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Three decades have passed, but his catchphrase never gets old. ‘Everybody loves the sexy football,’ says a smiling Ruud Gullit in his unmistakable Dutch accent.
The Netherlands legend coined the term while working as a BBC pundit at Euro 96. However, Gullit found nothing sexy about English football when he joined Chelsea on a free transfer from Sampdoria, 30 years ago on Tuesday.
‘I thought, “What have I done?”,’ admits the 1987 Ballon d’Or winner. ‘There were only two stands up at Stamford Bridge. It was a wreck. It was also a bit of a culture shock. We used to stay in a lot of hotels and I saw people drunk and coming out of parties. In Italy, I had never seen anybody drunk, so I was like, “OK, here we go”.
Gullit’s first on-the-pitch experiences of England were little better. In particular, he will never forget coming up against Wimbledon hard man Vinnie Jones at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day.
‘Vinnie was funny,’ recalls Gullit. ‘He wanted to make headlines by kicking me out of the game — and I knew that. So one time when I had my back to him, he wanted to slide in, I just jumped a little, he caught me and he got a red card. I said,
“Vinnie, now we are going to play football”. He went, “You b*****d”. I said, “Yeah, this is football”.’
Former Chelsea star Ruud Gullit has opened up on his concerns for his old west London club
Gullit has no interest in the Club World Cup and says that Enzo Maresca’s team are an enigma
Ex-Chelsea player and manager Gullit isn’t convinced by the club’s new ownership group (co-controlling owner Todd Boehly pictured)
Gullit certainly brought a different flavour to the Premier League. The midfielder was one of the division’s first superstar overseas signings, having won the European Championship with the Netherlands and two European Cups and three Serie A titles with AC Milan.
His Chelsea team-mates soon became his ‘lovely boys’ – the term he took from his favourite British sitcom, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. The Blues finished 11th in Gullit’s first season at Stamford Bridge, but he was named their player of the year and included in the PFA team of the year. But everything changed in the summer of 1996 when Chelsea manager Glenn Hoddle left the club to take charge of England.
‘I never wanted to be a coach,’ admits Gullit, who was appointed player-manager and became the Premier League’s first Dutch boss. ‘It was not on my mind. I was only 33. But they begged me to do it, so I said, “OK, I will give it a try”. It worked well.’
He became the first overseas manager and first black boss to win a major trophy in England when he led Chelsea to FA Cup glory in 1997.
‘That was very special,’ he says, speaking in his role as a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy. Just nine months later, though, he was sacked despite guiding Chelsea to second in the Premier League and the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup. The club’s then chairman Ken Bates claimed he axed his manager because he was asking for too much money during negotiations over a new contract.
But Gullit mysteriously says: ‘There were a lot of sharks around at that time. They thought, “We could make some money there with Chelsea”. I didn’t want to participate in all of that, so that’s why I was sacked.’
The day before he was fired, he was playing golf with one of his coaches, Gwyn Williams. He later discovered Williams knew he was being sacked but hid it from him during their round.
‘That was horrible,’ says Gullit. ‘I was very hurt. It was painful. The first time you get sacked, it’s a strange thing.’
Gullit joined Chelsea as a player in 1995 and remained at the club until 1998 (pictured that year)
As Chelsea manager, the Dutch superstar experienced glory by winning the FA Cup in 1997
But he was soon back in work, replacing Kenny Dalglish as manager of Newcastle.
‘Newcastle was fantastic,’ he says. ‘I loved it there. I loved the fans and I loved the people I was working for. They were really good people. They wanted just a little bit of success.
‘I got them to the FA Cup final, but we faced a Manchester United who were at the top of their game.
‘When I said to them, “This is not the place for me, I can’t do the same thing that I did with Chelsea, this is not possible here”, they didn’t want me to leave. So I said to them, “I don’t need anything else, I don’t need compensation, I’ll just give my contract back”.
Gullit’s resignation eventually came three days after a 2-1 defeat by rivals Sunderland at a rain-soaked St James’ Park, a night when he famously left his captain Alan Shearer out of his starting line-up.
Gullit, amazingly, insists he has no regrets about his decision to drop Shearer.
‘I made the right decision, we were 1-0 up,’ he says, before adding: ‘The funny thing is, Alan and I became good friends later on.
‘We were together at the World Cup in Brazil. We were having a beer together, laughing, and his wife came up to me and said, “I can’t believe this. You were the bad man in our home and now you are having drinks together?”.’
Reflecting on his time at Newcastle, Gullit stated that he loved managing the club
The Dutchman is adamant he doesn’t have any regrets over dropping starman Alan Shearer
Gullit admits he was ‘very happy’ to see Newcastle end their 70-year domestic trophy drought in March, when they beat Liverpool to lift the Carabao Cup. And he was pleased to see Chelsea finish their season strongly by qualifying for the Champions League and winning the Conference League.
But he is not totally convinced by the Blues under chairman Todd Boehly and manager Enzo Maresca. ‘Chelsea are an enigma,’ he says, adding that he has no interest in the Club World Cup.
‘I can’t understand them. I don’t know how they want to play. I don’t know what their philosophy is. Is it only to make money?
What are they trying to achieve? Chelsea have to have a DNA.’
