Phillip Cocu played at Pride Park on 10 August 2001 in a routine pre-season friendly victory over Derby with Barcelona when Patrick Kluivert scored twice. Fast‑forward almost two decades and it is a stadium Cocu now calls home after replacing Frank Lampard in the Derby dugout.
Cocu won seven league titles at PSV Eindhoven (four as captain and three in five years as a manager) but a burgeoning reputation as a coach was dented by a disastrous 98-day reign at Fenerbahçe last year. It is an anomaly that blots an illustrious CV but, as with his predecessor, his surname is synonymous with success.
PSV went six years without a league title until Cocu guided them to consecutive triumphs, having endured a testing first full campaign in charge in 2013-14 when they finished fourth, 12 points behind Ajax. Cocu was unbeaten in his first seven matches – winning the opening three – but PSV then went two months without a league win and crashed out of the Europa League group stage. By the time they lost 6-2 at home to Vitesse Arnhem before the winter break, for whom Davy Pröpper scored twice, they were 10th and fans were restless.
“Supporters were really angry; they were almost going on to the field,” says Pröpper, who later played under Cocu at PSV for two seasons before joining Brighton in 2017. “For us it was crazy to win 6-2 away at PSV. The first half of the season went totally wrong for them. They lost a lot of games and when a smaller team comes to your stadium and wins by that margin it is too much. Normally you have three big teams in Holland – Feyenoord, Ajax and PSV – and they need to be close to each other in the league. Twelve points is way too far.”
At the turn of that year things were put into perspective when a tumour, later revealed to be benign, was discovered on Cocu’s lower back. He was forced to relinquish first-team duties for three months after an operation. Ernest Faber took charge and Frank de Boer, a former teammate for club and country, was among those to visit in the hospital before Cocu returned in June. And PSV kicked on.
A young and inexperienced side that struggled to come to terms with the departures of Kevin Strootman and Dries Mertens had matured and the success that followed proved worth the wait. PSV stormed to the title with a club-record 88 points; 12 months later they were Dutch champions again and also made an imprint on the Champions League, reaching the last 16. But arguably Cocu’s best season was his last, when PSV pipped Ajax to the title in 2017-2018, edging out Erik ten Hag’s vibrant side.
“How he [Cocu] was as a player he takes into his style as a trainer,” says Pröpper. “He can see the game very quick and for him it was easy to find spaces and that is what he is trying to do with his teams.
“His personality is really calm. He doesn’t show a lot of stress to the outside. He can tell the guys how he wants to play and it is not very difficult for him.”
Cocu, who counts Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat among his mentors, did his coaching badges alongside Dennis Bergkamp and his first steps into management came with PSV’s Under-19s, initially assisting Faber before taking the head coach role.
Cocu promoted Memphis Depay to the PSV first team in 2012 and he also improved Georginio Wijnaldum, work that appealed to Mel Morris, the Derby owner, who has invested heavily in youth. Derby have their own raft of exciting youngsters for Cocu to develop: Jason Knight, Max Lowe, Max Bird, Louie Sibley and Jayden Bogle, a right-back who shone under Lampard.
“The advantage you have with players from your academy, who are already five, six years at your club, if they come [through], they take with them the values of the club,” Cocu says. “If you take players from different areas they can add value to the club but they have to adapt to how the club works, how it thinks, the goals. The young players from the academy, they have it already.”
In Turkey, Cocu walked into chaos. Fenerbahçe were in debt to the tune of €600m and things ended in turmoil, with a club that has spent its entire history in the top division in an unfathomably precarious position, a point above the relegation zone when the Dutchman was sacked last October. Cocu’s arrival was supposed to usher in a new era under a new president, but things never clicked. The manager’s style of play was deemed dull, the language barrier was problematic (Cocu worked through a translator) and supporters felt short-changed in his efforts to make a connection with them.
“Seasons fly by at unbelievable speed and now I have been over 11 years as a coach,” Cocu says. “I’m not the type of guy who plans a year, who maybe stops and takes a break for a year. But when something happens and after a few months you’re out, you can say you’ll step in at the first opportunity you get or take a break. In this case I took a break.
“Sometimes, it’s good to step out of the [football] world – it’s going for 24 hours [a day] – which is positive, because everybody has a great passion for the game. But just to get some focus out and get some rest was good. But you don’t want to step in just the first one who passes by. It has to be a fit; it has to match your philosophy about the game. We’re here and I’m excited to start.”
As the Dutch saying goes, Cocu will need to mix water with wine. His appointment could have implications far beyond Derby, with Dutch coaches not as in vogue as they once were. De Boer’s short stay at Crystal Palace and Jaap Stam’s second season at Reading blighted their status in England but Cocu can help restore it.
“I hope he does great at Derby,” says Pröpper. “His last trip out of Holland wasn’t very successful but he is a really good coach.”
