Former Van Persie player full of praise for Feyenoord boss | OneFootball

Pawel Bochniewicz is impressed by his former coach Robin van Persie and even compares his football philosophy to that of Pep Guardiola. The sc Heerenveen defender spoke highly of the coach and his transfer to Feyenoord in an interview with Polish website Meczyki.

The Polish defender has been sidelined since the end of November with a serious knee injury but was a thoughtful onlooker as Van Persie made the switch from Heerenveen to Feyenoord. In his interview, he looked back on his collaboration with the former striker, which did not always go smoothly.

“During one of the matches, I was on the bench. I went to the coach and told him directly that I did not agree with the decision and that I had to play. I asked him for footage to justify why I wasn’t playing. Since I had played in all the matches up until then and wasn’t playing now, there must have been a reason. But I didn’t get that, and I just played the next match. That made the discussion disappear.”

Regardless of past tribulations, the 29-year-old Pole has respect for Van Persie and his approach to the game. “He’s the Guardiola type. He wants to play like on the PlayStation, building from the back, with the keeper there, preferably without long balls. This style will be more successful at Feyenoord than at Heerenveen. In the match we lost 9-1 to AZ, most coaches say at 7-1 we should play more directly. Van Persie told us that we had to keep building from the back and stay high.

“This also shows the Dutch school: the result is important, but so is the philosophy, and despite defeats – you have to keep playing under pressure. With a score of 7-1, you have to be mentally very strong to play tiki-taka from the back. And the coach wanted that. He is still at the beginning of his career, but he has the potential to become a very good coach. However, he has to choose good clubs to make his idea work, because he wants to play a kind of Guardiola football.”

GBeNeFN | Max Bradfield