Erik Ten Hag biography, teams coached, trophies, coaching style, wife

• Manchester United announced the appointment of  Erik Ten Hag as the club’s Head Coach on April 21, 2022
• Ten Hag moved to Ajax in 2017, winning multiple titles and earning worldwide attention with his youth development success
• Ten Hag openly admitted that he was influenced heavily by Pep Guardiola during his time at Bayern Munich
• The incoming United manager has been coaching since 2012, ten years after his retirement as a player

Who is Erik Ten Hag?

Erik ten Hag, 52, was born in the Netherlands and has progressed through the ranks of Dutch football, first as a player and now as a coach.

Ten Hag was born in the Dutch province of Twente in the town of Haaksbergen. He had a 13-year playing career, highlighted by three separate periods with Eredivisie club FC Twente.

Erik Ten Hag. Photo: Skysports

Ten Hag, regarded as one of the world’s rising managerial stars, has been coaching since 2012, ten years after his retirement as a player.

Erik ten Hag clubs coached & managerial record

The former Twente defender retired in 2002 as a member of the FC Twente squad, where he played for eight of his twelve seasons.

After retiring, he stayed on to coach in the Twente youth system, taking charge of the Under-17 and Under-19 teams before moving up to the senior side as an assistant manager under Fred Rutten and Steve McClaren.

He left Twente in 2009 to rejoin Rutten at PSV, where he helped lead the team to the Dutch Cup title.

Ten Hag landed his first senior managerial position at Eerste Divisie (second division) side Go Ahead Eagles, which shareholder Marc Overmars brought in.

In his first and only season in charge, he helped the club gain promotion to the top flight via a playoff before departing for a job with Bayern Munich’s reserve squad as part of Pep Guardiola’s managerial staff.

After two seasons in Germany, ten Hag returned to the Netherlands to take over as manager and sporting director of Eredivisie club FC Utrecht.

He led Utrecht to fifth- and fourth-place finishes in the league, the latter of which was the club’s third-best ever finish and its best since the 1980s, earning Europa League qualification.

Ten Hag then moved to Ajax in 2017, where he has won multiple titles and garnered international fame for his youth development and European success.

Erik Ten Hag’s trophies and honours

Ten Hag was trophy-less during his first three managerial stints, which was understandable given that he was in charge of smaller clubs, but that changed when he joined Ajax.

Since taking over as manager of the Dutch giants, Ten Hag has twice led the club to the Dutch league title and the Dutch Cup in the same season.

He could have won a third title if COVID-19 had not ended the Dutch league early in 2019-20 with the club atop the table, but no title was awarded.

In Europe, he has yet to win an outright trophy. Still, he had performed admirably at times, including the 2018-19 season, when he led the club to the Champions League semifinals, defeating Real Madrid.

Tottenham staged a late comeback to win 3-2 on aggregate, bringing the run to an end heartbreakingly.

Ten Hag has won the Dutch league’s Coach of the Year award twice, with FC Utrecht in 2016 and 2019 following Ajax’s incredible season. He also came in fourth place in FIFA’s worldwide Coach of the Year award that 

Erik Ten Hag has won Erevidivisie title twice. Photo: Skysports

Erik ten Hag’s silverware:

Eredivisie title: 2018-19, 2020-21

KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup): 2018-19, 2020-21

Johan Cruyff Shield: 2019

Erik ten Hag’s awards & honors:

Rinus Michaels Coach of the Year Award: 2016, 2019

FIFA The Best Award, Men’s Head Coach: 2019 (4th place)

Ten Hag’s Coaching style

Erik ten Hag, who openly admits to being heavily influenced by Pep Guardiola during his time at Bayern Munich, employs a very attack-minded 4-2-4 at Ajax, which has been enormously successful this season.

“I learned a lot from Guardiola,” Ten Hag said in 2019. “His philosophy is sensational, what he did in Barcelona, Bayern, and Manchester City.

“That attacking and attractive style sees him win a lot. It’s this structure that I’ve tried to implement with Ajax.”

While that 4-2-4 can be harmful, Ajax also benefits from being a big fish in a small pond, allowing it to rig the system against far inferior Eredivisie sides.

His Champions League campaign in 2018-19 featured a similar but slightly more pragmatic 4-3-3 with a double-pivot in midfield that has its roots in Dutch football but has become widely popular worldwide over the last decade.

He has also been known to use a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-4-2 diamond, though his versions of those formations all have the same fundamental principles, with a pair of midfielders through the middle who play off each other and a pair of attacking wingers who pin opposing full-backs to their end lines.

Bianca Ten Hag, Erik Ten Hag keeps his family private. Photo: We all follow United

Wife and children

Erik Hag is married with three children. Bianca Ten Hag is Erik Ten Hag’s wife. The two have kept their relationship details private and rarely appear together in public.

Many publications, however, claim the couple was childhood sweethearts.

Erik ten Hag enjoys golf with his wife when he is not managing a football club. Erik has three children: two daughters and a son. He lives in Oldenzaal, Twente, the Netherlands, with his family.