HOW Rini Coolen aims to turn Adelaide United into a modern football club.

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THE shrill blast of a whistle echoes around the field. It sounds like it's been blown in deep frustration, as if an extra intake of air was necessary to give the instrument its ultimate high-pitched expression. The man with the lungs is Rini Coolen, the head coach of soccer team Adelaide United. Coolen is overseeing another training session as he prepares his team for the A-League season starting tomorrow, and he is determined to use every available second to press home to his team exactly how he wants them to play.

At training Coolen prefers the helicopter view. He hovers above the fray while his assistants carry out the hands-on work of directing each moment of this almost two-hour session. He stands to the side. Immaculately dressed in his black long-sleeved top, black soccer shorts, black socks and black boots, Coolen's whistle blast indicates he is annoyed by slackness and a lack of precision. He strides on to the pitch. The focus of his ire is Cameron Watson, a young right back who has misplaced a short pass and surrendered possession in a practice match. "Don't make simple mistakes," he says to all the players. "Cameron Watson. Details. Don't give away the ball from 10m."

Details are important to Coolen, the Dutch coach who is about to embark on his second year in the A-League with Adelaide. His first year was a qualified success but expectations this year are far higher for the coach who has rebuilt a team by replacing long-serving local players such as former captain Travis Dodd and winger Lucas Pantelis with Australian internationals Jon McKain and Dario Vidosic. If last year was successful it was also turbulent as new owners came into the club and as tension rose between Coolen and some of his players who were not meeting his exacting standards. For a while it seemed the team was United in name only.

Coolen is also rebuilding Adelaide at a time when the focus on the A-League has never been greater. For so long the bastard child of Australian sport, soccer is now making gradual progress towards the mainstream after decades of mismanagement and ethnic rivalry. It will never rival the widespread appeal of AFL but the return of superstars Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton to play for Melbourne and Sydney respectively will ignite new interest in a competition that, while consistently improving its standard, has struggled financially.

It's easy to forget the game has come a long way in less than 10 years. Consecutive qualifications for the World Cup in 2006 and 2010 provided a platform, the advent of the A-League and a conscious move away from clubs being driven by ethnicity has all helped. United itself was only formed in 2003 when Adelaide City, long associated with the town's Italian community, withdrew from the old National Soccer League.

At times Coolen's focus on the minutiae seems bewildering. Before training he is worried the Kidman Park training pitch at the South Australian Sports Institute is too hard. But it's this attention to detail that he believes makes the difference between success and failure. To the outsider, especially one who has suffered through many seasons of amateur football playing on surfaces you would be ashamed to let a cow graze on, it looks like you could play lawn bowls on it with no trouble. But to Coolen the hard pitch is a worry because at the intensity his team trains it increases the chance of a player injuring an ankle or a knee. So what seems petty to the outsider is entirely rational to the professional.

After training, in the warm spring sunshine we talk about his football philosophies. "We need to work on the details," he says. "The players need to be focused every moment of every training session and every game." It's not to say Coolen is a tyrant or some kind of old-school bully. Despite all the hard work the atmosphere seems convivial, the team seems to be enjoying itself and if the blast of a whistle sometimes punctures the atmosphere, so does the laughter of happy players.

Coolen is by no means a ranter and a raver. After training he spends long moments in conversation with his players individually. Today there's a long chat with the forward Bruce Djite. It involves pointing, moving witches hats and is clearly a two-way effort. It's also not a hectoring or lecturing exchange. What he is trying to do is get inside his player's head and understand why he has made a decision on the field and to try and educate him about his options next time he is in the same position.

There is no doubt Coolen is a talker. Ask his coaches, ask the journalists who deal with him every week. Every question gets a long and detailed (there's that word again) answer. He is urbane, considerate and polite. He is friendly and respectful but there is also a certain ruthlessness, a certain mindset that insists his players must bend to his will. Perhaps it's his Dutch background. Dutch players and coaches populate every corner of the soccer universe. In older times the Dutch colonised the globe with explorers and traders. Today they do it with soccer. For a small nation they have been remarkably successful. They have three World Cup finals, although they are still to lift the trophy.

Australia has been a disciple. It started with Guus Hiddink who took the national team to the 2006 World Cup in Germany and became a national celebrity, and it continued with his compatriot Pim Verbeek who guided the national team at the 2010 tournament. There are Dutchman littered throughout the soccer hierarchy in Australia and it was some of these contacts that helped persuade Coolen to move to Adelaide.

