Giovanni van Bronckhorst named Liverpool assistant, Xavi Valero returns in coaching shake up

New York Times

02-07-2025

Liverpool have confirmed the appointment of Giovanni van Bronckhorst as assistant coach, while Xavi Valero has returned to the club as goalkeeping coach following the departures of both Fabian Otte and Claudio Taffarel.
The Athletic reported on June 12 that Van Bronckhorst, 50, was close to joining Liverpool's backroom team as a replacement for John Heitinga, who departed to take up the head coach's role at Ajax.
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Van Bronckhorst will form a new-look backroom team alongside Sipke Hulshoff and Aaron Briggs, and Valero – who has returned to the club from Premier League rivals West Ham United.
Valero first joined the Reds in 2007 under then-boss Rafael Benitez and subsequently worked under the Spaniard at Internazionale, Chelsea, Napoli and Real Madrid, joining West Ham in summer 2018 following a spell with Hebei China Fortune.
Van Bronckhorst has held roles at Feyenoord, Rangers and Besiktas, and while he has never worked with Slot before, the pair share a similar philosophy regarding playing style.
The role marks a first return to the Premier League for the former Netherlands international since his two seasons at Arsenal between 2001 and 2003.
The former midfielder and full-back also played for Feyenoord, Rangers, and Barcelona and was capped 106 times by his country across a 17-year professional career.
He retired in 2010 and began his coaching career in Feyenoord's academy, before spending four years as the club's first-team manager. He then had a short spell coaching in China before taking charge of Rangers for a year.
Following his dismissal as Rangers manager in November 2022, Van Bronckhorst was sacked from his position as Besiktas manager after five months in charge in December 2024. He has been working as a UEFA analyst since the start of 2025.
Valero, meanwhile, returns to Liverpool as a replacement for Otte and Taffarel, who have both departed after one season working under Slot – marking a wholesale change in the club's first-team goalkeeper coaching set up.
Otte arrived in summer 2024, the same summer in which Slot was appointed, following spells with the US Men's National Team, Burnley and Borussia Monchengladbach.
Brazilian World Cup-winner Taffarel began coaching with Liverpool in 2021, initially working under Slot's predecessor Jurgen Klopp.
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By The Athletic's Jordan Campbell
Van Bronckhorst took time out of the game after six months in Turkey managing Besiktas, which was not the easiest to navigate behind the scenes.
He had opportunities to return to management and that remained his plan but this was too good an opportunity to turn down. The Feyenoord connection also helped.
Van Bronckhorst knows English football well from his time as an Arsenal player and he also spent time at City Football Group where he learned the methodology employed by Pep Guardiola.
He never joined the network, however, and after a spell in China he returned to Rangers where he had success as a player. He won a Scottish Cup but the highlight proved to be an astonishing run to the Europa League final which saw the Scottish side beat Borussia Dortmund, Red Star Belgrade, Braga and RB Leipzig before losing to Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties.
He was unable to build on that success domestically and was sacked midway through the next season after a dismal Champions League group performance.
His style matches Slot's in that it is possession-based and he usually operates with a 4-3-3. But his super strength, as he showed in Rangers' run, is his eye for detail in one-off games so he should be a strong addition to the staff given his experience at big clubs with big expectations.