Much praise for Van Nistelrooij: “He really taught me to look at my body posture.”
1 min readRuud van Nistelrooij is during the 2026 World Cup assistant national team coach for Oranje and, in particular, a striker coach. The former top striker from, among others, PSV and Manchester United receives a lot of praise for his role in the staff of national team coach Ronald Koeman from both the players’ group and the media.
Crysencio Summerville was, during the match against Japan (2-2), the scorer of the 2-1 and the winger therefore immediately ran away to Van Nistelrooij. "I had promised: if I score, coach, I’ll come thank you right away. Of course it’s great that it already happened at the start of the World Cup," Summerville said in conversation with OnsOranje.
Maarten Wijffels of the Algemeen Dagblad also has high praise for the role of the former head coach of PSV. ''For the average football fan, scoring is often a matter of intuition, bad luck or luck. For Van Nistelrooy, it is pure geometry. And in that, he likes to pull in the young crop – Brian Brobbey, Summerville and Donyell Malen'', as the journalist writes.
Ronald Koeman is also very pleased with the former striker as his right-hand man. ''I see him every day walking around with his laptop and sitting with the players. To show images, to talk about running drills and choices,'' the national coach said during a press conference before the match against Japan.
Besides Summerville and Koeman, strikers Donyell Malen, also a former PSV player, are just as impressed with Van the Man’s tips as Brian Brobbey is. ''I’m hearing tips now that I never heard before!'', said Brobbey, as quoted by De AD.
Malen is also full of praise for Van Nistelrooij. ''He really taught me to look at my body position. In the past I often ran straight at the ball when I wanted to shoot. Ruud made me stop and said: if you stand directly behind the ball, you block your own hip. You give the goalkeeper all the time to see where you're going, and you limit your own angle. We also talked about ball names. About how you set the ball up properly. You know that someone is watching who has literally experienced that situation hundreds of times themselves'', Malen said to the Algemeen Dagblad.
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"Ik hoor nu tips die ik nooit eerder hoorde!" ok that's a cold flex from Brobbey. If Malen is already changing his run-up angles, then Ruud is cooking 🔥👀
Koeman saying he walks around with a laptop every day and sits with the boys... that's pro level. Hopefully it gets Brobbey, Summerville and Malen really sharp for the next matches.
Tbh "pure meetkunde" is nice, but i want to see it translate on the pitch under pressure. Japan 2-2 was already chaotic, so i judge whether those loopacties and body angles actually create extra chances. Otherwise it stays training-ground knowledge.
I love hearing players talk about body positioning like that. tbh Van Nistelrooij sounds more like a teacher than a coach, explains it properly.
That quote from Koeman about him walking with a laptop every day is no joke. If players like Brobbey say they hear tips they never heard before, it means the sessions are actually different, not just motivational talk. 👀
That's exactly the kind of detail PSV's attackers need. The whole "blokkeer je eigen heup" thing is so simple but game-changing.
Love this. The fact Malen specifically mentions body positioning and the hip blocking his own angle is so PSV-coded, details matter. If Van Nistelrooij is drilling that with clips, youre gonna see cleaner first-time decisions up top. ❤️⚽