FC Twente & McClaren hold pole position in Dutch title race

Before we get started a quiz question: Who was the last English manager to win a domestic top division league title anywhere in the world, and where? Answer later.

As football supporters in England, we all have our own favourite moment of Steve McClaren awkwardness. The uneasy, overly pally references to ‘JT’ and ‘Lamps’ in press conferences. The impotent anger as walking out on media grillings fast became the norm. The sherioushly shtrange, cringeworthy Dutch accent. That umbrella.

But away from the intense pressures of England management, which anyone who has ever seen the swear-athon that is Graham Taylor: The Impossible Job will be at least somewhat aware of, it is hard to deny McClaren’s proven track record of performing well beyond the means available to him as a coach.

Study the history of Middlesbrough Football Club and McClaren sits comfortably at the top table of the club’s greatest ever managers. He is the only one to ever win major domestic silverware, the only one to reach a European cup final (the UEFA Cup final in 2005/2006) and he also led Boro to their highest league finish since 1975, 7th in 2004/2005.

A talented coach fresh out of the box in his first managerial role since leaving the assistant manager’s job at Manchester United, McClaren quickly acquired a reputation as a forward-thinking, tactically astute manager at Middlesbrough, on the back of which the Yorkshireman sailed into his ultimately unsuccessful England stint.

Now, in only his second spell as club boss, Steve McClaren is but 4 games away from making history again by guiding provincial Dutch outfit FC Twente to their first ever Eredivisie league championship.

Saturday’s 2-0 win at VVV Venlo moved Twente 7 points clear of the chasing pack in Holland with four games remaining thanks to goals by Blaise Nkufo and Bryan Ruiz. And though traditional Dutch giants Ajax and PSV Eindhoven each took advantage of their game in hand to reduce the lead to 4 and 5 point gaps respectively on Sunday, it is McLaren’s men who sit firmly in pole position.

What has impressed many about Steve McClaren’s FC Twente side both within Holland and externally is the manner in which the coach has stuck to what are inherently Dutch footballing principles. A 4-3-3 formation has been the lineup of choice almost exclusively during the former England manager’s spell in Enschede, to ringing praise from, amongst others, Dutch football god Johan Cruyff via his de Telegraaf column, and with 30 games played Twente have only lost 1 – a 3-0 defeat at Ajax in February.

Not only that but, a brief Ajax spell aside, the Enschede outfit have topped the table for longer than any other team in Holland this season. And all that after losing top players like Eljero Elia and Marko Arnautovic to bigger clubs last summer.

FC Twente’s football, though not scintillating (they average 1.9 league goals this campaign), is certainly pleasing on the eye. McClaren’s fluid 4-3-3 incorporates a number of players who provide the eye candy; technically gifted talents who gel together seamlessly. In midfield Kenneth Perez,  Theo Janssen and Wout Brama retain possession intelligently and supply the killer passes for dynamic forwards Bryan Ruiz, Blaise Nkufo and Miroslav Stoch, on loan from Chelsea.

Ruiz, 24, is a big player for both Twente and Costa Rica, sitting 2nd in the Eredivisie scoring charts on 23 goals behind Ajax’s Luis Suarez. Blaise Nkufo, Twente’s all-time leading goalscorer, has also weighed in with his share – 13 goals, ahead of the 34-year-old Swiss international’s impending summer move to MLS.

Defensively Twente are a sturdier outfit than most thanks to a back four that features Ronnie Stam, promising Brazilian centre back Douglas, Peter Wisgerhof and former Dutch U-21 left back Dwight Tiendalli. Only Ajax have conceded fewer goals.

One interesting quirk about Twente’s squad is their truly international flavour. The Tukkers possess players from 15 different countries in their first team squad – Bosnians, Costa Ricans, Brazilians, Serbians, Slovakians, Danes, Iraqis, South Africans, Ghanaians and even an Azerbaijani, Vagif Javadov, all help make up the vastly multinational collective that is FC Twente in 2009/2010. Despite this, McClaren has retained a Dutch flavour about the first team. The likes of Janssen, Brama, Wisgerhof, Stam, Tiendalli and veteran keeper Sander Boschker are all regulars.

The question now is, can FC Twente hold their nerve in the final four games and pick up a first Eredivisie title since the club’s formation in 1965?

Challenges remain. Twente face a repeat of last season’s Dutch Cup final against Heerenveen, outgoing champions AZ Alkmaar away, Feyenoord at home and a trip to NAC Breda on the last day of the season. And behind them Ajax are holding the pace, ready to pounce on any slip-ups.

McClaren himself has tried to play down Twente’s title hopes as often as possible. “Last season we ended second. To repeat that performance would be extremely good,” he stated back in November whilst ridiculing talk of a title challenge. The former Boro boss was critical of his side after the win over VVV Venlo, attributing it to defensive concentration alone, and argued his team needed vast improvements in the final 4 games if they are to win the league.

In the meantime, McClaren’s own philosophies have changed post-England disappointments.

“I was very ambitious, very focused on getting as high as I possibly could but now I don’t force things. I let things happen, let things flow so I suppose through experience I have chilled a little more,”

he told The Independent last year. This newfound relaxed approach to coaching appears to be working. FC Twente are benefiting greatly as a result.

NB: Oh and by the way, the answer is Ken McKenna in 2006/2007, at The New Saints in Wales.

(pic courtesy of screenpunk on Flickr)

Dutch Eredivisie, FC Twente, Holland, Steve McLaren