Ruud van Nistelrooy’s right-hand man Jelle ten Rouwelaar has been hailed as an innovator who is reinventing goalkeeper coaching.
Ten Rouwelaar was the new face spotted talking to the Leicester City manager in the dugout on Tuesday night. Van Nistelrooy said in his post-match press conference that he had arrived at the club alongside him, describing the 43-year-old as his “assistant/goalkeeping coach”.
City are not likely to confirm his appointment until van Nistelrooy’s team of staff is complete, with work ongoing in bolstering the backroom. For now, and potentially for the future as well, van Nistelrooy is also being aided by the trio that took City on an interim basis, including goalkeeping coach Danny Alcock.
That is also ten Rouwelaar’s domain and he’s regarded highly in the Netherlands for his approach and the success it has led to. This time last year, all three of the goalkeepers in the Dutch national squad – Andries Noppert, Nick Olij and Brighton’s Bart Verbruggen – had been under ten Rouwelaar’s guidance as youngsters.
It has seen his services sought by plenty of clubs. After more than 300 games as number one at NAC Breda, he became their goalkeeping coach, going on to work with Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht and Burnley before joining Manchester United in the summer.
In fact, United paid around €100k for ten Rouwelaar just a few weeks after he had moved to Ajax. After joining the coaching team alongside van Nistelrooy, Erik ten Hag said of the goalkeeping coach: “Jelle is experienced with English football and he has some great innovations in goalkeeping, a new approach and it’s very interesting.
“I’m convinced he will really help our game, as a team, but especially the keepers, as a squad, as a team, their position in the team and how they’re aligned with the rest of the team and playing as a collective.”
It’s high praise, and ten Hag is not the only person to think that way. Harm Zeinstra, a goalkeeper analyst in the Netherlands, told Sport Nieuws: “He offers a completely innovative way of goalkeeper training. He is the forerunner of a very important development, because I think that it is really necessary that we train goalkeepers in a different way.”
Ten Rouwelaar said that he used to coach goalkeepers in a traditional way, with a steady stream of crosses or shots from a fixed position, as fans will have seen in training videos from up and down the country. It was only when he spoke to Pedro Marques, then head of methodology at Man City and now director of football development at Liverpool, that he had a rethink.
“About 70 per cent of goalkeeper mistakes are not technical mistakes, but tactical ones,” ten Rouwelaar told Algemeen Dagblad. “At the top, not so many mistakes are made because a goalkeeper lets go of the ball, but because he chooses the wrong tactical position. That is the basic idea behind these exercises.”
Starting with a “blank piece of paper” and after consulting psychologist Margriet Sitskoorn, ten Rouwelaar dreamed up new coaching sessions for goalkeepers, designed to improve them tactically and develop their brains.
He said: “The big question was how can you improve goalkeepers tactically? Goalkeepers in the Netherlands have been trained technically and physically excellently for years.
“But if all the data shows that most mistakes are tactical in nature, it is quite strange that we mainly train goalkeepers technically – on things like catching, jumping and diving techniques. For juniors that is very logical, but for adult top goalkeepers it should be about tactical matters.
“I try to constantly put my goalkeepers in game situations in which they have to make new assessments. How do I choose a position? Come or go? How do I build up as a goalkeeper to create a man-plus situation in one pass? What is the ideal distance between me and the opponent?”
Ten Rouwelaar will now get to use City’s excellent facilities – which are on the same level as Real Madrid’s, van Nistelrooy said this week – to further his work. His role is not set in stone yet, and perhaps his innovative thinking could stretch to training sessions for outfield players.
But at the very least, his impact should be felt in the goalkeeping department. City already have an excellent number one in Mads Hermansen, their best player so far this season, and the signs suggest he may be about to get even better.
Are there are any specialist coaches van Nistelrooy should bring in? Click HERE to have your say.