The reporter reported coldly For Feyenoord fans, it is certainly welcome to knock out Serie A giants AC Milan to reach the last 16 of the Champions League, but it is also exciting news that the team's legend Robin van Persie will soon be in charge. As a member of the "Four Little Swans" of Dutch football in the 21st century, Van Persie became the first to coach a big club ahead of Van der Vaart, Sneijder and Robben.

After former Feyenoord boss Slote was poached by Liverpool, he brought in Pulsk, the best coach of last season's Czech league, from Sparta Prague. However, the Danish coach led the team to poor results, and Feyenoord even lost 1-6 to Lille in the Champions League, the biggest defeat in European history; The team then lost 2-1 away to Ajax in the league and 2-0 to PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals of the Dutch Cup. A series of poor performances have completely lost the trust of the Danes at the top, and Feyenoord's last three games, including the Champions League play-off against AC Milan, have been led by Under-21 coach Posaud.

Feyenoord's hierarchy locked in Van Persie from the outset, because since his retirement, he has been an assistant or youth team coach at Feyenoord since March 2020, and he is familiar enough with the team, as well as a lineage and an aura of player age that can make the dressing room subjugate. Van Persie has been a striker coach and first-team technical coach at Feyenoord, as well as the club's Under-18s and Under-19s managers, and is familiar with the tactics of manager Slot, who took over in the summer of 2021.

Last season, Robin van Persie coached Feyenoord's youth team to participate in the Youth Champions League, beating Atletico Madrid and Lazio in the group stage, only to lose 2-3 to Bayern in the 1/8 finals. Van Persie left Feyenoord last summer to take charge of Heerenveen in mid-table sides of the Eredivisie and are currently ninth in the Eredivisie. Feyenoord and Van Persie reached an agreement in principle on Wednesday to persuade Heerenveen to release him and pay compensation. It is reported that Feyenoord will officially announce Van Persie's appointment early next week.

Coincidentally, Feyenoord are 50% likely to draw Arsenal, who have a grudge with Robin van Persie, in Friday's Champions League quarter-final draw. One can imagine how "grand" Van Persie, who returned to Arsenal as the rival coach in March, would have been welcomed at the Emirates Stadium if Feyenoord had drawn Arsenal. Moreover, Van Persie and Arsenal coach Arteta were also teammates of the Gunners, so it will inevitably be a bit of a reminiscence.

Among the Dutch "four little swans" who shone in the first decade of the 21st century, Van Persie was not the most accomplished player of his career. But in his coaching days, he was the first of the four to have the opportunity to coach a European giant.

Van der Vaart, who retired from the club in 2018 at Esbjerg, Denmark, worked as an assistant coach at the club in the summer of 2021 and as a firefighting coach in March 2022 until the end of the season in June. He then worked as an assistant coach for one more season, leaving coaching in the summer of 2023 to focus on commenting and becoming a professional darts player. Sneijder and Robben have been on the slack since retiring, occasionally participating in the Legends Charity Tournament, and Robben will also participate in the Beckenbauer Cup Legends Invitational on March 17.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, who was Manchester United's interim manager last year, is the latest Dutch legend to have the honour of taking charge of a big club. Before Van Persie, Heitinga, who was also a Dutch "post-80s" player, served as Ajax's firefighting coach at the beginning of 2023 until the end of the summer. In recent years, the legendary players of the "post-70s" in the Netherlands have landed in giants, and unfortunately there are fewer successes and more failures. Kocu, De Boer and Van Bronckhorst are among the three big clubs in the Eredivisie, but they, like Stam, Seedorf, Kluivert and Cruyff Jr., have failed to prove themselves in the dugout of the big five leagues.

Now Van Persie, as the representative of the "Four Little Swans" of the Netherlands, is the first to coach the Eredivisie giants, and it remains to be seen whether he can become a successful coach of Dutch football to contribute to world football.