Slot wins Rinus Michels Award for second time and is ready for new season
NOS Football–
Arne Slot has won the Rinus Michels Award for best coach of the premier league for the second year in a row. The Feyenoord coach captured the national title with the Rotterdam club this year. Last year the 44-year-old Slot also received the award after reaching the Conference League final with Feyenoord and finishing third in the premier league.
Slot held off Ron Jans (FC Twente), Pascal Jansen (AZ), and Joseph Oosting (RKC Waalwijk). The winner is chosen based on votes. All coaches in professional soccer get to choose who they thought was the best of the season.
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Guus Hiddink presents award to Arne Slot -
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Guus Hiddink presents the award to Arne Slot. Dick Schreuder, Pascal Jansen and Ron Jans look on
Slot is the fourth coach to receive the award two consecutive years. Guus Hiddink won as coach of PSV in 2005 and 2006, Frank de Boer won as coach of Ajax in 2013 and 2014 and Erik ten Hag did it as Ajax coach in 2019 and 2021.
The award for best trainer of the first division was for Dick Schreuder. The 51-year-old coach of PEC Zwolle, and brother of Alfred Schreuder, led the Zwolle club to second place in the second tier of the Netherlands.
Schreuder received more votes than John Lammers (Heracles Almelo) who became champion with the Almelo club, Alex Pastoor who surprisingly promoted with Almere City, Rob Penders (FC Eindhoven) and Maurice Verberne (MVV Maastricht).
Slot is ready for new season
The season is now about four weeks done. The summer vacations are already (almost) over for soccer players. And so preparation for the 2023/24 season is already starting. Some clubs already start this week. Feyenoord and Slot are still enjoying the break, although Slot is already ready for it.
“I am fresh and we still have a week to go before we start again,” Slot said in Zeist at the presentation of his award. “Actually, I am saying something that is not true, because the last two or three weeks I have also been sufficiently occupied with the new season.”
Trainer you are long since no longer on your own: ‘If your staff is in good shape, it helps’
Sat on the app daily with general manager Dennis te Kloese? “Or calling,” Slot chuckles. “But that was the same last season. And then there was the inconvenient circumstance that Frank Arnesen (technical director at the time, ed.) was struggling with his health. On top of that, we also lost fifteen players.”
“Now we might lose two or three, but we have also already recruited two more with Ramiz Zerrouki and Thomas van der Belt.” So it looks like Feyenoord is in for a quiet preparation.
“That’s impossible to predict in soccer, but it will remain quiet in my mind because from next week I will go back to work full steam ahead with my staff to get the team playing as well as possible again.”
