He is a football conditioning guru and will be at the AIS over the next 4 days with 40 Australian coaches for the FFA sanctioned Football Conditioning Diploma.

Judy Free, I would be interested to hear why you think the Dutch coaches and their coaching methodologies aren't an improvement on what has gone before in Australian Football?

This is the guy the Club Doctor from Sydney FC spends every waking out tweeting about.

Yep, got to give it to these blokes, they know how to market themselves and make a quick buck from the gullible.

Apparently every HAL club needs to spend $3k per trainer to get this mandatory weetbix licence.

FFS.

Out of interest, is this the same guy that consulted with the Roar last year? If so, it seemed to work for them? Would explain the eager uptake.

FFA dopes have made the course mandatory.

This is also the bloke who falsely masquaraded as a "doctor" for years and the gullible bought it. Even wrote a book with "Dr Raymond Verheijen" written on the cover. Outed by an aussie, apparently. ;)

Would the real Raymond Verheijen please stand up?
Posted on June 3, 2011 by ffwtbol

When Raymond Verheijen was appointed as assistant manager to Gary Speed, I had always assumed that it was an honorary title. Wales suffer massive problems in obtaining players release for international duty, so I had guessed that Verheijen’s prominence was merely intended to offer some confidence to club managers that their players would be well treated when they went to play for their country. But then during the recent Carling Cup games, it was the Dutch Fitness Coach that I saw prowling the technical area alongside Speed, while Osian Roberts, the technical coach sat back. Bizarrely, it appeared that Martyn Margetson, the goalkeeping coach was the one handing out tactical instructions to the players.

Verheijen’s expertise has always been a given. When he was appointed, Speed said: “I am delighted to have Raymond on board as part of my team. His experience will prove invaluable and his credentials are first class.” Nobody in the media has questioned his qualifications to be given the Number Two job with our National team, and the FAW press release which stated that Verheijen “is well known for his expertise on tactics” was widely repeated. This claim is questionable – we know that Verheijen has unparallelled experience as a fitness conditioner, but not as a tactical coach. He holds the Uefa A coaching licence, but not the “Pro” Licence. In an era when the FAW are becoming more and more strict on the qualifications required by domestic team managers, the National Team’s Assistant Manager holds only the same qualification as that required to run a Welsh Premier League club’s Junior Academy. Raymond Verheijen has fewer coaching qualifications than Andy Legg and Neville Powell.

When I had the chance to question Jonathan Ford recently, I asked him outright why Verheijen had been chosen in the role of Assistant Manager, as opposed to Fitness Coach. Ford’s response surprised me. He told me to look Verheijen up, as his experience was undoubted. When I pressed him on whether Verheijen had previously held an Assistant Manager’s post, he assured me that he had. “As Assistant Manager?”I asked again? “Yes, as Assistant Manager” answered Ford. The Chief-Executive of the FAW was mistaken.

Verheijen had started out as a player, but his career in the game was ended by a hip injury at the age of 17. He immediately began to study exercise physiology and sports psychology at the Free University, Amsterdam. The results of his research became a book in 1997. “Conditioning for Soccer” was authored by “Doctor Ray Verheijen”. Except that Verheijen isn’t a Doctor, and never was. He is a “Master of Sports Science”, but this does not allow use of the Doctor title. He was exposed in Australia for this false claim, though he was still being called a Doctor as late as 2009. At another conference, he was even awarded the PhD title that he never gained.

Raymond Verheijen began his career with the Dutch Federation. He made contacts in those days which stood him in good stead for the rest of his career. Those progressive Dutch coaches appointed their friend when they were given high profile roles at clubs and countries across the World. Verheijen worked with Dutch coaches Frank Rijkaard, Louis van Gaal, Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat, and was employed at five major international tournaments with the Netherlands, South Korea and Russia . He has never held a full-time position at a club, though he has worked with a national side in qualification for every single major tournament since 1998.

