Plug looks at All Blacks and Ajax: ‘If something like this happens to us, we have to intervene now’

The cycling season may be over, but the big teams are certainly not standing still. Richard Plugge and Jumbo-Visma now have a little more time to keep an eye on other sports, which translates into the appointment of well-known swimming coach Jacco Verhaeren this week.

Verhaeren, who is also the national coach of the French swimming team, will help think through the various processes behind the scenes. “After our outstanding season, it is important for us to continue to improve and seek new insights,” Merijn Zeeman said in a press release. ‘Together with Mathieu Heijboer, I came to the conclusion that Jacco could provide us with these new ideas and other insights from another game. We are starting with a modest collaboration, which we hope will lead to more in the future.

In the captain’s jersey The message was taken to CEO Richard Plugge, who could only accept comparisons to a football coach like Pep Guardiola who dared to work with his team after successful years. ‘Yes, I think so. “Not much with Primos Roglic’s departure, but every year we look at how to improve our organization,” said the team boss after the Tour de France course presentation in Paris.

“For example, we went to the All Blacks last year,” points out Plug legacyThe culture of the New Zealand rugby team. ‘That’s a separate thing, but with Jacko we now have one of the best performance coaches in the Netherlands. He can hold up a mirror to us and say: Why are you doing this sister, why are you doing this? We can learn a lot from this so that we can take the next step in our development.’

Pluck will be at the Stade de France in Paris this Saturday evening when New Zealand play in the Rugby World Cup final against South Africa. At the start of the tournament, the Dutchman had already wished his New Zealand sporting counterparts the best of the tournament, which started poorly for the All Blacks with a loss to home country France.

Plug and Jumbo-Wisma learn from All Plugs, but now also learn from Ajax

The Jumbo-Wisma team boss is certainly keeping an eye on New Zealand’s rugby players, but is keenly watching what’s happening closer to home at Ajax Football Club. There they lived on a pink cloud for years with countless successes, but now they suddenly see the other side of the coin. Knowing what Jumbo-Wisma has achieved in the past year, how does Plugge see this?

“The question is, will that happen to us,” he points out, looking at the (administrative) chaos on and off the field at Ajax. ‘What we can learn from this is that if something like this happens to us, we should try to intervene now. But what exactly happened in Ajax? There is a lot in the newspapers, but is it true?’, he wonders aloud. ‘You have to figure it out first, but we’ve been looking at other sports this way for a long time.’

Tom van der Salm (Twitter: @TomvanderSalm) | Email: [email protected])