Soccer has always been the driving force in 44-year-old Coolen's life. As a child it was his obsession. "I loved football so much and there were so many training sessions and playing on the street, and playing with my friends, it was not easy to accommodate with a lot of homework," he says. "I was 100 per cent convinced I was going to be a professional football player."

He cut his schooling short as a 16-year-old to become a professional with Go Ahead Eagles on the understanding that if it didn't work out he would return and finish his studies. Initially a left-footed midfielder before moving back to defence, Coolen remained a footballer until a knee injury forced him into retirement in 1995 at the age of 29. He played through a strong era in Dutch football, sharing the pitch with legends such as Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard But long before the end of his playing career he decided he wanted to coach as well. He started taking courses at 23 and kept them up so when his career ended he moved straight into coaching. Over the next decade he worked in the Dutch leagues, guiding teams such as FC Twente and Heracles.

But he was getting ready for a change of scenery. He was approached about possibly coaching Sydney in the early years of the A-League but decided he and his family were not quite ready for such a big move. But Australia was a continuing interest. He did some technical and analytical work for Verbeek when he was in charge of the national team. Two years before he moved to Australia he had already started his two children - Danique and Youri - on English lessons in preparation for a move.

Coolen was sounded out about the Adelaide job shortly before last season started. United had finished the previous season bottom of the ladder for the first time and coach Aurelio Vidmar resigned to take up a job with the national team. Coolen was interviewed via Skype for an hour by football director Michael Petrillo and then chief executive Sam Ciccarello who were sufficiently impressed to fly him over for a look at the club and the city.

It didn't take him long to decide. He spoke with another Dutchman, Football Federation Australia technical director Han Berger, who extolled the virtue of the club. He liked the city and he liked the idea of bringing his family to Adelaide, so the deal was done.

In Adelaide he could be closer to his family. In Holland his last job had required him to live some hours from home. He also came to enjoy the lifestyle. "Drink the nice wine and look at the blue sky with the nice sun and the beach; that is the moment I really relax," he says.

Coolen returned to Australia only two weeks before the season started. It's a laughably short time to prepare a team for a high-intensity competition. He has to get to know his players, learn their strengths and weaknesses, impart to them his theory of how he wants the game played (which was quite different to Vidmar's method) and start winning games.

He also had instructions from Petrillo and Cicarello about what they expected to see. "One of the things they asked me was to try and play some entertaining football, that is what the public deserves," he says. This was not a problem for Coolen. He is of the Dutch school. It's all about keeping possession of the ball, short passes, quick movement and creating goal-scoring opportunities.

Adelaide goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic has noted the differences between Coolen and his previous coaches. The Dutchman loves to practise the basics. Again it's the little things. Passing drills, possession drills that emphasise keeping the ball at all costs. "It's a simple thing but when you don't do it a lot you can get sloppy during games and if the standard is pretty high you will see that in games as well," Galekovic says.

And to the surprise of almost everyone, Coolen got the team off to a flyer, undefeated through its first 11 games and heading the A-Legaue before the stumbles came. United lost seven of its next 11 but recovered enough to finish third before eventually being knocked out in the second week of the finals by Gold Coast United. Perhaps it was inevitable the sheen would come off the Coolen gloss but the coach was also becoming frustrated at what he perceived as a lack of professionalism (read attention to detail) of some of this players.

Dom Rinaldo , a former media man for Adelaide United, saw up close how Coolen worked with his players. Rinaldo, who was controversially sacked after the new owners took control, believes the level of professionalism Coolen expected may have taken some by surprise. "He did ruffle a few feathers," Rinaldo says. "I think he might have been a tad frustrated because he was used to a different level of professionalism working over there (in Holland)." But Rinaldo says Coolen could have been a little more patient, that he perhaps expected too much from his players and tried to change things too quickly.

Either way the turn over of players at Adelaide in the last few months has been remarkable. Of the 11 players who started the team's final game of last year, six have left, including player of the year and fan favourite Marcos Flores. Goalkeeper Galekovic is the club's second longest serving player, although he only signed in 2007. He says the nature of football means there will always be comings and goings, but adds it's not always easy. "He wanted to bring in his own certain players and as a player that is sometimes hard because you do lose your friends to other clubs, but in the end he is the boss and he picks and chooses who he wants because he is the one in the gun."

