Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink on missing football, black managers getting less time, Frank Lampard’s Chelsea and dabbling in property
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is bellowing instructions at a plumber amid the chaos of a building site as he answers the phone to City PM.
The former Chelsea, Leeds and Holland striker and, more recently, promising manager is overseeing works at what will be a new family home for the Hasselbainks.
When the 48-year-old is not at this site he is often at another of the properties in his portfolio. It is a sideline that keeps him busy while his football life is in limbo.
“I’ve always done property,” he says. “I’ve got my own company and I’m doing a lot of units for social housing, affordable housing, that kind of sector.
“I’m really enjoying it; it’s my project. Obviously you’ve always got football in the background, but the majority of my days is with that kind of stuff.”
Hasselbaink still enjoys bringing his expertise to punditry work, as a heated debate with Patrice Evra on Sky Sports that went viral last week showed.
But it is more than two years since his last full-time job in football, an ill-fated spell at Northampton Town. Naturally, he misses it.
“Football is always in your blood, so yeah,” he says. “It’s what I know, what I like. You always foresee that you’re going to be in football but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.”
Hasselbaink’s ups and downs
Five years ago Hasselbaink was flavour of the month.
Having taken charge at Burton Albion in November 2014, he led them into the third tier as League Two champions in his first season.
Unfashionable Burton were flying, top of League One, when QPR came calling in late 2015.
Rangers were a risky proposition, a club bouncing between the top two divisions who had burned through 10 managers in as many years.
Hasselbaink accepted but, despite finishing 12th in the Championship, would be shown the door less than a year later.
He would wait almost a year for his next job, at Northampton. And when it came it proved even shorter than the last.
“What it has taught me is that before I take any job I need to make sure I’m on the same page as the people who own and run the club,” he says.
“It’s very important for a manager that he doesn’t work with his hand tied on his back, because that is going to be very difficult.
“You want a clear picture from the start and to be able to improve it. You know that in football things change. That is OK because that is life. But you still have to be on that same path together. At certain clubs that changes too quickly — way too quickly.”
Hasselbaink’s setbacks have at least taught him how to recognise which types of jobs to avoid.
“You have to look at the history of the club,” he says. “If it has had 15 managers in 10 years, that says enough. It can’t be all the manager’s fault; impossible. You look at the values of the club and of the people who run and own those clubs.”
‘Black managers don’t get many chances’
QPR’s sacking of Hasselbaink left just three black managers in English football’s top four divisions.
Despite greater debate about the issue and racism more widely, there are currently just five.
“A race problem? Well, you can say it how you want to say it, but black managers are not getting a lot of chances,” he says.
“When they have a little bad spell, they’re out of the door. So you make your assumptions from that. When I was at QPR, I think we never lost more than two [league] games in a row.
“It was a job that needed rebuilding. I was sacked, whatever the reason was. But if you see the managers who came after me, way more experienced managers, who had a much worse record than me, who got more time. If you look at the club now and where they are, it says it all.”
Rangers are in fact one of the few English clubs with a track record of promoting black coaches.
Hasselbaink succeeded Chris Ramsey at Loftus Road, where Les Ferdinand is director of football. QPR owner Tony Fernandes, meanwhile, is Malaysian.
But it is undeniable that the game in this country remains a difficult environment for black coaches to thrive in.
Having suffered a few knock-backs on the way to an illustrious playing career, Hasselbaink is not about to give up on management easily either.
“No, not at all,” he says. “In football you have to have thick skin, especially in management, or you’re not going to make it.”
But he adds: “You can have thick skin but that doesn’t mean that it is right. You still have to try to make it better.”
‘Lampard’s Chelsea need time’
In the time his managerial career has been on the backburner, Hasselbaink has watched a former team-mate’s take off.
Frank Lampard’s promise at Derby earned him a chance at Chelsea, where he and Hasselbaink played together between 2001 and 2004.
He has been impressed with Lampard, especially in playing youngsters and fostering attacking football. But he pulls no punches over a “very, very poor” defensive record.
“It is a process. You need to give him the time to get that right,” he says.
“Is this the year Chelsea have to be champions? No. But the gap between Liverpool and Manchester City and Chelsea has to become smaller.
“Then next year, with another couple of signings — not as many as this year, but a couple — you need to challenge for the league.”
Hasselbaink cites as his coaching influences former tutors George Graham, Louis van Gaal, Guus Hiddink and Steve McClaren.
Unlike some of today’s most celebrated coaches, he is not a slave to a favoured system.
He says: “Do you want to play out from the back and be nice and have a goalkeeper who can pass the ball? And a striker who can hold the ball and bring other people in? And midfielders who can run off you and are technically great? Of course I want that!
“But that takes time. The majority of managers don’t inherit that kind of team. If you don’t have the players, you can’t play it. And you shouldn’t play it, because you have to make the players comfortable.”
Hasselbaink waiting for right job
Hasselbaink has not come close to taking another job since leaving Northampton in April 2018.
But he remains eager to return to management in England, where his family have long been settled.
“I’m always looking for opportunities, obviously, but I am not applying for any old job,” he says. “It has to be the right job, that I feel I can take the club forward.”
After such a promising start to management, it is hard to shake the sense that Hasselbaink deserves another chance.
Before returning to the building site, he has time for a booming chuckle at the suggestion he and Lampard could be peers again: “Hahaha! Who knows, who knows, you never know.”