Martin Jol

Maarten Cornelis "Martin" Jol (born 16 January 1956) is a Dutch football manager and former midfielder. Prior to joining Ajax he managed German club Hamburger SV and English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. Jol played over 400 games during his career which included spells in the Netherlands, Germany, and England, as well as earning three caps with the Dutch national team.

Playing career 

Jol was born in The Hague. He started his playing career with an amateur team before joining the local professional side ADO Den Haag. He turned professional with Den Haag in 1973. He won the 1975 Dutch Cup with the team defeating FC Twente. He would play in the Bundesliga for the 1978–79 season with Bayern Munich before returning to the Dutch Eredivisie to play for FC Twente in 1979. While with Twente, he won his first cap for the Netherlands national football team in October 1980. Jol moved to England in 1982, joining West Bromwich Albion. He appeared in the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions in 1981–82. He signed for Coventry City in 1984. Jol returned to Den Haag in 1985, and won the 1985 Dutch Footballer of the Year award in the Eerste Divisie league. At international level, Jol won 10 schoolboy caps, 20 'B' caps, 12 Under-21 caps and 12 Under-23 caps. He also made three appearances for the senior team, all of which came in the 1980 Mundialito held in Uruguay in the summer of 1980.

Coaching career

Jol's coaching career began in 1991 when he took over at the amateur side ADO Den Haag and took them to the highest local amateur division. Jol then moved to the leading local amateur side Scheveningen for one season where he won the national non-league championship. Jol then spent two years as manager at the professional Eredivisie side Roda JC of Kerkrade, Netherlands, during which time he won the Dutch cup (Roda's first trophy for 30 years). Between 1998 and 2004 Jol managed the Dutch professional team RKC Waalwijk where he saved them from relegation and was honoured as the Dutch Football Writers Coach of the Year in 2001 and Dutch Players and Coaches Coach of the Year in 2002. Manchester United spoke to Jol about becoming their assistant manager in 2003.

Hamburg 
From the 2008–09 season he began coaching Bundesliga club Hamburger SV. For the first time since the 1999–2000 season Hamburg was at the top of the league standings and finally finished 5th place qualifying for the Europa League next season. Hamburg also reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup and the German Cup which were both lost against Werder Bremen.

AJAX 
On 26 May 2009 it was announced that Jol was to be the new head coach of AFC Ajax, taking over from Marco van Basten who resigned at the end of the season. Jol showed his happiness at returning back to his home country and on 28 May 2009 he officially signed a 3 year contract.
After winning their opening two games of the season, Jol's Ajax lost away to PSV Eindhoven and then drew with Sparta Rotterdam at home, a result that saw them slip down to 7th place in the Eredivisie. However, this was the only game in which they dropped points at home all season. They ended the season with the league's strongest defence and the fewest league goals conceded by any Dutch team in 5 years, including just 4 conceded at home all season. Even more incredibly, they scored 106 league goals (an average of more than 3 per game), the most any Dutch side has scored since the 1997–98 season. This meant that Ajax ended the season with a goal difference of +86. PSV, who had the next best goal difference in the league, had only half of this with +43.
Jol's side didn't drop a single point after January, winning their final 14 games of the season. This meant that they finished with 85 points, a 17 point improvement on the previous season, and a tally that would have been enough to win the league in all but two of the seasons since 1995 when the rules of the Eredivisie changed to award 3 points for a win instead of 2. However, they were beaten to the title by one point, by Steve McClaren's FC Twente, who won their first ever Eredivisie title.
Jol had some consolation for the season, by winning the Dutch Cup, his first trophy since winning the same competition 13 years earlier with Roda JC, by beating Feyenoord 6-1 on aggregate in the first two-leg final since 1983. On 6 December 2010 Jol resigned as manager of Ajax and media linked him to the vacancy at Newcastle United F.C.