"How do you come up with tactics?" Jumbo-Visma meets Manchester United, discuss management

Jumbo-Visma’s head coach Merijn Zeeman recently travelled to Manchester and met Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag. Both discussed various topics, including tactics and providing opportunities.

“He’s someone from a completely different sport, but I wanted to understand from him: how do you come up with tactics? What is the essence of your sport for you? Before you make a game plan, what’s behind it? I had the opportunity to talk to him about that a few times,” Zeeman told Helden Magazine.

A famous example of Erik ten Hag's harshness is benching Cristiano Ronaldo when he failed to deliver satisfactory results. Zeeman is also experiencing the same situation with various riders on his team. Zeeman asked Hag on how to deal with these situations.

“Because Erik ten Hag also had to deal with that at Ajax and now he also has that at United, I talked to him about this,” Zeeman said. “As a coach, how do you deal with players who have won everything and suddenly find themselves on the bench? In the past, athletes had to accept that. There was also less for the human approach, I think that is not just in this time,” concluded Zeeman.