Feyenoord Director Dennis te Kloese Talks Building for Success with Trainer Arne Slot

The best thing about Feyenoord? “That football really comes to number one.”

“The people who are having the nice dinners, they go to the stadium really quickly. They want to be in their seats on time. They want to see the football,” notes Dennis te Kloese, the club’s general manager. “I like that traditional football feeling.”

Feyenoord has been going fast since 48-year-old Te Kloese started his job there a year and a half ago. “What happened in Rotterdam in recent weeks is of course very special,” realizes Te Kloese, who saw his club win the national title for the sixteenth time.

But even without a championship and Champions League, according to the director, there would have been sufficient support to continue building Feyenoord together with trainer Arne Slot. “We just want to keep going.”

Slot’s stay was not confirmed in a conversation with his agent. Months earlier, Te Kloese and Slot expressed their intention to continue their successful collaboration in the coming years.

Te Kloese could go to Tottenham Hotspur, just like Slot. And Chelsea also spoke to the trainer. “It’s nice that people are wanted within the organization. That has to do with success.”

Another crucial phase is now dawning for Feyenoord. In which players may be sold for the top prize and worthy replacements must be attracted. Because the bar is a bit higher again, with the many millions in the offing that can be earned in the Champions League.

Since the departure of Frank Arnesen in 2022, Feyenoord has been working without a technical director. Te Kloese and Slot are jointly responsible for the purchase and sale policy and, given the title, they have done an excellent job.

With last year’s experience, Te Kloese is confident about the upcoming transfer period. “At that time there were also many players who left, leases that expired. Occasionally you could taste the feeling: this is not going very well.”

“But the turn of the Foreign Legion into an adjustment and transition year has resulted in a fantastic result,” continues Te Kloese. “We are now going to see how we can deal with this in a good and correct way.”

Isn’t he afraid that things are going too well with Feyenoord now? “It is often the case that if things are going very well here, things can turn quickly and the weather can become less. But it also went well in my first year. We try to stay close to ourselves.”

Because Feyenoord, unlike Ajax and PSV, already has certainty about the head coach, the team from Rotterdam already seem to have an advantage over their closest rivals.

“I have a good relationship with Arne, I think it comes from respect. I think he is open, someone who is easy to communicate with. Someone who also sometimes comes up with a good opinion outside the pure field matters, the technical matters. “

“We have a good feeling about the cooperation. How it is played, how the club is presented. He has a very big contribution to this,” says Te Kloese. “There comes a time when he flies out and goes to a bigger horizon.”

That moment has not yet arrived, certainly not for Te Kloese. “Far from.”