Netherlands (1998 DK) - Guus Hiddink
Netherlands (Euro 2000) - Frank Rijkaard
South Korea (2002 DK) - Guus Hiddink
Netherlands (Euro 2004) - Dick Advocaat
South Korea (2006) - Dick Advocaat
Russia (Euro 2008) - Guus Hiddink
South Korea (2010 DK) - Huh Jung-moo
Wales (Euro 2012) - Gary Speed

But what of his work with Wales? Questions have been asked by Welsh supporters about Verheijen’s priorities – is he working primarily for the benefit of the country? Doubts were raised when Craig Bellamy missed Wales games against Bulgaria and Switzerland despite turning out for Cardiff City at Barnsley. Then Verheijen went on to question the worth of the Carling Cup tournament even while loyal Welsh fans were on their way to Dublin. Verheijen’s most high profile exposure recently was the incident with Gareth Bale during training for the match against England in March. He explains in an interview with FC Business why Bale was withdrawn from the biggest Welsh game in years.

It wasn’t until Tuesday of the camp for the England game that we did our first session and I saw he was holding his leg. I told him to go off. He didn’t want to but I explained to him that we are looking towards the next three and a half years not the next three and a half days. We took him for a scan which showed he had a tiny tear. There was no way we were going to risk him because we respect that not only would it do more damage to him but he needs to play more games this season for Spurs. It would not have done anybody any good. It was because of the environment that we are putting into place that means he’ll play for the rest of the season at Spurs.

I personally believe that the approach is worth trying. Wales desperately needs its best players to be available and in the long term, Verheijen’s careful approach may turn out to be beneficial. But there are plenty of people who believe that Wales’s interests should come first. There is still resentment that Wales sent out a second string side to face Scotland recently, though the decision seemed sensible to me.

Verheijen bases his coaching on the Periodisation system first promoted by the Russian physiologist Leo Matveyev in the 1960s. The idea is not a new one, but the basic premise is that certain types of player should do less training to maintain their dynamic advantage. Craig Bellamy was won over to the Periodisation system after a six-week expiriment at a training camp with Manchester City left him feeling fitter than ever. Since that time, he has hardly let Verheijen out of his sight. During the 2010/11 season, Bellamy was restricted to one game a week at times with Cardiff, and missed the vital end of season play-off semi-final after leaving the field very early on as a precaution.

After a recent trip to act as a consultant with Brisbane Roar FC in Australia, Verheijen criticised the club’s coach, Branko Colina, who was bemused by his comments.

”Our strength and conditioning guy actually went on professional development to Wales to meet up with Raymond Verheijen for the Wales-England match. He was at the game, spent a week-and-a-half with him, so I find these comments more than a little surprising.”

While on service with the Welsh National Team, preparing for a match against England, Verheijen was providing works experience to an Australian coach. Many young Welsh fitness coaches who would have loved that opportunity. Another question for me is whether it is appropriate for our paid Assistant Manager to be selling his services to our opponents -Verheijen is also a consultant with Football Federation Australia. Wales are due to face Australia at Cardiff in August – is it right that Verheijen is working for both teams?

Nobody is questioning Verheijen’s ability and experience. His conditioning work is groundbreaking, and his CV is most impressive. I especially remember the awesome fitness of his South Korean teams at those World Cup tournaments, and we are lucky that he is working with Wales. What I fail to understand is why false claims needed to be made to justify his appointment. “Doctor” Ray Verheijen has never been an Assistant Manager, and he has no Tactical Expertise (and of course, he isn’t a Doctor). If none of these things is important in his appointment as Wales’ Assistant Manager, then why make them up?

Thanks Arthur,

Well last night was a miserable wet and windy evening at the AIS, even so the 40 odd coaches and some 20 Actas and AIS players were there for the session. I did not recognize all the coaches but the ones I did were, Tony Vidmar, Damien (frogger) Mori, Paul Bentzvelzen, Arthur Pappas, Ante Milicic & Michael Valkanis. Edit, sorry Vaughn Coveney was there also.

As a parent I did not get close enough to hear what was being said to the coaches but got to see the drills . Duriing the first set of drills it was a coach from Brisbane Roar that put the boys through a warm up drill ( not sure of his name but from the little i heard he had a broad accent, English,Scottish not sure). This drill was not anything new really just a little diversified.

