Nan Goldin is an American photographer famous for confronting social taboos. When she visited Rotterdam, she liked it “much better” than Amsterdam, which she thought was too cute and looked like a postcard. “Rotterdam is more real,” she said. “It’s got stomach.”
In the south east of the city, outside the Feyenoord Stadium, known more commonly as De Kuip, there was so much stomach in discussions about Arne Slot, the flesh disguised parts of the lower body.
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Slot will leave the club for Liverpool this summer having secured the KNVB Cup (Dutch FA Cup) last month. Across three seasons in Rotterdam, he has also guided Feyenoord to the Europa Conference League final and, more importantly, won the Eredivisie title this time last year for only the second time since 1999.
It depends on who you speak to because, among the club’s febrile, largely working-class fanbase, there was a range of opinions about Slot, what he has achieved with Feyenoord and what he may or may not do at Liverpool as they queued in the afternoon sunshine, waiting for the stadium’s gates to open two hours before kick-off against PEC Zwolle.
There tended to be an agreement that he would get a beery send-off when Feyenoord face Excelsior here in a couple of weeks, but it is unlikely to be the sort of religious experience that Anfield will witness when Jurgen Klopp exits Liverpool following eight and a half years.
Inside Klopp’s departure from Liverpool…
- Why he decided he had to leave
- Who could be the winners and losers under Arne Slot?
- James Pearce: Replacing Klopp is no longer the impossible job
- Dirk Kuyt: Why Slot could be perfect for Anfield
- Profile: Feyenoord’s champion who became Liverpool’s main man
Something linked Slot’s cynics — they all looked a bit like him, men of middle age with no hair, whose lives appear to be devoted to the welfare of Feyenoord and nothing else.
“Slot has been here less time of course, just three seasons, but I am not happy with the way this was handled,” says Paul, a season ticket holder at Feyenoord of 32 seasons and a warehouse worker in Rotterdam’s port, the biggest in Europe.
He talks about Slot’s arrival at Feyenoord in 2021, having been booted out of AZ Alkmaar when they were unbeaten in the league for supposedly being distracted after holding talks with… Feyenoord.
Surely he can’t be that surprised that talks were happening with Liverpool before a financial package was agreed with the club he supports?
Had Feyenoord not won the KNVB Cup on April 21 and it emerged that Slot was plotting a move away before that date, he thinks a lot of Feyenoord fans would be feeling as he does right now, “quite a bit let down” — but as it turned out, Feyenoord beat NEC Nijmegen 1-0 and the following morning, the odds on Slot moving to Liverpool were slashed.
Some of Paul’s mates chirp in. “He won the league with Feyenoord and he didn’t in Alkmaar, so he will be remembered with a lot more positivity here,” reflects Sam, who works at the same warehouse as Paul. “This Feyenoord team has played better football than all of the teams from recent eras.”
The pair acknowledge that Slot made a “lot of improvements” at Feyenoord, a club that is helpless whenever an offer comes from abroad, particularly from the Premier League or the Bundesliga, for one of its players or, in this case, its head coach.
Many Feyenoord supporters seem to be philosophical about Slot’s departure. They accept the flow of traffic and that means they don’t get hung up about the manner of any departure.
“That’s just the way it is,” says Dennis, as he stands beside his father, Gerard, before admitting that his second favourite club behind Feyenoord is, in fact, Liverpool.
Dennis, now in his fifties, started following Liverpool because he saw shared values, “defined by hard-working people”.
Slot has had the stomach for Rotterdam, but does he have the stomach for Liverpool, where the interest in him will be far greater, in a league where few Dutch coaches have done particularly well?
“He will make it at Liverpool,” Dennis declares confidently. “He is a people manager, who can give everyone a good mood. I am conflicted because I’d like him to be at both clubs.”
Reporters who have been travelling backwards and forwards to Rotterdam from Britain since Slot emerged as Liverpool’s leading candidate a fortnight ago suggest that, while his football is closer to Pep Guardiola’s style, his personality is similar to Klopp — but the Dutchman chooses his words more carefully.
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You can see the Guardiola side, certainly in how Feyenoord treated possession against Zwolle like it was the ark of the covenant.
In truth, they ambled into a 2-0 half-time lead having done barely anything worth writing about but scoring.
Yet with that lead, Slot became more adventurous and a 4-3-3 became more of a 3-2-4-1, similar to the system Guardiola used at Manchester City in the 2022-23 treble season.
Those who speak enthusiastically about Slot’s vision say he melds styles and, in the second half, right-back Lutsharel Geertruida acted as a cross between John Stones and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Though there was discipline in Geertruida’s play, it seemed he had a free role at times. His movement was the sort opponents spend endless hours unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to stop.
Then again, this was Zwolle, a lower mid-table team with nothing to play for — the club at which Slot started and finished his playing career.
Later, as the game wound down and Feyenoord’s opponents started wilting, the departing coach was being serenaded by De Kuip with “Stand up for Arne Slot” as 4-0 became 5-0 and Slot’s substitute Santiago Gimenez scored his second.
The Mexican’s first came from a penalty after a VAR decision relating to a foul when he wasn’t even on the pitch. Gimenez admitted he did not know what had caused the intervention (a foul on Calvin Stengs). Perhaps Slot has that lucky touch as well.
Gimenez looked around the press room and listened to the accents of the journalists asking the questions afterwards. “Everyone is from England…” he joked, before being asked about the reaction of the crowd at the end of the game when Slot and the staff that will depart with him stood before them and received their adulation, blowing kisses.
The striker became the first person to publicly acknowledge the certainty of the trajectory of Slot’s career. “They (the fans) know what is happening. He deserves all of the support he is getting.”
Strictly speaking, Gimenez was signed from Cruz Azul by Feyenoord’s recruitment team in the summer of 2022, but Slot is the one who has nurtured him into a striker who scores more than 20 goals a season — previously, the best he had registered was eight in the 2021-22 campaign.
“When I came, it was difficult for me, it was a big step but he helped me a lot,” Gimenez said. “He gave me confidence, he pushed me to be better… he is the complete coach.”
What will Slot bring to Liverpool?
“Intensity in pressing and lots of offensive plays. Arne loves to attack and that attack makes you strong in defence.”
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After Slot strode in, he spoke for nearly 20 minutes, which, by Premier League standards, is an incredibly generous amount of time.
He admitted to seeing some of the game at Anfield until Mohamed Salah gave Liverpool the lead against Tottenham Hotspur, in what transpired to be a 4-2 victory. Slot plans to watch that game back, and lots more, once he is confirmed as the club’s new head coach.
Encouragingly for Liverpool, Slot wanted to press upon the importance of his medical department and the work they have done over the past three years keeping Feyenoord’s players fit. If there has been one major frustration at Anfield under Klopp, it has been in this area.
It felt like the end of an era at Feyenoord. “Sometimes in life, opportunities come along and you have to listen,” Slot said. “I have made that choice for myself. In the next days or weeks, you will see the announcement.”
(Top photo: Geert van Erven/Soccrates/Getty Images)
