The God-Complex during recruitment and still get it wrong so many times.

I dont think there is any other process in football where showing "hope" and "confidence" in the new PERFECT candidate, turns into "disappointment" and "failure" and get away with it and do the same all over again.

I always wonder, who recruits the recruiter?

The amount of clubs that before the season clearly state:" We found the perfect coach who fits with the club and can take us to a higher level". Weeks, months later that same club/management turn on their opinion and kick the coach out. Seriously.....how is that possible? You need to have a God complex in order to say how perfect your choice was and ignore yourself a few weeks later and turning that opinion and blame it on the coach.

Frank de Boer got fired after 77 days this week. A coach who was 4 times champion of the Dutch league, got fired after a short time at Juventus and now again at Cristal Palace after 77 days. So is he a good coach or not? He shows 2 extremes in his career; A champions maker & someone that doesn't last long. So he was a good coach before and now not anymore?

How can you bring in a coach and kick him out after 77 days? What the hell did you do wrong in your recruiting process? Let me say that I do have doubts about Frank de Boer's choice going to this club. I mean a club that is struggling the last years to be a stable team in the premier League is not a secure horse to bet on. Especially in the current football world where the middle class is disappearing. You have an elite group of clubs..... and then the rest. It is simply very difficult to survive. So even Frank de Boer's choice to step in at CP, i question and i have my doubts if it was the right choice. This of course is subjective and my opinion. Having said that, you would think that both parties went in with a vision to build something together and back each other through good and bad times. I would love to know what was promised and spoken of before signing the contract. This is essential to figure out where the recruiting process went wrong.

I am convinced that during the process of recruitment many policy makers have no idea what they are doing. They have no idea what are realistic criteria for choosing the right coach. They build dream scenarios in their head, make promises they can't follow up on and make themselves believe that this season its going to be different. To many times we really believe we have a Ferrari while in reality we only have a mini cooper to compete with.

So what is the secret for recruiting the right Coach for the job?

It starts with admitting not being sure about what you are doing and you never will know if you make the right choice. The variables in football that can make things go wrong are huge and therefor unpredictable. In my opinion there are a few very important points to look at when you recruit in order to make it a bit more of a stable choice.

1. Your market postion is the one to start with. What is your realistic position in the league when you look at your history. What security our financial budget will give us? What qualities can we buy within this budget that can help us right now? Or do we buy/bring players that will need time to get us a step further. You can't change a mini cooper into a Ferrari!!!! You need to be realistic with what you have and where you stand. How are our facilities? Do we have to do with less or do we have everything we want? Choosing a coach will depend a lot on these things. If you chose someone who never worked under non perfect circumstances, his football knowledge doesn't matter. You see what i am getting at?

"You can't change a mini cooper into a Ferrari"

2. The history of a coach doesn't mean anything. A coach who won a lot or a coach who never won anything do not say anything about his quality. Why we don't hear anything from Di Matteo anymore who was coach at Chelsea and won the Champions league? Simply being there at the right time gave him this title. So maybe de Boer being at Cristal Palace was at the wrong time? My point here is that a coach his CV only shows his experience and does not show at all how good he is. Is a coach who became champion with top players better than a coach who saved a team from relegation with very limited players? CV's show experience and not qualities.

3. The best reference for choosing a coach is the players he worked with. Not the clubs management but the players that worked day in day out with a coach are very relevant to paint a picture about the coach's quality. They are the best possible reference to know if a coach is good or not. If the majority of players you ask about a coach is positive than i would take that 100 times more serious than any other possible references like club managements or other coaches that worked with the coach.

4. What is the minimum we expect from a coach? As much as i think clubs and managements have huge flaws in their approach of the football game and how it should be lead, i have the same way towards coaches that take it easy and don't want to go all the way. Many coaches just want to do their training and apply some tactics. At the same time many coaches make it more complicated than it is. They over analyze, are too theoretical and have books full of rules and strategies that kill the freedom of the game. My point here is that when choosing a coach you need to know what do you expect from a coach and what does the coach expects from the club? What is the minimum we want to see from a coach and vise versa?

Questions to ask could be:

• Do we need a teacher/builder (process attention) or a result/no nonsense type (task attention)?
• Football vision/style coach fits with the current market position?
• Really investigate and know what are the coach his strengths and weaknesses? What did he achieve under which circumstances ?
• How is our power structure/hierarchy? Coach rules alone on all decisions or we do it more democratic and which one fits best with the coach his character? Not every coach wants to work democratic !!!

This topic has so much more to talk about and is more complex than one should think. I just wanted to highlight the main idea and i am amazed how these recruitment errors every year again show up in the football world. There are even teams like in Asia football where clubs have 3 to 4 coaches in one season.

I want to finish with Cristal Palace's choice on choosing Frank de Boer and why i think it went wrong. To me there are two key elements that don't match and are crucial in order to succeed. As much as it is guessing and i can't prove it is right as much it seems a simple and clear explanation to me. The first thing i look at is the style and character of Frank de Boer's way of playing. Each coach has a preference and comfort zone. They can adapt but not many coaches can change their style. De Boer likes to play dominating football. He doesn't like to hang back and wait and just win ugly. Don't get me wrong.....hes a winner and wants to win at all costs. It is just the way it is done. He is a builder, wants to play attacking football in a dominating way and find tactical solutions before just being mean, nasty and who cares how we win. I think you get the picture here about what i mean!!!!

The second factor is that Cristal Palace is a club struggling to stay in the premier league. Last season they had to survive to stay in the league. So knowing this, what is this seasons realistic goal? In my opinion simply trying to reach 1 or 2 positions higher than last season. Anything higher or more is welcome. You can't dominate or play attacking football with a team that last season struggles to survive and doesn't have the financial budget to bring in players that can change a style to a dominating one. This process of change takes at least 6-7 months to get a style in place. Look at Mourinho last season who even had financially the possibilities to chose his players and could not get higher than a 6th position in the league. How many draws at home? This season will be different and he got the time to adapt his style. I simply believe that over time De Boer would have got things in order and more succesful but that time will not be given. At the same time i think De Boer is a coach for a bigger team with his way of thinking. Cristal Palace is not a dominating club and most likely never will be. In my opinion you need a complete different coach to lead this club forward.