Erik ten Hag wanted to run the show at FC Twente, even as a young player

As the Dutch side prepare to face Manchester United and their most famous son, those who know him remember the local lad who knew it all

Lurking in the depths of YouTube is a video that delivers a deliciously awkward broadcasting moment. It features Erik ten Hag from his playing days, when he had just captained FC Twente to victory over PSV in the 2001 KNVB Cup final, the Dutch equivalent of the FA Cup. 
It may be 23 years ago, but already displaying evidence of significant hair loss, the footballer Ten Hag does not look much younger than he does these days as he paces the Old Trafford technical area. 
As club skipper, he was obliged in the immediate aftermath of victory to undertake the media duties on the pitch. Which, on this occasion, consists of engaging with a female reporter who insists on congratulating the victor by smothering him in kisses. When she attempts yet another smacker, he backs away, suggesting that maybe they should just get on with the interview.
When he does manage to speak, though, what he says is illuminating. Indeed, as Ten Hag’s Manchester United prepare to face his old club in the first match of this season’s Europa League, it speaks volumes of his approach to the game. Already, although he is still a player, it is possible to see the traits that have come to characterise his approach to management. 
For a start it is not himself he wants to talk about, it is his colleague, the goalkeeper Sander Boschker, who had just pulled off three saves in the penalty shoot out to deliver the win. The team owe everything to Sander, he tells his persistent interviewer, without him the cup would not have been won for only the second time in Twente’s history. This is all, he says, down to Sander.
But then that was Ten Hag. As a player, from the start of his career, he behaved like he was a coach. As he explained when he did an interview after winning the FA Cup with United last season, he always saw himself as the manager’s representative on the pitch, a conduit, there to ensure that tactical plans were communicated, that everyone knew their job. 
In truth, it was an approach that, in a Dutch footballing environment renowned for its self-regard, often found him in conflict with his playing colleagues. Especially in his younger days, when his insistent self-confidence riled many.
It was no surprise that he began – and ended – his playing career at Twente. He was born and brought up in Haaksbergen, a small town 10 miles outside the capital of the Twente region Enschede. Anyone who visits Enschede cannot fail to spot the Ten Hag name. It is writ large across the front of an office block in the middle of the city, not far from Twente’s De Grolsch Veste stadium.
This is not as a testament to the town’s most famous son. Rather, it is the home of his father’s sizeable real estate business, which he runs in the city, together with Ten Hag’s two brothers.
But the young Erik never had much inclination to join the family firm. From his earliest days, he wanted to be a footballer. Not particularly quick, not particularly athletic, what he was from a young age was smart. He understood tactics, he studied methodology, he took an almost scientific approach to the game as he played for a youth club in Haaksbergen called Bon Boys. 
These days they have named a lounge in the Bon clubhouse after him and an annual youth tournament is held in his name. But when he first started he was forever riling the coaches with his incessant questions. 
He would come up with ideas for sessions that he insisted would be more productive. And the really annoying thing for his adult instructors was – when they said, all right then let’s try it your way – invariably he was right: they were better.
He and his Bon team-mates would regularly make the short hop to Enschede to watch Twente home games, his friends enjoying the boisterous fan culture on the terraces, he studying formations and game plans.
When he was picked up by Twente as a teenager, and made his way up through the age-group sides to the first team, he continued to make it plain what he felt was required tactically.
“You could back then already see a coach in him, he was always captain,” his Twente team-mate Leon ten Voorde told Sky Sports. “When we watched football at a young age he always knew what should happen. He’s always kept that know-it-all attitude.”
Given he was not the quickest or most skilful, his constant verbal instructions about what everyone should be doing riled more senior team-mates. He only made 14 first team appearances before his noisy certainty was transferred to De Graafschap. He was brought back to his home club after a couple of years absence. But nothing had changed: he was not one to keep quiet out on the pitch, endlessly issuing instructions.
“That was not always popular with the players because he was not the best player,” said Ten Voorde. “When you are not the best player, it is hard for the better players to accept it. But he was thinking like a coach and the truth is that he always had the best tactical thoughts.”
After just a season back home, again he was sold, first to Waalwijk and then on to Utrecht. But by the time he returned to Twente in 1996, he had a seniority to match his mouth. Having moved back from his former position as a defensive midfielder to centre-back, he would bark out instructions constantly. 
His team-mates came to rely on him telling them what to do and where to stand. He became a hugely respected captain and leader. And, with team-mates including the magnificently named future Celtic and Hull City forward Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, he led the side to the cup victory that so excited the female reporter.
But Ten Hag’s direction was already clear. And the season after the cup win, he retired from playing, taking up a role on the Twente coaching staff, including under Steve McClaren. 
From there, his future was mapped out. And two-and-a-bit decades after his unconventional television moment, he is in charge of a Manchester United side anxious to restrict the forward momentum of the club that remains in his blood.
“I would have preferred to play against someone else,” Ten Hag admitted this week about facing Twente. “It is not nice to hurt something you love.”
Erik ten Hag has admitted Manchester United do not score enough goals and told his players they need to become penalty box killers.
United kick off their Europa League campaign at home to Ten Hag’s former club Twente on Wednesday night with a shortage of goals again a problem for the manager.
Although United put seven past League One Barnsley in the Carabao Cup last week, they have managed just five goals in as many Premier League matches this season and failed to score in the 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
United were the joint lowest scorers in the Premier League top 10 last season with 57 goals – one fewer than they managed the previous year – and ended the campaign with a negative goal difference.
Netherlands striker Joshua Zirkzee arrived in the summer but has so far only scored once while Rasmus Hojlund finally returned to action at Palace after missing the first five weeks with a hamstring injury.
Ten Hag said he was encouraged his side were creating chances but conceded that their finishing was an issue.
“Concerned? We create a lot of chances in the first games of the season and last week we scored seven against Barnsley so we are capable of scoring many goals,” the United manager said.
“But it’s a part of the game that we have to be better in, that we have to improve and we have to kill more in the box.
“There are different aspects on this and most important is that you create chances and that is what we are doing at this moment. We create a lot of good moments.
“We are very creative and have many opportunities to score goals and we have to keep this process going and then of course the finishing we have to work on.”
Marcus Rashford had scored three goals in two games before being dropped to the substitutes’ bench against Palace, leading Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp to suggest something “untoward” may have gone on behind the scenes to prompt that decision.
Ten Hag dismissed such claims as “crazy” at the weekend and on Tuesday reiterated his irritation at bogus claims being floated as he insisted the Palace game was an example of him managing players’ workloads given the hectic schedule.
“I didn’t understand the criticism on this,” he said. “People are entitled [to talk] if they want to but what they are not entitled to is to bring speculation. If I give an explanation then they have to trust my words, trust my explanation. That [Redknapp’s comments] was not right.”
Ten Hag believes winning the Europa League will be harder than finishing in the Premier League’s top four this season but says it offers an important alternative route back into the Champions League.
“There are more roads to achieve the targets you want and this is definitely also a road,” he said. “It’s the most difficult probably because in a tournament of 32 you have to be the best but it’s a target and it’s a road we want to go [down].
“That’s because in the end you have got the knockout stage but don’t look too far ahead, let’s do Twente first. As you know, we want to win all the competitions we are taking part in and this is one of them but you have to go game by game and let’s focus on the first game.”