Ariël Jacobs speaks for OH Leuven after a turbulent summer: “What can a trainer definitively save? Those are several good results in a row.”

We actually had an interview appointment with Peter Willems. However, he is no longer CEO of OH Leuven. And so Ariel Jacobs was prepared to speak to us. He is a busy man and is still typing on his laptop until ten seconds before the interview, but in the end he takes plenty of time for the conversation. A full hour.

This summer it seemed as if OHL was letting things drag on a bit in terms of transfers and procrastinating too much.

“Absolutely not. People think you just have to push a button and a player will arrive, but that’s true wishful thinking. You always have a shadow team ready – they even have that in provincial – but you can only start negotiations when your own player leaves.”

There was hope at the end of last season, also with Marc Brys, that the strong holders would stay. Is it a disappointment that so many top players have left?

“Certainly. The question is why they are all leaving. There has been too much player turnover here in recent years. I’m racking my brains about that. It disrupts the stability of the club. The problem is of course that players sometimes say that they have no intention of leaving, like Casper De Norre in April, only to find out a month later that they still want to leave.”

In the Mousa Al-Tamari file, you yourself said in an earlier interview, you were too naive.

“Both he and his agent said in the presence of several witnesses that he was going to re-sign, but in the meantime I have learned that nice words don’t go a long way in professional football. Mousa was frustrated that Leicester did not show the slightest interest. We tried to mediate and proposed to Leicester to let him do an internship, but the answer from England was a categorical no.”

Do you sometimes receive signals from the owner that you may be done with suffering millions of losses?

“I have virtually no contact with the owners, because that is not my job, but I don’t think so. On the other hand, I can’t imagine them being happy about that. A losing situation has arisen in recent seasons with the players we bring in, ending up next to the first team and only costing us money. That situation is certainly not healthy.”

Is that the result of a failed transfer policy?

“For us, transfers are determined by an entire committee, so the responsibility is shared, but I do believe that a coach must learn to work with the players who are made available to him. A coach must have a say in transfers, but if you let him decide everything, you are destroying capital. Because the next coach may not want those players at all.”

That brings us to the case of Raphael Holzhauser. Marc Brys really wanted him, but he now costs a lot of money while he is not playing.

“The best part of all is that we can’t do anything about it anymore. We have found several clubs for him, even now one in a country where transfers are still possible, but he does not want to leave. Holzhauser was always a risk case. There was maybe a thirty percent chance that he would succeed and we would do a great job. Marc Brys thought he had the assets to shake him up, but that turned out to be more difficult than expected.”

You never communicate about budgets, but can you make an estimate of where you are in the Jupiler Pro League? For example, opposite Cercle Brugge or Westerlo?

“I have no idea and that doesn’t make it easy for us to work. There are two things that convince me of our owner’s intentions. When Leicester dropped out of the Premier League, and we all know what that means financially and in terms of status, King Power informed OHL that same evening that their commitment remained intact. And the same after the departure of Peter Willems. The CEO of Leicester (Susan Whelan, red.) has come to Leuven especially to solemnly promise her further commitment. Very reassuring.”

Is it difficult to work if you need the green light from the owner for every decision?

“That comes across as an excuse and I try to avoid that as much as possible. It’s their money, so it seems normal to me. You cannot think that a money tap will open without conditions attached.”

You started this season with two out of fifteen. There may have been some bad luck involved, but…

(interrupts) “I don’t believe in bad luck. There were two opponents that we always had to be able to handle, those were RWDM and Eupen. We had to take six out of six against that and it became zero out of six. And those matches were just plain bad. I don’t want to beat around the bush about it.”

We had the strong feeling that it was over for Marc Brys if he lost against KV Kortrijk.

“I’ve heard that so many times in my life. No evaluation was even conducted at that time, because everyone knows what the situation is. What can a trainer permanently save? Those are several good results in a row. That seems logical to me.”

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