Erik ten Hag (C), Manager of Manchester United, Assistant Managers, Mitchell van der Gaag (L) and Steve McClaren (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
September 21, 2013. Belenenses were getting ready to host Marítimo at the Estádio do Restelo in the fifth matchday of the Liga Portugal campaign. Having begun the season with four straight defeats, Belenenses manager Mitchell van der Gaag was desperate to show his mettle and pick up his first victory in the Portuguese top-flight. At first, it seemed he was about to do just that, as João Pedro broke the deadlock within eight minutes. Then, after just a half-hour played in Lisbon, the unthinkable happened: Van der Gaag suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Unbeknownst to his Belenenses players, the Dutch manager had a previous history of heart problems, which had forced him to insert a pacemaker and an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) into his heart. He was transported to the hospital, evaluated by the cardiology team, and immediately discharged to recuperate at home. But had it not been for the rapid response of the medical team, who rushed to the dugout and used their defibrillators to deliver two shocks to his sternum, Van der Gaag’s life would have come to an abrupt end at 41 years of age.
It’s a moment that lives on in his right arm, where a cluster of tattoos embellish his bicep, and his chest, where a pacemaker and ICD work in tandem to detect and stop irregular heartbeats.
“When I had my health scare, I put some tattoos on my arm to remind me of the things that are really important,” stated Van der Gaag in an exclusive RG interview. “It made me reflect on life…football is important, but your life is even more important. My tattoos are a reminder of what happened and how much of an impact it had on me. Nowadays, more players like Christian Eriksen and Daley Blind are playing with pacemakers, but back then, it was more of a secret. It’s more out in the open today, and I’m a lot more knowledgeable about what the issues are. Life goes on, and the most important thing is to continue looking forward to the future.”
Following in His Father’s Footsteps
Born in Zutphen, a small town located near the German border, Mitchell is the son of Wim van der Gaag, who was one of the first professional footballers in the Netherlands. He graduated from the PSV Eindhoven youth ranks and scored 6 goals in 50 appearances during his eight years at PSV, which included loan spells at Eredivisie outfits NEC Nijmegen and Sparta Rotterdam, until joining Scottish side Motherwell in January 1995. The center back scored a career-best seven goals in 28 games in his second full season to help the Steelmen avoid relegation, before returning to his homeland and joining Utrecht, where he played from 1997 to 2001. Van der Gaag proved essential in defense as Marítimo consolidated their presence as a regular participant in the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). He departed in 2006 and spent a year at Saudi side Al-Nassr before hanging up his boots at 35 years of age.
“I started off as a young talent and then found out I wasn’t good enough for the top level, I wasn’t a regular for PSV and played for teams who aimed to finish between 5th and 9th in the Eredivisie and qualify for Europe. Looking back, the only negative was the injuries, especially at the start of my career. I didn’t have any setbacks in my final seven years, but early on, I underwent nine operations on my right knee alone.”
“In my opinion, if you play abroad, you always have to be better than the players from that country, you have to bring something extra.
I played for five years at Marítimo in a league where players don’t stay very long on one team. I wasn’t the quickest, so I had to be a good reader of the game and have a solid positional understanding, and I was also good at heading the ball. I showed overseas that I had some quality and was always a positive player for the team.”
After collecting his coaching badges in the Netherlands, Van der Gaag took charge of Marítimo’s B team before eventually replacing Carlos Carvalhal as their first-team manager. Working alongside many of his former teammates on the island of Madeira, Van der Gaag guided Marítimo to fifth place and UEFA Europa League qualification before being ousted in September 2010 after taking just one point from the first four league matches. Following nearly two years out of a job, Van der Gaag took charge of Belenenses, who, alongside Boavista in 2000/01, are the only team to win the Primeira Liga title outside of Portugal’s Big Three (Porto, Benfica, and Sporting).
Guiding Belenenses to Glory
66 years after their historic championship, Belenenses were entering their third consecutive season in the second tier when Van der Gaag took the reins. They commenced the 2012/13 season with three straight league wins before enduring a 6-0 hammer blow at Benfica B. However, they quickly dusted themselves off and steamrolled the competition by finishing atop the Liga de Honra with 94 points – 21 more than second-placed Arouca – and securing promotion with 10 matches remaining.
“It was a good sensation to win promotion, and it confirmed the good work we did at Marítimo. What makes it even more special is that we started our preparation in January 2012, going around all over Portugal every weekend and watching matches on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday in the second and third division, and preparing for next season. Even though Belenenses lost some key players and were lacking in experience, everything came together for us. We had a mentally strong group, that wanted to improve and gel as a team, and that achieved the title in the end. The second division is competitive, but in our minds, we had everything covered.”
Fluent in Dutch, English, Portuguese, German, French, and Spanish, Van der Gaag has struck a chord with his players and staff in multiple countries thanks to his ability to set the tone and clearly communicate his principles.
