Matthias Kohler is the new captain on FC Volendam’s ship, but who is he?

Matthias Kohler’s love for the game started at a young age. At the age of five he started playing football in Germany, after which he also played football in Switzerland for a while at FC Schaffhausen. A few years later Kohler ended up with the U-19 of SC Freiburg with well-known teammates such as Oliver Bauman, Nicolas Höfler and Jonathan Schmid. They all made it to the Bundesliga, but not Kohler. Due to two serious cruciate ligament injuries, he gave up the dream of becoming a professional football player.

The young German changed course and became a DFB coach in South Baden in 2012. He actually wanted to work at FC Barcelona or Ajax, the best clubs in terms of youth academy. “Unfortunately, at that time there was no phone number on the internet that I could call,” Kohler told Swiss newspaper BZ Basel in 2021. In the South African version of Ajax there was a number he could call, so he started working at Ajax Cape Town. However, the club had too little budget to hire him. In order to pay for his stay in South Africa, he had to work in a factory for several months.

By implementing a number of innovations with the South Africans, he stood out at Ajax. Marc Overmars, Edwin van der Sar and Ruben Jongkind became convinced of Kohler and brought him to the Amsterdam club. The collaboration between Kolher and Jonk was thus born. Jonk worked at Ajax as a member of the technical heart. During the same period, Kohler helped the Amsterdammers develop the methodology department.

Conflict with management

Kohler and Jonk’s period with the team from Amsterdam ended abruptly at the end of 2015. Johan Cruijff, who, together with Jonk and others, had caused the velvet revolution, had more and more disagreements with the management. That conflict became so heated that Cruijff and his followers (including Jonk and Kohler) left Amsterdam.

Out of dissatisfaction, Jonk and associates founded Cruijff Football, a company that advised clubs and associations. Kohler was also part of that, but left to work at AS Trencin, Tscheu La Ling’s Slovak football club. At the end of the 2018/19 season, he became an interim coach and ensured that the club maintained itself.

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La Ling was convinced and wanted to keep him as a trainer. Kohler, however, turned out not to have the appropriate papers and left Slovakia in October 2019. The German then ended up at FC Basel. There he trained the O-18 and 0-21, before Jonk brought him to Volendam in 2021. “It is special to work with this group of Cruijffians again. We stand for the same way of playing football, training and working,” said Kohler upon his appointment as assistant coach.

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One of the players who worked with Kohler in the fishing village is Boy Deul. The 35-year-old Amsterdammer left Volendam in 2022 and cherishes fond memories of the German. “He was an assistant coach, who talked to players a lot. At least with me. He has a lot of passion, is driven and a great football fan.”

“Matthias was able to give very detailed instructions, which helped you get better,” Deul continues. “He also often wanted to evaluate after the games and was also interested in you as a person. I have experienced him as someone who always gives 100 percent. He also formed a good combination with Wim. It is nice that he now has the chance, hopefully he will do well.”

The German led an FC Volendam training in March 2022 due to a migraine attack from Jonk. He looked ahead to our camera on the match against ADO Den Haag. Text continues below the video.

FC Volendam maintained itself in Kohler’s second season as an assistant in the premier league. The only blemish on this season for the German was the ‘conflict’ in training with Bilal Ould-Chikh. After an alleged scuffle, Ould-Chikh was suspended.

There seemed to be no problem in the fishing village until Jonk announced on June 16 that he would be taking on a different position. He becomes a technical manager to ‘guarantee the DNA of Volendam even more’. As a result, Kohler was promoted to head coach.

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“Matthias is incredibly talented. We didn’t bring him to Volendam for nothing,” explains Jonk in an interview with FC Volendam TV. “He deserves all the support from the fans. Matthias pursues one elite sports mindset after, he preaches attacking football and sets the bar high for players. In my eyes he is ready to succeed me.”

It remains to be seen whether the young Kohler is ready to succeed Jonk as head coach at FC Volendam. It’s a wild guess anyway, but time will tell if it was the right choice. The preparations for Volendam with Kohler at the helm will start on Monday 3 July.