NAC says goodbye to trainer Edwin de Graaf | Dutch football

The fact that NAC does not continue with De Graaf does not come as a bolt from the blue† Simply because the sporting performance was below average across the board. Eighth in the final standings with a player budget that is among the top of the First Division. Noting that in January and March he was stripped of two of his best players: director Thom Haye and top scorer Ralf Seuntjens.

In the play-offs NAC could not make the difference either. In the first round, they lost 2-1 to ADO Den Haag twice. With De Graaf at the helm, the quarterfinals of the KNVB Cup were reached. Partly thanks to Haye’s belching. As NAC owes a great deal of thanks to Olij for allowing it to participate in the play-offs. De Graaf never got the team to play football over a longer period of time.

In his long search for the right composition, the trainer briefly switched to a system with three defenders and walking people on the sides of a five-man midfield at the beginning of this year. After a handful of games, De Graaf fell back to the familiar 4-3-3. In line with the disappointing results, players have hardly improved. With the exception of Odysseus Velanas. He couldn’t get someone like Kaj de Rooij to talk.

The poor sporting balance and the scant development of the group of players have made NAC, with Eric Hellemons head of the football department, decide not to offer De Graaf a contract extension.

De Graaf was promoted from assistant to head coach in the summer of 2021 as a replacement for the resigned Maurice Steijn. It was the same Steijn who had brought De Graaf to NAC a year earlier to assist him with the first team. The strong rumor that De Graaf will again become Steijn’s assistant at Sparta next season was recently debunked by the outgoing NAC trainer.