With the middle of the current football season, coach Jurgen Klopp announced his departure from Liverpool at the end of the current season, and since then speculation has spread about the new captain of the Red Castle to succeed the German giant, and on Monday the English club put an end to all doubts related to this matter, and Liverpool announced in an official statement, the appointment of the Dutchman Arne Sloat. Technical director of the team.
Over the past years, the German coach imposed himself as a hero in the hearts of “Reds” fans, as he returned the club to the podium again, after an absence that lasted for years, and led it to win the English Premier League title for the first time in the professional era, and created from it an unbeatable team locally. And continentally.
After Jurgen Klopp finally decided to leave with the Reds, Liverpool fans were dreaming of a high-caliber name to succeed him, or a brilliant coach like Xabi Alonso, who works miracles with Bayer Leverkusen, but events developed quickly, as Arne Slott announced himself a few days ago that he was the successor. Club in the Red Fort.
- Who is Arne Slott?
Arnie Slot was born on September 17, 1978, and celebrates his 46th birthday this year, which is an early age for the field of coaching in the world of football.
During his career as a player, Slot did not leave the Dutch League, and represented many teams there, including FC Zwolle, NAC Breda, Sparta Rotterdam, and BEC Zwolle, before the curtain came down on his career permanently in 2013.
Over the course of his 18-year career, Slot played more than 450 matches in various competitions, but his most notable achievement remains winning the Dutch “second division” league title twice with FC Zwolle.
After retiring in 2013, Slott decided to join the Zwolle team’s coaching staff and stayed with them for only one year, before taking over the leadership of Cambuur for the same period as well.
With Cambuur, Slot’s series of successes began gradually, and he led the team from 14th to third place in the second division standings, and narrowly lost the promotion stage to the Premier League. He also reached the semi-finals of the local cup at that time when he ousted the giant Ajax in the quarter-finals, before losing with great difficulty and on penalties. In front of Alkmaar.
After that, Alkmaar did not miss the opportunity and was keen to bring Slot to the team’s technical staff in 2017, and he helped the team occupy third and fourth places in the Dutch League table, before becoming technical director in 2019.
During his first season with the team, Alkmaar was at the top of the Dutch League table with 25 points, equal to Ajax, before the competition was canceled as a result of the Corona pandemic at the time, and then he left the club completely in December 2020.
Slott left AZ Alkmaar averaging 2.11 points per game, the highest of any coach in the club’s history.
The next stop for the young coach was Feyenoord, and there his real breakthrough began. He led the team to the European Conference League final during his first season, then won the Dutch League in 2022-2023 and reached the semi-finals of the Dutch Cup and the quarter-finals of the European League.
In the current season, his last with Feyenoord, he led the team to the Dutch Cup title at the expense of NEC Nijmegen, but lost the local league to PSV Eindhoven.
- Mourinho and Guardiola
Sloat admitted that he prefers the playing style of Spaniard Pep Guardiola, who is ranked among the best football coaches in history, and who achieved great successes with Barcelona and Manchester City in particular.
“I don’t like to be compared to Pep, but we share that we love possession of the ball,” Slott said in this regard.
Slot, like Guardiola, studies every little detail, considering that watching the Spanish team gives him “the absolute joy of football.” He continued, “There is no team in the world that I prefer to watch more than Manchester City, then Napoli (the Italians), Arsenal and Brighton (the English ones).” He explained, “I never want to compare myself with Pep, but he is obsessed with details like me.”
On the other hand, Sloat completely rejects the idea of the defensive style that characterized the veteran Portuguese Jose Mourinho, the former coach of Real Madrid, the English Chelsea, and the former Italian Inter Milan.
The two got into a clash during a previous match between Feyenoord and Roma, and Slot admonished Mourinho and told him, “I don’t like the way your team plays at all.”
In general, Slot’s preferred formation is 4-2-3-1, and he tends to rely on a playmaker and two wingers behind a lone striker.
One of the things that prompted Liverpool’s management to sign Slot, who won the Dutch League title, is that he adopts a style of play similar to Klopp’s style, in addition to the fact that he has a proven track record in developing young talents.
Klopp said that Slot would have “the best job in the world and the best club in the world” if he was appointed as his successor.
He added, “I like the way his team plays, and all the things I hear about him are that he is a good man and coach.”
In an interview with Football International magazine in May 2023, Slott stated about his tactics, saying, “I try to win the match a week before it starts, by conveying all the necessary ideas to the players through training.”
Does success in the Netherlands, where Slot led Feyenoord to the league title last year and the cup this year, qualify Liverpool towards victories, or will it be overcome by the difference in circumstances and places?