René van der Gijp: “When I said that, Ronald Koeman got angry with me.”

René van der Gijp looked back with a smile on his time as Ronald Koeman’s teammate. In the programme De Krantjes on Today Inside, the former international spoke about the current head coach of Oranje, who, according to him, was always a driven professional, but who also knew how to enjoy life to the full.

Van der Gijp mainly keeps positive memories of Koeman from their time together as players. "He was an incredibly nice, cheerful guy", he says. "I also felt that he took his football career very seriously."

"He was an incredibly nice, cheerful guy", says Van der Gijp about Koeman. "I also thought that he took his football career very seriously." Still, according to the analyst, Koeman was not the prototype of the well-trained top athlete. "He was never the fittest of all. He always had a little bit of extra weight."

That, according to Van der Gijp, had everything to do with the pleasure-seeker who Koeman was alongside the pitch. "He loved a drink, he loved good food, and he still does."

Van der Gijp also says that Koeman was not always able to laugh as well at the jokes he made about him on television. "He got angry with me when I once said that he was standing on the training pitch at AZ with so many centimeters of opening."

According to Van der Gijp, however, there is one person who then quickly puts the national coach into perspective. "But it’s also his wife who then tells him: It’s René, but, just let it go and carry on."