“We made teams…” Rene Hake opens up on Erik ten Hag’s surprise Manchester United training drill

Former Manchester United first-team coach Rene Hake has opened up on a surprise training drill Erik ten Hag used to employ at Carrington.

Rene Hake was dismissed from Manchester United last month following the departure of Erik ten Hag in October of this year.

Although Hake stayed behind to help Ruud van Nistelrooy during the interim period before Rúben Amorim took charge, he was let go from his duties in mid-November.

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Hake has since taken life slowly and is not rushing into a new job, although the same cannot be said for Van Nistelrooy, who is the new manager of Premier League side Leicester City.

The same is said for Ten Hag, who has been pictured back in the Netherlands watching his former sides, AFC Ajax and FC Utrecht, among others, as he takes a break following his two and a half year stint at Old Trafford.

Ten Hag’s surprise training drill

Recently, Hake sat down with the Dutch news site Algemeen Dagblad to speak about his time at United and where he sees his future headed.

When asked about training high-level players, Hake explained that he could tell that experienced ones, such as Casemiro, had innate instincts that allowed them to see the game in a different light to others.

“Absolutely,” he replied when asked if he noticed that top players are wired differently in their minds than players of a slightly lower level.

“That’s in football insight. In seeing solutions. In learning ability. But it’s also in the mental part. Wanting to execute something well and continuing to execute it well, even after the 36th time.

“And with Casemiro I sometimes thought: he smells things. When it really matters, he has an antenna, he already senses what’s going to happen on the field.”

Further, he revealed that the other thing he found interesting from United training stemmed from a rather odd training drill Ten Hag used to employ – they would pit players from different cultures against each other in teams.

“I also found interesting games during training where we made teams from different cultures,” Hake revealed.

“The South Americans together, the English, the Dutch, the Scandinavians. South Americans set boundaries very differently than the Dutch.

“If Lisandro Martínez throws a few flying tackles in such a game, Joshua Zirkzee automatically has to do something with that. He has to arm himself against that.”

These days, training at Carrington is very different as the side learns to adapt to Rúben Amorim’s 3-4-3 system. Some, such as Rasmus Højlund and Noussair Mazraoui, are thriving, while others, like Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford, find it a little more complicated.

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