PSV director Marcel Brands: ‘Investing 50 million euros is no guarantee of the title’

Marcel Brands prefers to watch PSV matches standing up. Not out of solidarity with fans in the stands, or because he has no sitting meat. His preference has a practical reason: if you stand, Brands discovered over the years, people are less likely to talk to you. An important insight if, like him, you want to see every second of the game concentrated.

But standing, that is no longer possible. In his previous positions, when he was in charge of technical policy, he was not paid much attention to. Could he retreat quietly after a defeat to deal with his disappointment. Brands is now general manager, the club’s flagship. Last Sunday against Ajax (3-0), Eindhoven mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem sat next to him in the grandstand. “When he took office, I asked him: please don’t talk to me all the time,” says Brands with an apologetic smile. “That’s good, he said, because that’s how he prefers to watch matches.”

It shows the passion of the man who, if you count his career as a player, has been walking around in professional football for half a lifetime (43 years). In a world where a disappointing season can shatter a reputation, his managerial career has been remarkably even. Always one step higher. From RKC to AZ to PSV and, in 2018, to Everton in the Premier League. “The football Valhalla”, Brands still thinks.

Brands (61) has a nose for talent, is financially sound, negotiates sharply and is known to be extremely competitive. Yet things did not go as they should at Everton – officially owned by the British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri, although oligarch Alisher Usmanov is according to The Guardian closely involved in the background.

Despite a good relationship with club president Bill Kenwright – ‘Indy’ he called Brands, the chairman thought he resembled Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford – he resigned as technical director in December 2021 disillusioned. “Different views” on the policy to be pursued was the official statement. Things went badly for the club and the English media judged harshly. After a 4-1 defeat against city rivals Liverpool, Brands even got into a fight with an angry fan.

Brands was 59 when he left. He was devastated. Perhaps the most difficult moment of his career coincided with a worrying situation at home. His son turned out to be seriously ill (he has since recovered). “I had to do nothing for a while,” he says, in his office in the Philips Stadium. “I’ve never had more than ten days’ holiday since I quit football at 35 and joined management. So I took my son to Dubai and we went to Disney with the kids and grandkids.”

But stop? “I’ve never seriously thought about it.”

After that rest period, Brands said yes when he was able to succeed Toon Gerbrands as general manager of PSV last year. Just like in 2010 – when he started working as a technical manager in Eindhoven – he has to make the club financially and sportingly successful again. The first has more or less succeeded, the sporty resurrection has yet to take shape. A first success beckons this Sunday, when PSV plays the cup final against Ajax.

How does working in the Netherlands differ from working in England?

“It is completely different. English culture makes fans and media think that the manager (the coach) is about transfers. And the owner determines a lot. He wanted Rafael Benítez as a coach in 2021, which was not my choice. And Benítez wanted Salomon Rondon, I couldn’t approve that. He was already in his thirties, was not on the scouting list, he was not going to bring Everton anything. Too high salary too. I said I thought it was a bad idea. Think of it as a present for the trainer, said the owner. Then you are powerless.”

But you will be charged for the transfers.

“The problem is: there is no patience. Twelve coaches have already been fired in the Premier League this season. In my second year, Marco Silva was fired, I tried to prevent that, but it was beyond my control. While I knew: he is a good trainer, he is now proving that at Fulham. The owner also determined that there should be an experienced successor, while the chairman and I wanted Mikel Arteta. In the end it was Carlo Ancelotti.”

What happens to employees when you are at the mercy of an owner?

“People are trying to survive. The nasty thing is: many good club people often go along in those rounds of redundancies. Physiotherapists, analysts, you name it. I then had to send people away who were good, hard-working. That’s difficult. And it doesn’t work either. In the first years I still had the idea that I could change something at Everton. But that did not work out.”

Brands cannot go into too much detail “out of respect” for his previous employer. But he tells, without being able to name names, of meetings on expensive yachts and phone calls where the coach was told who to line up. “You can’t imagine that world if you haven’t seen it yourself.”

A special adventure, but you couldn’t actually do your job. Why do you look back with pleasure?

“You also get a lot of appreciation. Because I paid attention to the youth, to the structure, that you look beyond transfers and really try to build something. When I first went to see Young Everton, I got an app from that trainer: how fantastic that you are here, I’ve never experienced that. I also never saw a technical director from other clubs in those kinds of duels. And we lived beautifully, football is great.”

Isn’t it cynical that owners treat it like it’s their toy?

“I think they want the best for the club. But I firmly believe that with good policy you can achieve something. They think: I’m pumping money into it, so it should quickly yield success, right? But in the Premier League everyone has a lot of money. The funny thing is: we get more from commercial activities with PSV than Everton, but they get between 130 and 140 million in TV money (compared to almost 9 million at PSV). That makes it all a bit easier.”