Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has done wonders at his new club. Photo / AP
Ronald Koeman doesn't have to check the date of Southampton's game against Manchester United. "Sixth of December," he cheerfully interjects halfway through a question about how the Dutch will view the Premier League game between the teams of two of their most famous football exports.
The Southampton manager has just come from a press conference in which the first question was: "Can you qualify for the Champions League?"
It has been a remarkable start to the season for a club written off in the summer and second in the table heading into this weekend's game. Arsenal were the latest scalp, beaten at the Emirates in the League Cup on Wednesday (NZT). Koeman is English football's man of the moment.
This Premier League season was supposed to be about another Dutchman, brought in to resurrect United and restore them to a place among the elite. Instead of Louis van Gaal, however, it's Koeman, once the former's assistant at Barcelona, who is making the job look easy.
Koeman has reinvigorated Southampton after their player exodus and they expected to win their fourth league game of the season overnight (NZT) when they faced lowly Queens Park Rangers.
Koeman had a glittering career as a player. Eight league titles in the Netherlands and Spain and two European Cup wins, including that one for Barcelona at Wembley in 1992 when he scored the winner. He won Euro '88 with his country.
As a manager, he's won three Eredivisie titles and a KNVB Cup while at Ajax and PSV Eindhoven. He also won the Copa del Rey at Valencia.
As befitting a sophisticated polyglot Dutch coach, he is cool with the awkward questions, such as his rift with van Gaal. The pair worked together at Barcelona and then fell out when van Gaal was technical director at Ajax, and Koeman the coach. Later, van Gaal was dismissive of Koeman in his autobiography - he referred to him as "that boy" - and suggested he was not the first choice to succeed him at AZ Alkmaar in 2009.
Koeman is open about it. "We had a problem because I was the coach of Ajax and he came in as technical director. We had some problems in the relation between his job and my job. First he left Ajax and, after three-and-a-half years I left, too. It was difficult because it was a problem in the relation in football. But you know, if there is a problem in football relations then there is also a problem outside of football. Never more was there the contact that we had before. Sometimes a little bit fighting [dispute] between each other.
What of van Gaal's description of Koeman as "weak"? "Yeah, that's true [that van Gaal said that]," Koeman says. "But that is his story. My story is different. If there is a fight with two persons, both are involved in the problem. It's OK. It's the past and we look forward. I hope he will be very successful."
Koeman, 51, doesn't appear to have the towering ego that often seems as common among top Dutch footballers as a velvet first touch.
He laughs about his nickname during his time at Barcelona, 'Tintin' because of his Nordic looks. He even agreed to dress up as the famous Belgian reporter, complete with stand-in Snowy the dog, for a Spanish magazine. Koeman has the picture on his wall at home.
For the first time in his coaching career, Koeman is working at Southampton with his older brother Erwin who, like their late father Martin, was also a Dutch international.
Erwin, 18 months older than Ronald, won fewer caps and his playing career was successful but less remarkable. He too has been a coach, most notably at Feyenoord. They had discussed the possibility of working together in the past, but circumstances dictated this was the first time it suited both.
"I said: 'Let's go for it'," Ronald says.
"He is a different type of person. He can be the second [in command] and I am little bit more programmed not to be the second. Who can you trust more than your brother?"
- The Independent