubs.

The Blues are reeling from a woeful start to the season. The club with the richest owner in football are slacking down in seventh place in the Premier League and failed to beat Rosenborg at home in the Champions League.

The simmering tension between combustible coach Jose Mourinho and the egregious arriviste owner Roman Abramovich finally boiled over, with the Portuguese performing a classic 'did he jump or was he pushed?' departure through the doors of Stamford Bridge.

The Ajax coach arrives at Stamford Bridge as assistant to Avram Grant, in a replica of the Frank Rijkaard-Ten Cate double act at Barcelona from 2004-'06.

Grant's record since Mourinho's leaving has not actually been that bad – three wins, a draw and a defeat away at Manchester United, but the Israeli still appears to have temporary fix written all over him since Mourinho walked out.

Many expect Ten Cate to become the No.1 coach, even if Grant fronts the press conferences, although he insists that is not the case.

So who is Ten Cate? It is no surprise few people in England have heard of him. They hadn't heard of Arsene Wenger's Monaco miracles when he replaced Bruce Rioch at Highbury in 1996, still less of Sven-Goran Eriksson's exploits with Gothenburg, Benfica and four separate Serie A clubs before he took the reigns of England's national team five years later.

In spite of the foreign revolution of the past decade in the home of football, it is still depressingly true that most fans and journalists have little knowledge of football beyond the English Channel.

Tomas Rosicky was arguably the continent's best dribbler during his five successful years at Borussia Dortmund, but when he showed up at Arsenal in 2006, the BBC's face of football Gary Lineker opined 'what a find he was', as if he had just been plucked from obscurity.

Ten Cate's pedigree is typical of the best modern coaches. He was no famous player, instead plying his trade at lower league outfits.

He cut his teeth at the lesser lights of Go Ahead Eagles, Heracles and Rotterdam's second Sparta, whom he led to an unexpected sixth place finish in Holland's Eredivisie and the Dutch Cup Final.

From Sparta he moved in 1997 to Vitesse Arnhem, where he led the club to third in the league, a club record, and bolstered his reputation.

The following season, Ten Cate moved to Germany and Uerdingen, but without distinction. Then he coached MTK Hungaria FC to the Hungarian Cup and second place in their league, before returning to Holland and NAC Breda in 2000.

He was Frank Rijkaard's assistant at Barcelona in 2005 when they won La Liga and retained their title and beat Arsenal in the Champions League Final the following year.

A year ago, Ten Cate got perhaps his dream job when, as an Amsterdammer, he was asked to take the reins of Ajax, replacing Danny Blind.

Ajax lost to FC Copenhagen in the Champions League early on under Ten Cate, and in just over a season in charge, he failed on goal difference to win the league title. Soon before he left the Amsterdam Arena, Ten Cate's Ajax were knocked out of the Champions League by Slavia Prague and the UEFA Cup by Dinamo Zagreb.

Prone to the occasional temper fit, Ten Cate, was never universally loved or considered a great coach, but he caught the eye of Roman Abramovich across the water and begins again with a clean slate.

The main reason Abramovich chose Ten Cate is not because he comes from Holland or excelled at Ajax (he didn't), but rather because he was involved with Barcelona's recent successes.

The Russian, like everyone else, well remembers Barca & Chelsea's clashes in the Champions League and how the Catalans played such dazzling football. His dream surely, would be for Ronaldinho to recreate the wonder goal he scored at Stamford Bridge in 2005, but in a Chelsea shirt.

Arthur Renard, writer for Dutch soccer weekly 'Voetbal', told Soccerphile he expects good things from the new Chelsea man.

"I think he will fit in his new role," says Renard.

"He has a good pedigree and is usually on good terms with his players. I think he is a successful coach, but at Ajax things didn't really work out between him and the club. It was at Barcelona when he really got the credits and earned his contract at Ajax.

"Like Martin Jol, Ten Cate did excellent work at lower sides, but never got mentioned in connection with coaching a top-3 side (Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV, recently it is top-4 with AZ) before he proved himself overseas. At Barcelona, he was not in the spotlight for once, and he recently admitted that that is fine for him to do that again at Chelsea."

When he does finally become Chelsea's No.1, Ten Cate will be only the third Dutchman to coach an English club.

Oddly for a country whose people are fluent in English and who are renowned for their footballing acumen, the Netherlands has never supplied coaches to England in any number, while Spain, and particularly Barcelona (Michels, Cruyff, Van Gaal, Rijkaard etc), falls over itself to employ Dutchmen.

English football has always appeared below-par technically to the erudite Netherlanders. Not so Spain, where the top clubs recruit Dutch coaches on a regular basis, but there has not been an Englishman in charge since Bobby Robson at Barcelona a decade ago.

But the Dutch are slowly coming to England, encouraged by the influx of top-drawer foreign players, foreign coaches of the likes of Rafael Benitez, Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, and the high salaries on offer.

Manchester United's reserve team coach is a Dutchman, Rene Meulensteen, as is Spurs' assistant and youth coach Ricardo Moniz, and the head of Liverpool's famous academy, Piet Hamberg.

Wim Jansen and Dick Advocaat have coached north of the border in Glasgow already, so with Ten Cate's arrival, expect the likes of Louis Van Gaal, Co Adriaanse and the Golden Fleece, Guus Hiddink, to arrive on English shores before long.

Sean O'Conor

"The Onside In-Site" Copyright © From 2000. All rights reserved. Soccerphile Ltd.