He had been made to wait a quarter-century for his first trophy as a player or manager, but Mitchell had finally achieved a tangible piece of silverware, something to finally justify all the decades of hard work and dedication. Little did he know it, but his life was about to be flipped upside down. Little did he know it, but he was about to become a trending topic in Portugal for all the wrong reasons.
Forced to take a temporary leave of absence, Mitchell found himself deprived of coaching opportunities as teams steered clear of the potential health risks, and it wasn’t until February 2015 that Cypriot club Ermis Aradippou gave him another shot at coaching. He was dismissed after a month after refusing to renew his contract for the following season, but it didn’t take long before he was back on his feet, coaching FC Eindhoven in the Dutch second tier before managing Eredivisie sides Excelsior and NAC Breda.
Right-Hand Man to Ten Hag
In 2019, he returned to the Eerste Divisie and managed Ajax’s reserves, where he helped mold future Premier League stars Jurriën Timber and Ryan Gravenberch. And when Christian Poulsen departed his auxiliary role at Ajax for a similar position with the Denmark national team in 2021, they had no doubts about who should be his replacement. For the first time ever, Van der Gaag was going to be working as an assistant coach.
He served on Erik ten Hag’s staff as Ajax successfully retained the Eredivisie championship, before deciding to depart Amsterdam and follow Ten Hag to Manchester United in 2022. His first match in English football would see United lose 2-1 at home to Brighton, whilst his second saw them concede four goals in the first 35 minutes and lose 4-0 to Brighton. However, United would bounce back and enjoy a promising season under Ten Hag, finishing third in the Premier League, losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup Final, and falling to eventual winners Sevilla in the UEFA Europa League quarterfinals. The crowning achievement came on February 26, 2023, when United beat Newcastle 2-0 in the EFL Cup Final to secure their first competitive trophy in six years.
“The Premier League is a different beast, it has the best players and coaches in the world, and it never stops.
It’s not like the Eredivisie where you can play at 60% of your capability and still win. Everyone is watching you and asking ‘What can you do?’ After you start winning, it becomes easier, but when it’s not going well, it’s important to understand how the players are mentally and how they are reacting to certain circumstances. You lose to Brighton and Brentford and everyone’s saying, ‘What’s going on? This is not Manchester United’s level.’ You have to adapt to the reality of the league, and the next game, the team stepped up and beat Liverpool 2-1, which was so important as it gave a boost to the entire club, its supporters and players, and from there, we started to build something.”
However, the 2023/24 season would bring stormy weather for United, who lost to Newcastle in the fourth round of the EFL Cup, placed bottom of their UEFA Champions League group, and finished eighth in the table – their lowest finish since 1989/90. Their only saving grace came in the FA Cup Final, where they beat Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley via goals from Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo. As a result, United avoided missing out on Europe and qualified for the Europa League, whilst Ten Hag delayed his eventual sacking until October. But as for Van der Gaag, he decided to depart Old Trafford in July 2024 following a coaching staff overhaul in order to pursue a head coaching role.
“It was a no-brainer to work at clubs as big as Ajax and Manchester United, but as an assistant, you can get a bit too comfortable. You don’t have the same stress as a manager who talks to the press and has to explain everything and deal with the criticism when they’re not performing, you just have to do whatever the manager asks of you. As a manager, you are the leader, you have to perform every single day. The players are always looking to the manager and wondering, ‘What is he going to do? What is he going to say? Are the things he is saying the same as what he said a month ago?”
“When I left United, I had time to put everything together and say, ‘This is how I want to play.’ It depends on the quality of your players, but I think every team is capable of pressing high up or counter-pressing. I want my teams to play on the front foot, to have possession, but quickly win it back after losing it. But as a coach, the most important thing is to look at your players, build around them, and tweak your principles in terms of how you want them to play.”
Hungry for the Next Opportunity
After spending the past 11 years bouncing around from Portugal to the Netherlands to Cyprus to England, Mitchell van der Gaag is finally getting the chance to enjoy some quality time with his family, who settled on the outskirts of Lisbon over a decade ago and have remained put despite their patriarch’s volatile living situation.
He’s utilizing his sabbatical to connect with his daughters Luna (18) and Quinty (28) and oversee the footballing careers of his sons Luca (23) and Jordan (26), who are playing in the Portuguese lower leagues for Leiria and Louletano. But he’s also used his break to study various football teams on TV and in person and rigorously prepare his tactical methodology for his next move, whatever that may be. And at 53 years of age, he’s ready to take the next step and plunge into the wild world of management again.
“Sometimes you choose a team, and then everything clicks and everyone gels, but sometimes you have to work for it. You can’t be too picky; you have to win and get the players behind you and from there, start building your project. It’s nice to have all those videos and presentations, but you need the results. You need people to support you, from the president to the sporting director. I’m open to anything, and I have the ambition and energy to start again.”
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.
