Been’ here

Long past overdue, i know. Life has a strange way of taking up time when World Cup matches aren’t on and so does a day job. Right, then. Let’s talk a little Polska football.

Or maybe Trinbagonian football. Or Dutch.

Leo Beenhakker was named Team Poland’s new head coach late last week, replacing poor maligned old Pawel Janas after the team’s dismal performance in this year’s Cup. On the other side of the pond, Beenhakker was helping Trinidad & Tobago make history while making his return to the big show after sixteen years away.

Beenhakker coached the Netherlands’ national team on two separate occasions, getting the Orange Dudes through to the sweet sixteen in World Cup 1990. After a three-month turn as head of Saudi Arabia’s squad in 1993-94, Beenhakker dropped off international club play radar, ultimately taking up the post of Trinidad & Tobago national team coach in May 2005. Apparently, the Soca Warriors’ success has given the old shark a taste for blood, causing him to reup with a Poland squad desperate for help.

On the club level, Beenhakker’s CV is stacked with four decades’ worth of work in all corners of the globe. He’s done time with AFC Ajax, Real Zaragoza, Real Madrid, Club América (the oddest-named team in Mexico) and Feyenoord. His Ajax, Madrid and Feyenoord stints resulted in national championships, the last in 1999.

The fifa.com bio states emphatically that Beenhakker “is from the old school of football management,” and Beenhakker has earned a reputation as a bit of a louder Phil Jackson, a coach with a flair for the sly trash-talking mental game. (Both even fancy themselves cigar connoisseurs.) Indeed, to cite but one example, Beenhakker was called the “master of mind games” by WorldCupBlog’s fantastic Stacy-Marie.

Most importantly for the press, Beenhakker is well-known for his pithy comments, a nice respite from the camera-shy cliché-ready Janas. For the sake of philosophy, the coach’s best line has got to be “A hobby is only fun if you do not have time to do it,” but his line regarding Becks made it love at first sight for this writer.

“It seems that a lot of people forget that after the World Cup,” the Dutchman has said, “there is still a lot of football.” A lot of football there may be, but Polska backers’ curiosity must be focused on just one match, one month from now: The August 16th friendly against Denmark.

“Today, we begin a new chapter in Polish football,” loftily proclaimed Polish National Football Association (PZPN) president Michal Listkiewicz upon introducing Coach Beenhakker to the press. “I hope it will be written in gold.”

Well…how about starting with another Beenhakker line? When asked about the T&Ters chances of World Cup success, Beenhakker opined that “In football, nothing is impossible.”