THE NEXT few days will be as tough as any in the life of Trinidad and Tobago football team coach Leo "Don Leo" Beenhakker.
On October 8, the national squad will oppose Panama, in Panama City, followed by a clash at home to Mexico four days later (ironically the day his contract ends), as they seek to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.
In fact, if the results go TT’s way, the national team may only be assured of fourth place in the six-team CONCACAF World Cup Final Round qualifying group, and will still have to face either Uzbekistan or Bahrain in November (in a home-and-away series) to book their tickets to Germany.
Such a scenario will surely be a tough test of character for the players, but Beenhakker is surely as tough as they come.
Any reporter who dares to ask Beenhakker about his life-story will get the same sort of response.
"I (don’t want to) go back through my whole life now, I’m sorry," he affirmed. "I’m already 40 years in this business and it’s not the moment. You’ve got my CV."
Well, I had a copy of his curriculum vitae, and the first thing of note is that Beenhakker was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands on August 2 1942 and had a brief role as a defender for a relatively unknown club called Zwart-Wit’28.
He started his career on the touchlines in 1965 with SV Epe, followed by stints at fellow Dutch teams Go Ahead Eagles (1967-72 and 1975-76), SC Cambuur (1972-75), Feyenoord Rotterdam’s Under-20s (1976-78), Ajax Amsterdam’s Under-20s (1978-79) before he got his first major role at the Ajax’s senior team from 1979-81.
From there, he went to Spanish team Real Zaragoza (1981-84), Dutch outfit FC Volendam (1984-85), the Dutch senior team (1985), top Spanish club Real Madrid (1986-88), Ajax (1988-89), the Netherlands team again (for the 1990 World Cup), Ajax (1990-92), R/Madrid (1992), Grasshoppers of Switzerland (1992-93), Saudi Arabia (for the 1994 W/Cup), Mexican team Club America (1994-95), Istanbulspor of Turkey (1995-96), Guadalajara of Mexico (1996), Dutch clubs Vitesse Arnhem (1996-98), Feyenoord (1998-2000) and Ajax (2001-03); Club America of Mexico (2003) and De Graafshap at home from 2003-2005.
Asked about his most major accomplishment, Beenhakker replied, "there were several of course.
"I worked several years for Ajax Amsterdam, it was a great club in European football," he continued. "I (worked) for years at Real Madrid so you can understand that it was a big job. I was with the Dutch national team. There were a lot of highlights in my career."
With such a lengthy career as a coach, it is obvious that Beenhakker will have dealt with some of the best players in the world.
"I had so many good players, I worked in Holland with (Marco) Van Basten, (Frank) Rijkaard, (Ruud) Gullit and all those guys, in Spain with (Emile) Butragueno (and) Hugo Sanchez," he added. "I worked with a lot of good players in my career."
Van Basten, Rijkaard and Gullit were key members of Beenhakker’s Dutch teams in 1985 and 1990, with other top players Ronald Koeman, Aron Winter and Richard Witschge involved in the ’90 W/Cup in Italy.
With the exception of Koeman, the other five players, as well as Dennis Bergkamp and the De Boer twins Frank and Ronald played under Beenhakker during his second Ajax stint, while Johan Cruyff, rated as arguably the best of all Dutch players, was a member of the Ajax’s teams who won the Dutch League titles in 1979 and 1980 (Ajax also won the UEFA Cup in 1992).
Butragueno and Sanchez (dubbed ‘the Mexican somersault’ after his goal-scoring celebrations) led Madrid’s quests to the La Liga (Spanish League) crowns in 1987 and 1988 while, at Feyenoord (who claimed the Dutch title in 1999, an achievement which Beenhakker remembers dearly), he dealt with the likes of Poland’s Jerzy Dudek, Argentina’s Julio Cruz, Australian Brett Emerson and Denmark’s Jon Dahl Tomasson.
Van Basten, Rijkaard, Gullit, Koeman, Cruyff and Sanchez are among the large number of ex-footballers, who have been under Beenhakker, to take up the mantle of coaching.
"I think it’s very good for football," Beenhakker commented. "They’re all doing a great job as coaches at the moment, all over the world, Rijkaard at Barcelona, Van Basten with the Dutch national team."
He further noted, "I think it’s very important that they use their experience and their talent to bring it over to the actual players at the moment."
Beenhakker was hired by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) to replace Bertille St Clair on April 1, after the TT team earned one point from their first three CONCACAF Final Round World Cup qualifiers.
Former national captains Russell Latapy and David Nakhid were initially listed as his assistants, but Latapy recently returned to the fold as a player while Nakhid currently serves as the team’s scout.
The 58-year-old Theo De Jong, a midfielder in the Dutch team that lost 2-1 to West Germany in the final of the 1974 World Cup, and 53-year-old Whim Rijsbergen, a defender in the Netherlands ’74 and ’78 World Cup squads, were summoned by Beenhakker to serve as his deputies.
Beenhakker’s results with the team have been inconsistent, wins at home to Panama and Guatemala counter-balanced by defeats away to Mexico, the United States and Costa Rica in World Cup qualifiers, while the TT squad were eliminated from the first round in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the USA.
And the coach has irked a number of critics with his persistence with star striker Stern John and goalkeeper Kelvin Jack over the likes of Cornell Glen and Clayton Ince, as well as his player combinations during the Gold Cup and his insistence on flooding the team with overseas-based professionals.
To his credit however, he has a more settled team, unlike his predecessor, who seemed ill at ease with those under his watch, and Beenhakker has shown faith with John, Jack, Avery John, Dennis Lawrence, Chris Birchall, Silvio Spann, Aurtis Whitley and Collin Samuel.
The straight-talking Beenhakker has also felt at home in Trinidad and has slowly adapted to the way of life here. "I have no problems," he commented. "The main part of course is the professional part and knowing that we do our job here, we’ll like to stay here.
We have a good ambience and, in that way, there’s no problem at all."
A demanding coach, he will never be an advocate for the banning of smoking in public places, as he constantly reaches for his cigarettes when the going gets tough on the field.
But he insists that he indeed has a life, and it’s not as one-dimensional at it seems to the naked eye.
"I have a lot of interests," he noted, "the main part is my job of course and this is a job we have to do every day.
"Apart from that, I like a lot of other things, looking around at other countries I’ve worked with, reading, playing golf, I have a lot of interests in life," Beenhakker ended.