By Steve Northover

A lot has been made about Arne Slot’s apparent meteoric rise from the relative anonymity of the Dutch Second Division to becoming only the second manager to guide Liverpool to the Premier League title. However, like all good managers, he came to Liverpool as part of a team. Let’s dive into detail about that team’s lesser known but important members.

Sipke Hulshoff

We start with the coach that has been with Slot at every step of his way throughout his career. Sipke Hulshoof never played professional football.  Instead, he spent his entire career in the bottom reaches of the Dutch league system learning the game, before moving into coaching, predominantly youth, until gaining his first head coach role at RB Ghana, a part of the Red Bull brand, based in south eastern city Sogakope, in 2011.

However, the club folded in 2013. After a brief period as temporary manager of Qatari side Al Arabi SC in 2015, he finally became Arne Slot’s assistant at Cambuur. His time with Slot has been marked with a continuing level of success for whatever club they are a part of. The partnership’s most notable victory came against the much lauded, albeit underperforming Ajax in the last 16 of the Dutch Club during the 2016/17 season.

Credits : @FCVolendam

By the end of that season, Slot left SC Cambuur to become the assistant himself to AZ Alkmaar’s head coast, John Van Den Brom leaving Hulshoff to join SC Volendam, back in the Eerste Divisie, as an assistant to Wim Jonk. As Jonk’s right hand man, he played a key part in a successful season that ended in promotion to the Eredivisie, the first time in 13 years. Furthermore, Jonk and Hulshoff developed a brand of attacking football and along  with the promotion of youth players, based on the strategies implemented by Johan Cruyff at Ajax made Volendam a mainstay in the Dutch top division, at least for a while. 

Two years later, Arne Slot had left AZ Alkmaar and joined Feyenoord. A controversial move in itself due to Slot signing a pre contract with the Rotterdam club before the end of the 20-21 season with Sipke Hulshoff joining him a season later, just as Volendam were promoted to the Eredivisie. In their first season, Feynoord reached the last 16 in the Europa Conference League for the first time, going on to eventually lose in the final against Roma. As with Volendam, Feyenoord played an exciting attacking brand of football and developed a team of exciting youth prospects, avoiding the financial pitfalls that had affected their contemporaries.

Credits : @ThisIsAnfield

This led to the 2022/23 season, where the Slot and Hulshoff partnership peaked, winning the Eredivisie for the first time in six years, and only the third time in thirty years. This ultimately led to Liverpool and we all know how that unfolded. Throughout his career, Sipke Hulshoff developed a reputation of developing an attractive style of attacking football, all the while prompting youth. On a ‘one-to-one’ basis, the players have praised his communication abilities with Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk stating:

“He is very clear and tactically strong. I like the moments when he leads a training session. I think I also speak for the whole of the group."

Giovanni Van Bronckhorst - Assistant Manager

Its say to say eyebrows were raised when Giovanni Van Bronckhorst was announced as Arne Slot’s second assistant manager in the summer of 2025. The former midfielder, who had played for the likes of Arsenal, Barcelona and Feyenoord, was seemingly at the start of a burgeoning managerial career, having stints already at Rangers FC, Feyenoord Rotterdam and Besiktas JK. 

So why, seemingly, take a step back?  Well, frankly, it wasn’t going well.

After starting his coaching career shortly after retiring in 2010, Van Bronckhorst became a youth team coach at his boyhood club Feyenoord, where he had also ended his career. He quickly made a name for himself, and was promoted to an assistant to then manager, Ronald Koeman.  By 2015, Koeman left his role to become manager of Southampton in the Premier League. Van Bronckhorst was given the new role as Under-19 head coach, before eventually being offered the First Team Coach role, initially as a caretaker and then permanently, after head coach Fred Rutten did not have his one year contract extended.

Credits : @SpiegelSport

His time as Feyenoord’s head coach was a success. In his first season, he led the team to the 2015-16 KNVB Cup, defeating FC Utrecht in the final. It was the first time Feynoord had won the cup in eight years. The second season went even better, with the Rotterdam club winning the league for the first time in 13 years, and it's somewhat ironic that the next Feyenoord manager to win would be Arne Slot.

