David de Gea of Manchester United takes a goal kick during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
It’s a crisp January afternoon in the Netherlands, and Frans Hoek is cruising down the highway in his BMW X6.
At 68 years of age, Hoek could afford to slow down, but instead, he’s keeping the pedal to the metal, figuratively and literally. Over the past few weeks, he’s gone from working in the technical staff of Eredivisie side Heerenveen during their winter break in Valencia to overseeing their return to official competition. After three days in Spain and three days in the Netherlands, Hoek headed to Chicago to lead up the United Soccer Coaches Convention, before flying to Los Angeles for other speaking commitments. He was back in his homeland on Sunday and watched his Heerenveen side lose 2-0 to Ajax – with whom Hoek achieved domestic and international success and transformed goalkeeper coaching from a nonentity to a must-have for every single football club.
He was in Belgium on Monday to give lectures at a UEFA goalkeeping course, and today, he’s back in the Netherlands, zooming along the A7 and driving from Heerenveen to his home of Edam-Volendam, where he lives with his wife. During his 80-minute commute, Hoek discussed a number of topics in an exclusive interview with RG (read first part of the interview here):
What was it like working alongside Johan Cruyff?
“After Cruyff hired me as a technical assistant at Ajax, we’d often play together during training sessions. He was amazing, he didn't even tie his shoes and he was still the fastest player there, and technically he was incredible. Right before Volendam faced Feyenoord, Cruyff approached me before the game and said, ‘I read your book and thought it was fantastic.’ Cruyff was basically like God, so I was amazed that he had read it and that he gave me a compliment. And then I played against him – being in goal, I always had the feeling that he could create magic and score, there was always that danger. Cruyff was from a different world, he was the best player I've played against.”
You’ve worked alongside some legendary goalkeepers, but who is the greatest goalkeeper you have coached?
“I was involved in the whole scouting process that brought Manuel Neuer to Bayern Munich. I could have stayed and coached him, but I wanted to remain loyal to Louis after his sacking and left alongside him. Everybody could tell Neuer was going to be one of the biggest talents ever. I worked with Edwin van der Sar at Ajax, Victor Valdés and Pepe Reina at Barcelona, they are all exceptional, but if you ask me to pick, I’d go with David De Gea. I was very impressed that he was capable of playing at such an incredibly high level for two years in a row. During my time at Manchester United (2014-16), he didn’t really have a dip, you didn’t see him fall. He didn’t make a lot of mistakes, but he also made a lot of important actions that gave us the win at the end. He was at an incredible level, three games a week.
I was also further along in my coaching journey than I was with Edwin… We were integrating goalkeepers more in training, and I could tell that David was dropping off a little bit in his form in the practices. When I saw that, we sat down together and discussed it, I didn’t wait until the games. We could eliminate the problems before it happened during a game, I could identify earlier if something wasn’t going well and tackle it.”
How do you think André Onana has done in terms of replacing De Gea in Manchester United's goal?
“I was there at the 2023 UEFA Champions League Final and I thought Onana had a perfect game, he was amazing for Inter. He is capable of playing at an incredibly high level and can reach an incredible level, but you have to do it three times a week, 50–60 times a year, which is very difficult. Consistency is the most important thing for a goal player, De Gea was incredibly consistent in my two years at United, and if I look at Onana, I can see he’s not consistent.”
How has the goalkeeper’s role changed over the past 30 years?
“If we look at guys like Peter Schmeichel and Oliver Kahn, and compare them with the goalplayers of today, there’s a huge difference. There's a completely different attitude, a completely different way of thinking and acting. Now, goalplayers need to have a different mindset to keep the ball out of the net. Before the back pass rule in 1992, Kahn and Schmeichel’s sole job was to keep the ball out of the net, which they were fantastic at. Then they started to struggle because they were not educated in that way. Their function has totally changed; it’s now someone who not only keeps the ball out of the net, but has to do something in attack as well.”
You recently worked as the Goalkeeper Project Advisor for the Japanese Football Association, what was that like?
