NOBODY can question Johnny Metgod’s enthusiasm in returning to the English game. Rung one mid-November Friday by Tony Adams and asked to join the coaching staff at Portsmouth, the Dutchman was on a plane by Monday, signed up by Tuesday and reporting for duty on Thursday. It would be tempting to suggest that by the following Saturday, Portsmouth were playing like a cross between Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest and the great Ajax side of the mid-Seventies but, in truth, with the club up for sale and Newcastle due at Fratton Park today, there is still work to be done.

Adams has chosen his assistant intelligently. Metgod was part of the Real Madrid side that also included Vicente del Bosque and Jose Camacho, two of Spain’s most successful coaches. When enticed to the City Ground by Clough in 1984, Metgod quickly assumed the role of on-field general, a tall, balding (even then) centre-half who passed like an inside-forward, defended at times like an inside-forward and boasted an array of free kicks the equal of Ronaldinho. After three years he fell out of favour, however, and decamped first to Tottenham and then to Feyenoord in Rotterdam, where he has played and coached pretty well ever since. It was a clash of philosophy with Clough as much as character. Clough wanted his centre-half to add a little English physicality to his game; Metgod was more interested in having the ball at his feet and dictating play the Dutch way. “You either loved Cloughie or loathed him,” says Metgod now, “but you can never take away from him the fact that he won two European Cups with a small club.”

He muses on the idea that Rotterdam and Portsmouth have something in common, both port clubs with fanatical support and a strong heritage. “It’s true, though Feyenoord had 40,000 crowds,” says the 50-year-old. “But I didn’t have to think for a second about coming to Portsmouth. I was coming back home in one way because I have good memories of the English game. It’s a privilege to work for this club and in this country with full stadiums every week and such unbelievable commitment. People in Holland might think Portsmouth is a small club because they think only of Manchester United or Arsenal. But at Feyenoord we were just introducing video analysis. Here you have three guys working on video analysis. Looked at like that, it’s not a small club at all.”

The key to Metgod’s return to a culture of football always regarded as a bit lowbrow by the Dutch was the relationship he forged during Adams’ brief spell on the coaching staff at Feyenoord. When Adams was taking the reserves, Metgod was assistant coach to the first team. They shared a belief in how the game should be played. “Tony and I would watch the under19s together and a couple of times he came for dinner,” Metgod says. “We talked about football, of course, but we also talked about life. I felt I came to know him as a person and as a coach. It’s not healthy to agree on everything but we can have a debate about it.”

Brought up in a suburb of Amsterdam, Metgod was part of the gifted AZ Alkmaar side that ran Bobby Robson’s Ipswich so close in the 1981 Uefa Cup final. He still recalls his introduction to the English first division, against newly-promoted Sheffield Wednesday. He played midfield and watched the ball sail over his head all afternoon. “I wondered if it was all going to be like this. Then we played Arsenal a few days later and won 2-0, so it was better.”

His aim at Pompey is to instil tactical nous into a multinational squad, which means killing off games by keeping the ball and resisting the call of the home crowd to press forward for more goals regardless. “You’re 2-1 up against AC Milan, so get hold of the ball and take the pace out of the game. You can’t play at an English pace for 94 minutes.”

Portsmouth’s tendency to concede late has cost them already this season, most notably in their exit from Europe. Yet under Adams and Metgod the team play with more adventure and tactical flexibility than at any time under Harry Redknapp. The hand of Metgod is clearly visible in the transformation, in the swagger with which the urchins of Portsmouth matched the aristocrats of AC Milan in the Uefa Cup. Just like the old days at Forest.

“It’s a little the same,” Metgod says. “It’s not about luxury, it’s about the supporters and the people you work with. From the first moment I walked up the stairs I felt part of the club.”