The Netherlands have not handed the national team to a foreign coach since Ernst Happel took them to the 1978 World Cup final in Argentina. A private meeting in Málaga has put that streak on the table again.
Nigel de Jong, the KNVB’s director of top football, sat down face-to-face with Roberto Martinez in Málaga, De Telegraaf reported and Dutch broadcaster NOS confirmed. The Dutch federation has not commented publicly, and Martinez’s own camp has already tempered expectations.
“If De Jong calls, we will talk. But the KNVB traditionally opts for a Dutch coach, and financially I suspect the expectations are very far apart. I don’t see how this can become a deal,” Martinez’s Belgian lawyer Jesse De Preter told Voetbal International.
A vacancy no Dutch coach wants
The job opened when Ronald Koeman resigned on 30 June, the day after the Netherlands went out of the 2026 World Cup in the round of 32, beaten on penalties by Morocco in the country’s earliest exit from a World Cup.
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De Jong’s shortlist since has read like a list of near-misses. Arne Slot, fresh from success at Liverpool, ruled himself out at the end of July, saying he wants to keep working in club football with players every day.
Erik ten Hag and Peter Bosz were approached but never reached serious negotiations, according to the reporting picked up by Sportingpedia. Michael Reiziger met KNVB officials at Amsterdam’s Okura Hotel earlier in the summer, but that conversation did not lead to a follow-up. Pep Guardiola was among the names contacted; nothing came of it.
Why Martinez, and why now
Martinez, 53, left the Portugal job after their run at the 2026 World Cup ended in the round of 16 against eventual champions Spain. Before that he spent six years in charge of Belgium’s golden generation, taking bronze at the 2018 World Cup, and had a long club career in England with Swansea, Wigan and Everton.
The 1978 line
Happel, an Austrian, remains the last non-Dutch coach to lead Oranje. He took the job in 1977 alongside his post at Club Brugge, guided the Netherlands to the final in Buenos Aires, and left in 1978 after a 3-1 extra-time defeat to hosts Argentina.
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Nothing has been signed. De Preter’s public scepticism about the money, combined with the KNVB’s own tradition, is a heavy brake. But De Jong has now sat down with the candidate in person, which is more than the federation has done with a foreign coach in almost half a century.
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