Liverpool have confirmed the names of the first three coaches to join Arne Slot’s backroom staff following his arrival at the club from Feyenoord.
It wasn’t just Jurgen Klopp who left Anfield last month, with the end of a chapter in the club’s history also seeing the departures of long-term assistant manager Pep Lijnders and elite development coach Vitor Matos moving on as well. Both men will begin next season with Red Bull Salzburg, where Lijnders has been put in charge and taken Matos with him as an assistant.
Goalkeeping coach John Achterberg also took the decision to move on.
Joining Slot in a new look coaching unit is Sipke Hulshoff, who had worked with the 45-year-old at former club Feyenoord since 2022 and was known to him before that too. He was also an assistant to Ronald Koeman with the Netherlands national team until stepping down recently.
Sipke Hulshoff has also worked closely with Ronald Koeman / Soccrates Images/GettyImages
Ruben Peeters is joining Liverpool as lead physical performance coach, also from Feyenoord, with Fabian Otte appointed first-team goalkeeping coach from the United States national team. Otte has worked in England previously, having been an assistant goalkeeping coach with Burnley, before later going on to serve with Borussia Monchengladbach in his native Germany.
“Of course, you want to take some people with you as well because they know who you are, they know your playing style and they can translate this to the other people in the staff as well. But if you go to a club like Liverpool, you can assume – and I already noticed that – that there are a lot of good people working here as well,” Slot told LiverpoolFC.com.
“We are hopefully going to use the best of both worlds to implement a few things from us and to use the knowledge inside this club already because of the nine years Jurgen and his staff worked here.”
Slot added that he is in constant contact with new Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes, with “one or two” other coaching positions yet to be filled.
