Marco van Basten has stepped down as AZ Alkmaar coach though he will continue at the Eredivisie club as assistant to his successor.

Van Basten said that being a head coach “is more and more often causing me physical and mental problems” and that he wanted to work out of the limelight.

The club director Earnest Stewart said the 49-year-old Van Basten would concentrate on developing young talent at the club, which lies 12th in the 18-team Dutch top flight.

Stewart said the club was talking to Van Basten’s former assistant, Alex Pastoor, about taking the reins.

Van Basten, the former Holland striker, joined Alkmaar this season. “I worked hard at it, because I find being a coach a great and interesting job,” he said. “I tried to put this off for as long as possible, but you reach a point where you say: ‘This is something that keeps coming back too often,’ and then you have to make a choice.”

He went on leave this month with undisclosed health problems. Dutch media reported he was suffering stress-related heart palpitations.

“The stress I experienced as a head coach was much more than I would have liked,” he said. “It [the palpitations] has happened to me several times over the last years. I thought I could overcome it and that things would get better.

“I worked hard at recovery and followed the necessary courses of treatment. I wanted to keep going but they kept coming back. There were two solutions: to do something else or to change the way I currently work.

“That is why I asked AZ to change my responsibility to better suit me and so that I can continue,” he added.

Van Basten coached Holland from 2004-08, leaving after the team was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the 2008 European Championship by Russia. He also coached Ajax from 2008 until he resigned in 2009, saying he did not consider himself up to the job.

“What I bring to Ajax is not enough,” Van Basten said when he announced his decision in 2009. “Ajax deserves better than what I have achieved this year. My qualities are not enough to make the difference next year with this group.”