The dreadlocks are gone.
But the attitude, the effortless cool and the impressive knowledge of football remain.
Ruud Gullit was one of the first major foreign player to arrive into England’s top flight in the mid 1990’s. As part of a flying visit to Dublin this week, the Dutchman gave SportsJOE his thoughts on Memphis Depay, Robin Van Persie, Jose Mourinho and life in the MLS.
How highly do you rate Memphis Depay?
“The good thing is, what I say to a lot of talents in Holland, is to stay in Holland until you have played some first team football to get experience. He played a couple of seasons already with PSV and came because of that in the national team and this is the bonus you get for what you have done in the Dutch competition and the national team.”
“You go to a big club. Now I see a lot of kids at 15 or 16 who don’t play any first team football who maybe later on go on loan somewhere, but that is not what you expected.”
“Depay is a good player and he’s excited to play at Old Trafford, everyone would, but he needs time to adapt himself. But it’s also strange as he plays his best football from the left and now he’s behind the striker.”
“If you want to get the best out of him, play him in his best position but we have to see.”
What do you think of the latest drama at Chelsea over their physio?
“I don’t know, I think it’s not this, this was not the reason. I think something happened already previously. But to judge something that only just occurs.”
“I think with Chelsea there is always something going on, I think they had a wonderful season last year, I still think the main thing they want to do is win the Champions League.”
“Robbie Di Matteo put Chelsea on the map of international football, he is very responsible for that. I think they are still the team to beat and everybody tries enormous effort to beat them.”
Is the Premier League still the best league?
“The Premier League is the holy grail, money wise at least, there are other competitions as well but the English Premier League is the most exciting one.”
“Germany is very good, Spain already showed how good they are. Even the Italians who are criticised are doing very well because they had semi-finalists in the Europa League and one of the finalists in the Champions League so they are doing something well as well.”
“The Premier League was thinking ‘Hey, what happened’ because they were convinced they would be dominating the Champions League. So other teams in other countries are doing something well as well.”
Is it a worry to see so many European player heading into effective retirement in the MLS
