Jaap Stam is the 31st player to have played under Alex Ferguson at Manchester United to move into management.
The Dutchman is preparing for his first season in-charge of Championship side Reading, and played alongside a number of United players that have subsequently become managers.
Roy Keane, Teddy Sheringham, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs (for three games as United caretaker), Henning Berg and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have all had stints in the dugout, with varying success.
However, out of all the players Stam worked alongside at United, he says he only ever expected one player to become a manager when he hung up his boots – Solskjaer.
The former United striker, currently in his second spell as Molde manager, tasted success as United’s reserve team manager, and won the Norwegian league twice, but struggled during his nine months as Cardiff City manager.
Solskjaer was unable to keep Cardiff in the Premier League, and left the club in September 2014.
“It sounds strange, maybe, because I have played with a lot of big players but I never thought: ‘OK, they’re going to go into management,'” Stam told The Guardian.
“Maybe there was only one, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, because he was always talking about football but I did not have a feeling with the other players.
“A lot of people say: ‘You can already see that this player will become a manager’ but I think sometimes that’s a load of crap. It’s not always the player that’s talking in the dressing room that becomes a good manager. It’s a feeling that you need to develop, it’s a feeling that needs to grow on you. Of course, when you play football yourself you can think you want to become a manager but it does not make you a good manager.”
Despite retiring in 2007, Reading is Stam’s first job in management. The 44-year-old had stints as an assistant with FC Zwolle and Ajax in his native Netherlands.
The former central defender says that it was never his intention to go into management, and it sounds like almost fell into the role.
“I was a player, after that I wanted to do nothing with football for a year and see what I wanted to do. Eventually you go for your badges and before you know it, six years down the road, you’re coaching a team and now I’m at Reading.
Listen to our GAA podcast with Colm Parkinson. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.