“It’s completely different to what I did with the Polish, Dutch, and Saudi national teams, where I was just another staff member. Japan wants to be world champions by 2050, and they approached me in 2015 and said, ‘One of our concerns is we haven’t succeeded in producing goal players in the past 20 years, we want you to help us develop them.’ I went there and evaluated the whole situation. They had a very good group working on goalkeeping, a very good structure, but the only thing they had to change was the content. I came up with a plan to influence the top level and spread it to the lowest level possible, educating not only goalkeeping specialists but regular coaches as well.
What is it like to be considered the godfather of goalkeeper coaching?
“To be fair, it was nonexistent when I started at Ajax. I stepped into that profession with the background of the book that I wrote, my playing background, and my coaching license, but I had never worked with a goalkeeper coach. There was goalkeeping coaching, but it was mainly done by the head coach or assistant coach. I was basically the first. Stanley Menzo was a spectacular goalkeeper at Ajax who filled the Johan Cruyff way of playing and started to play even better. At that moment, it became ‘Wow, we need a goalkeeper coach who can make them better, this goalkeeper coach is something we need to implement.’ It started in 1985, and the rest is history. We went to Barcelona where it was non-existent, the next step was the Polish national team, it became more and more known, and I started to publish more books and videotapes, and it started to spread over the world. I’m very honored that people consider me the godfather, and I think I was the one who started it. I tried to give it hand and feet.”
Why did you decide to substitute Tim Krul for Jasper Cillessen right before the penalty shootout vs. Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup?
“As a nation, the Netherlands wasn’t that successful in penalty kicks, so we discussed with Louis van Gaal and Danny Blind ‘What are we going to do with the penalty kicks?’ I said ‘We need to wait for the guys who are selected for the World Cup, and I will start talking to them about their penalty statistics. I started talking with Cillessen, Krul and Michel Vlop, and their own conclusion was they were not so good with penalty kicks. I said, ‘We have to change it. How can we intimate and provoke the opposing penalty taker, and how can make our chances of making the save as big as possible?’ And the conclusion was to wait and react instead of gambling. Then the World Cup comes around, Cillessen faces a penalty against Spain and Australia and gambles both times. That was the trigger for us to say he didn’t really improve, whereas Vlop and Krul actually improved in the training sessions. It was a matter of ‘Who can provoke the opponent best?’ and it was clear that it was Krul.
Some people cannot provoke because it’s not in their blood, but Krul is from an area in the Netherlands where they are not afraid to do so, it’s natural. He also had an enormous reach and was always waiting and reacting. We discussed it with Louis and Danny and the conclusion was if we are to have a chance on penalties, we need to change. But if you tell this to Cillessen up front, he will not feel pleased. We didn’t tell anyone else except on the morning of the game, when I sat down with Krul and told him. I’m very happy that it worked out, but even if it didn’t, it was still the right decision at the moment.”
Lastly, you turn 69 in October. How much longer do you expect to continue your career?
“My age is 68, I don’t feel any younger or older. I feel the way I feel. My body surprised me a lot when I was on the pitch in Valencia. I had no physical problems with kicking or anything else, so that was a signal that I’m still able to do this, which is nice. Football is my passion, I love it, I want to grow, I want to improve and let others use parts of my experience to make themselves better. It always has been my hobby, and if you do something you love, you can never get tired of it. I could have been working full-time with a certain club or national team, but I still feel that I'm on a mission. I really want to spread the whole goalplaying vision and methodology because I think it can help coaches, clubs and national teams.
I feel like a fish in water. If the fish is no longer in water, he will not enjoy it. As long as you give me football, as long as you give me water, I will love it. This gives me energy, and the only aim I have is to help other people. I get the fuel out of my passion, and if I don't have the passion anymore, or it feels like work, I quit immediately, because it’s not fair to the people I work with. If I don’t feel this passion, I’m out. But, I still feel it.”
Zach Lowy is a freelance football journalist who has written for leading outlets like FotMob, BetUS, Apuestas Deportivas, and who has appeared as a radio and television guest for BBC, SiriusXMFC, and various other platforms. After pursuing a global sports journalism degree at George Washington University, Zach has been able to tap into his multilingual background and interview major footballing figures in Spanish and Portuguese as well as operate the weekly podcast 'Zach Lowy's European Football Show' on BET Central.
