Liverpool has confirmed the appointment of Giovanni van Bronckhorst as assistant coach, while Xavi Valero returned to the club as a goalkeeper coach, replacing Fabian Otte and Claudio Taffarel.
On June 12, The Athletic reported that Van Bronckhorst, 50, was about to join Liverpool's training team to replace John Heitinga, who left the club to take on the role of a head coach at Ajax.
Van Bronckhorst will be part of a completely new team of coaches along with Sipke Hulshoff and Aaron Briggs, next to Valero – who has just moved from West Ham back to Liverpool.
Valero first joined the Merseyside team in 2007 under the coach Rafael Benitez, and then continued to work with the Spanish strategist at Inter, Chelsea, Napoli and Real Madrid, before moving to West Ham in the summer of 2018 after a short time working at Hebei China Fortune (China).
As for Van Bronckhorst, he used to take on the role of head coach at Feyenoord, Rangers and Besiktas. Although he has never worked with Arne Slot, both have similar football philosophy, especially in terms of controlling the ball and organizing the gameplay.
This is the first time Van Bronckhorst has returned to the Premier League since the time of Arsenal in two seasons from 2001 to 2003. In the career of the player, Van Bronckhorst used to play for FeyenOrd, Rangers, Barca and Arsenal, and 106 captured in the Netherlands team in his career lasting 17 years.
After retiring in 2010, Van Bronckhorst started his training career at Feyenoord Academy, and was appointed a one -year coach in a four -year team. After that, he had a short time working in China before leading Rangers for a year.
After being fired in November 2022, Van Bronckhorst continued to be terminated by Besiktas after only 5 months of led in December 2024. Since the beginning of 2025, he has taken on the role of an analyst for UEFA.
Meanwhile, Valero returned to Liverpool to replace Otte and Taffarel – the two goalkeepers who just left after a working season under Slot – marking a comprehensive change in the club's goalkeeper training team.
Otte joined Liverpool in the summer of 2024, at the same time Slot was appointed, after working stages with the US national team, Burnley and M'Gladbach. The former Brazilian world champion, Claudio Taffarel, started training at Liverpool since 2021, under his predecessor Jurgen Klopp.
Van Bronckhorst has paused the training career after 6 months of hard work in Besiktas. Although initially intended to return to the bench, the proposal from Liverpool was a very attractive opportunity for him to refuse. The relationship with Feyenoord – his former team and Slot – also contributed to facilitating this decision.
Van Bronckhorst understood the English football environment since he was playing for Arsenal, and also had time to work at City Football Group, where he learned Pep Guardiola's training method. However, Van Bronckhorst has never officially joined this system.
Van Bronckhorst's coaching style is similar to Slot: tends to control the ball, often using 4-3-3 scheme. However, his special strength – as once shown Rangers – is the ability to prepare details for important matches.
This is a factor that promises to help a lot for Liverpool's coaching team, especially when faced with great expectations at a club -level club like The Reds.