His successful reign continued into a third season, winning the season opening Johan Cruyff Cup, in a penalty shootout win against Vitesse Arnhem . Later that season, his team would thrash Sparta Rotterdam 7-0 in the Rotterdam Derby, and whilst the season would not end with another league championship, it would end with the club lifting the KNVB Cup for the second time in two seasons.

However, midway through the 2018/29 season, Van Bronckhorst announced he was leaving the club, stating, 

“I have given a lot of thought to whether I want to stay on as a coach of Feyenoord another year or many more years. But I have always followed my gut instinct in my career and think I should not carry on.”

The next choice of managerial club caused some surprise. As he left the Netherlands and Europe behind, he decided to join  the Chinese Super League side Guangzhou FC. His time in China however was fleeting. Only lasting a year, finishing the sixteen team league in eleventh place, and winning only seven times in 23 games. 

His return to Europe was facilitated by Steven Gerrard leaving Rangers to become Aston Villa manager. Much was made of Van Bronckhorst’s return to Europe, but more was made of his choice to manage Rangers. It had been twenty years since he had played for the club, and Rangers themselves were just off the back of a League winning campaign.

There were early signs of continuing success, his debut was a 2-0 home win against Sparta Prague in the Europa League. Meanwhile, in the SPL Rangers went seventeen games unbeaten, before succumbing to a 3-0 loss to Celtic. It meant, despite Ranger’s good form, Celtic were able to overtake them into first place, where they would stay for the remainder of the season, pipping Rangers to the league by one point in May.

Credits : @SkySports

It was in Europe where Van Bronckhost made the most noise. He became the first man to guide Ranges to a European final since 2008. The confidence was high with his team’s wins against Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Red Star Belgrade. However, whilst they took Eintracht Frankfurt all the way, Rangers lost the game 5-4 on penalties. 

Whilst the 2021/22 season ended on a high, with Rangers still going on to win the Scottish Cup and qualify for the 22/23 Champions League, form seemed to slip away from the Glasgow club as the new season started. Rangers failed to win any of their group games, and by the start of the November international break, they were nine points behind a rampant Celtic. Giovanni Van Bronckhorst was later sacked as Rangers manager.

He had to wait the best part of two years for his next role, this time with Turkish side Besiktas JK. A lot was expected on his arrival at the club. Whilst he only won a single major trophy in Scotland, and in spite of performances dropping in his last few months, he still managed a respectable 61% win percentage which the Turkish club believed he would bring to the table.  However, it quickly became apparent that similar to his time in China, something just didn’t click for the Dutchman. He was sacked in November 2024, barely five months into his managerial reign at the Istanbul club.

Credit : @GettyImages

That leads us to Liverpool, and the fundamental question ‘Why’? 

Well in recent years, Liverpool has become something of a hotbed for developing managers from within their ranks, to varying degrees of success. Pep Lijnders, notably, left Liverpool at the end of the Klopp era to become the manager of RB Salzburg, and whilst that went as well as his time as manager of NEC, it was still enough to draw the attention of Manchester City, where he is currently Pep Guardiola’s assistant. 

More recently, John Heitinga left his role as Arne Slot’s assistant to become the manager of Ajax. It’s early in his time at the club, and the Dutch giants have their own problems that may take a while to overcome, but the green shoots are there for both Heitinga and Ajax.

So What Does This Say About Liverpool?

Credits : @LiverpoolFC

Well it's a testament of the development of the facilities at Liverpool. Either at Anfield or at the Axa training center, It's not just players who get to ‘train’ at the club. It's clear that a number of coaches from around the world look enviously on what is happening at Liverpool and want a share of it. 

If nothing else, it is telling that in an effort to make up the lost ground last season, the Manchester City manager would choose one of the architects of this current success story of Liverpool to regain some of that ground. It is a testament to what is going on there now, as they haven't quite gotten there yet.