Driessen and Verweij Critique Rigaux: Warning Signs for Feyenoord

Dévy Rigaux has barely closed his first transfer window at Feyenoord and already the knives are out. In De Telegraaf’s Kick-off podcast, Valentijn Driessen and Mike Verweij tear into the new technical director’s start in Rotterdam, calling the window “no success at all” and warning of a worrying déjà vu.

Verweij doesn’t need long to set the tone. That much-discussed round-table session Rigaux held with journalists? It left him deeply unimpressed.

“When I look at that round-table discussion by Rigaux with several journalists, I really fear the worst,” he says, before dropping the comparison that will sting in Amsterdam and Rotterdam alike. “I hope this does not become the new Sven Mislintat.”

The reference is crystal clear: a smooth-talking technical director, bold rhetoric, but a transfer policy that quickly unravels.

Naive on transfers? “It happens everywhere”

Verweij zooms in on two key points from Rigaux’s media appearance. First, the stance around Hadj Moussa.

“He says: ‘No club is allowed to talk to Hadj Moussa, because he has an ongoing contract.’ Well, that is very naive, because it happens everywhere,” Verweij states. In other words: the transfer world doesn’t work the way Rigaux publicly sketches it, and pretending it does only exposes inexperience.

Then there is the saga around Read and interest from Roma. Rigaux insisted there was no bid of 30 million euros, clinging to an “official bid” of 26 million.

“But in telephone contact Roma immediately indicated they wanted to move towards that 30 million,” Verweij counters. The implication: Rigaux may be hiding behind formalities, instead of acknowledging the true scope of the negotiations.

The Mislintat comparison returns quickly. “He brings in players from the second Bundesliga,” Verweij notes, drawing a line between Feyenoord’s new policy and the much-criticised recruitment at Ajax under the German. “And another similarity is that you can sense in the media that everyone is over the moon with Rigaux, as if a world wonder has walked in. That was also the case with Mislintat.”

“Scandalous” round-table and a shot at Te Kloese criticism

Driessen then steps in and turns up the volume. That same round-table with Rigaux? He doesn’t mince his words.

“It was truly a scandalous round-table discussion!” he snaps. What irritates him most is the way Rigaux spoke about the era under Dennis te Kloese, without directly naming him.

According to Driessen, Rigaux let “all kinds of things slip” about the Te Kloese period: too many players, far too high wages, too many write-downs on transfers. The suggestion that he inherited a financial and sporting mess does not sit well.

“He knew what he was getting into, didn't he?” Driessen fires back. For him, Rigaux can’t present himself as both the saviour and the victim of the previous regime.

His scepticism only grows when Rigaux talks about doing things in a “completely different way”.

“Well, I'm very curious whether in that, according to him, ‘completely different way’ he is going to achieve the same results as Dennis te Kloese,” Driessen fumes. Under Te Kloese, Feyenoord returned to the Champions League and reclaimed domestic prominence. Matching that is a high bar, let alone surpassing it.

Champions League warning and doubts over new signings

Driessen then lands on the sporting core of his concern: the strength of the current squad.

“You can go into the Champions League with this team,” he says, “but you will finish bottom without a chance.” The verdict is brutal. For him, Feyenoord risk becoming group-stage passengers rather than contenders.

And if that happens, he asks, what does it do to the market value of key assets like Read, Hadj Moussa and Zechiël? A poor European campaign can quickly strip the shine off promising players. Feyenoord’s transfer strategy, in that light, looks like a high-risk gamble.

“Everyone falls for his slick talk”

Verweij isn’t done with the Mislintat parallels. He sees another pattern: the charm offensive.

“Everyone falls for his slick talk!” he says of Rigaux. The enthusiasm surrounding the Belgian in parts of the media reminds him uncomfortably of the early hype around Mislintat at Ajax, when critical questions lagged behind the narrative of a visionary arrival.

One example he gives is the assessment of goalkeeper Tjark Ernst. Rigaux reportedly views him as potential Die Mannschaft material. Verweij skewers that idea with one line: “Every diagonal ball is a goal conceded!”

It’s a punchline, but the message is serious. In his eyes, Feyenoord’s new technical director talks big, sells big, but the reality on the pitch doesn’t match the rhetoric yet.

So the picture painted by Driessen and Verweij is clear: a club with Champions League ambitions, a technical director with confident words and a bold reset, but a first window that, in their view, raises more red flags than hopes.

If this really is Mislintat 2.0, Feyenoord will find out soon enough.