As well as Flores, other high-profile departures included Mathew Leckie to German club Borussia Moenchen¬gladbach, captain Travis Dodd and popular midfielder Paul Reid. Coolen insists he would have kept all of them if he could have. New contracts were offered to Dodd and Reid but they turned them down. But for Coolen the saga over contracts at the end of last season was illustrative of why the culture of the team had to change.

He praises Dodd for continuing to play well despite the outside distraction of the contracts talks but is critical of Reid who refused to play in a game after his bid to move to Sydney FC was turned down by the club.

Coolen's focus is on building a culture that puts team before the individual. Last year he didn't see that enough from some of the Adelaide players. "Unfortunately you can only start 11 players and there will be disappointing moments by losing games or by not playing in the starting 11," he says. "You need the full squad to finally win something and that is something they need to understand."

You don't need to see Coolen striding across the (too short) grass at Kidman Park to understand he is the man in charge of this football club. Last year, when new owners lawyer Greg Griffin and businessman Rob Gerard bought the club one of their first acts was to give the club's coach a new four-year contract. Griffin was immediately taken by Coolen. He was impressed by how he had the team playing and also that the Adelaide United fans seemed to have warmed to the new man. "It was pretty clear he had taken a team that the previous year was in meltdown mode and transformed them into a team that was able to play a lot more attractive, entertaining game and actually had a bit of belief in themselves," he says.

Griffin was also impressed by Coolen's plans for talent identification and finding young South Australians with the potential to play in the A-League. The blueprint for the future was one reason Griffin authorised Coolen's extended contract. The club has revamped its academy program for young players based on how Coolen helped build Dutch club FC Twente from perennial struggler to regular championship challenger. "He said, 'don't expect me to produce juniors who will be able to play in the A-League in 12 months' time, it will take between two and four years'," Griffin says.

Some local soccer watchers have been concerned about the lack of locals in a team that was almost entirely made of them when the club started in 2003. With Dodd, Lucas Pantelis, Robert Cornthwaite and Iain Fyfe gone the only local that is likely to see much action is defender Daniel Mullen. Coolen says, though, he is committed to improving youth development and local coaching standards in SA. He is regularly spotted at state league games and has definite ideas on how young players should be taught. Again, this stems from his background. In Holland, all coaches, even of children, must have some form of qualification. And a place is found for every child.

Coolen is appalled by how much it costs a child to play soccer in SA. "I understand you need more pitches, more coaches, but expenses are fairly high," he says. "If my parents had to pay for their children to play sport what they have to pay in Australia there would be a fairly good chance I wouldn't be here, because they couldn't afford to pay so much."

He has other concerns as well. Coolen believes there is far too much focus on winning and losing at a young age. In SA it can be as young as five or six. In Holland, proper competition does not begin until much later. Focusing on the result of games involving little kids gets in the way of teaching them basic skills. It also has the capacity to take away some of the fun of playing the game. "There is too much focus on winning games, people thinking about themselves rather than what is best for the individual player," he says.

There is also, he says, not enough co-ordination between the various teams in which a young player may represent. A young, talented player in SA could play for their school, a club and a representative team across a weekend and the three teams have no interest in talking to each other about what is best for the child. "If you are not careful you will overload the player which could be a reason why a player won't make it," he says. "You need to work together, that is very important and that part we definitely have to improve."

Coolen does not deny soccer is an all-consuming passion. He acknowledges that for "my health" he needs to find more ways to relax. His life revolves around the game and his family. But he is enjoying living in Norwood with wife Melanie and their two children and will regularly pop around the corner to the Parade to have a coffee at Caffe Buongiorno.

Coolen has also picked up an appreciation of AFL - he's a Crows man - even if it did take some getting used to. His first game was a Showdown. "I was very surprised by the game. Eighteen against 18, on a pitch that size, with all the substitutes, the points, the rules, I was pretty confused." But he has picked up some similarities. He had conversations with former Adelaide coach Neil Craig on the value of skill and they swapped ideas on how to manage playing groups.

If Coolen is demanding of his players he is no less challenging on himself. His life seems to be a quest for continuous improvement - "the day you don't learn is the day not to live" - which leaves open the idea that Adelaide is only one stop on a longer journey. "I always wanted the best for myself as a football player at the highest level and I want the same for myself as a coach," he says.

In his usual open manner he says he would like one day to coach again in Europe or Asia, or even take charge of a national team. Not that he is in a rush, it's more a statement of what is practical in such a cut-throat profession. "Football is unpredictable," he says. "It's hard to plan something, but the challenges are there and you have to have challenges in your life."