Raymond took over after a small drinks break and proceeded to put the boys through a series of 1 on 1 sprints chasing the ball towards goal and shooting. Started off with 5 metre sprints then 15 metre then 25 metre allowing time in between sprints for the players to recover sufficiently (I'm sure I did this sort of stuff with my Under12's a few years ago). After that he made them sprint onto a pass and cross to a player in the box.

Now I could not hear what he was saying to the coaches on the theory of these drills but the drills themselves did not seem to me to be anything that has not been done before. I'm not here to praise or denigrate anyone just to post my observations.

Going back again tonight, back with more observations tomorrow.

Edited by spathi: 21/6/2011 02:16:41 PM

Dave, Roar's success was down to Ange, pure and simple.

Sure there were others that assisted along the way thru' the course of the season e.g. trainers, physios, doctors, kit man etc.

Don't go all Fozzie on me mate.

Now I could not hear what he was saying to the coaches on the theory of these drills but the drills themselves did not seem to me to be anything that has not been done before. I'm not here to praise or denigrate anyone just to post my observations.

Going back again tonight, back with more observations tomorrow.

Joffa, it will take you less than 5 minutes to goggle their CV and prior achievements.

In short, we're accepting the fifth rate shit who are unemployable in their own country.

The subject "coach" in this thread is one bucket mouthed arrogant cnut. Loose cannon. Despised by many. But we're dopey enough to provide him with an ongoing revenue stream.

The Dutch methodology is far more advanced than what I viewed in Scotland, England, Greece and Singapore in youth/junior training ground regimes.

And exactly what level of kids sockah were you viewing?

I once saw some kids kicking a ball about in a dusty Barcelona paddock....they were dreadful.

Premier and Division One Doncaster Junior League.

Chesterfield Youth League.

Edinburgh youth and junior teams.

Anyone who calls themselves "Doctor" without having earned the right has something sneaky going on, anyway.

Raymond Verheijen's comments shock Iwan Roberts
Raymond Verheijen's comments on leading Wales after Gary Speed are "selfish", according to ex-striker Iwan Roberts.

Assistant manager Verheijen wrote on Twitter on Sunday that he hoped the leadership of the national side would be decided by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) on Monday.

Roberts says he has been left shocked by the Dutchman's remarks, which come two weeks after Speed's death.

"What he put on there really left a bad taste in my mouth," said Roberts.

"Some of the things he's posted on Twitter have absolutely shocked me. [It's] very, very selfish."

When contacted by BBC Sport on Monday, Verheijen insisted he did not write he "wanted the job" on his Twitter account but refused to comment further when pressed.

The Dutchman, who previously worked with the Netherlands, Russia and South Korea, joined Speed's backroom team in February.

Despite a difficult start to his reign as manager, Speed won four of his last five matches in charge.

Wales begin their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign at home to Belgium next September.

And Verheijen believes the FAW should give Speed's backroom team the opportunity to continue his work.

"Hopefully the board will respect Gary's wish so [fellow assistant] Osian Roberts and I can lead the team to Brazil," Verheijen wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

"There is no need for a new manager with new ideas. Our success was based on Gary's clear structure. Everybody knows what to do for mission Brazil 2014."

But Roberts, who played alongside Speed for Wales, is unhappy with the timing of Verheijen's comments.

"It's just over two weeks since we lost Gary and just over 48 hours since Gary was finally put to rest," the former Norwich and Leicester player told BBC Wales.

"The timing's shocking and I don't think he should be putting his CV, if you like, on Twitter.

"He's touting himself for the Welsh job. He's put it out there in the public for everyone to see. That's the thing that sits really awkward and uncomfortable with me.

"He's upset and angered me in the past with some of the things he's posted but nothing [compares with this]. 'Gary's wish?' I find that quite astonishing when Gary's family are still grieving."

Roberts added that he understood the FAW would have to talk about Speed's successor at some stage.

"I don't think anybody will have a problem with them discussing the future," he said.

"Life goes on, as sad as it sounds. They will discuss how Wales now go forward after such a tragic event."

The FAW says it does not plan to discuss the issue of the national team manager during Monday's meeting.