Ask Andries Jonker to explain the difference between coaching men and women and he reaches back into his past for an example. It is December 2002 and he is assistant manager to Louis van Gaal at Barcelona and cannot believe what he has just seen.

Newcastle are the visitors to the Camp Nou for a Champions League tie and a player is guarding the far post for a Barcelona corner. Except he has his left hand on the post and his right hand on his hip. Those hands are still there when Thiago Motta heads in.

“He really took a rest,” Jonker tells Sky Sports. He does not name the player but Newcastle supporters will need no reminding that it was Kieron Dyer. The Dutchman still remembers the moment 23 years on. This was an opposition player, remember. “With men, I cannot stand that. I get angry. You should not do that. That is impossible.”

And women? “Women do not do that. They just don’t. I have never seen a woman stand like that as the ball goes in. He was not even our player, of course. But it is an example of the different behaviours between men and women, and therefore my different behaviours.

“It does not make sense for me to get angry now because, in my opinion, the women that I work with always give their best. You do not have to wake them up. With men, you sometimes have the feeling, come on, pay attention. This is your job. You have to work.”

Jonker, who will lead Netherlands at Euro 2025, is an outlier in the women’s game. As his story about that night in Barcelona suggests, this is a coach who worked at the top of the men’s game for many years, later assisting Van Gaal at Bayern Munich too.

Arjen Robben praised him for bringing the joy back to training at Bayern. Arsene Wenger, with whom he went on to work at Arsenal, credits him with playing a key role in developing the structures that helped produce a generation of top-class Dutch talent.

But the best player that Jonker has ever worked with is a Catalan. “It has to be Xavi at Barcelona,” he replies, without hesitation. “He wasn’t tall. He wasn’t quick. He wasn’t really strong physically. But in the head, I have not seen any player better than he was.”

He adds: “He was outstanding. It was his orientation on the pitch, always scanning, always positioning his body into the best position. He was two footed and never in trouble. There was always time and space for him to play but he created it by himself.

“You saw players getting prizes for being the best player. It was always for the top scorer, for Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. Of course, they are outstanding as well. But we should have given Xavi a prize for being, for 10 years, the best midfielder in the world.”

At 62 years old, having worked with the very best, what keeps Jonker out on the grass? To explain this, he has another story, this one a little more personal. His mother, 86, has had to go into a care home. Jonker and his brother set about cleaning the family home.

“We have found all kinds of things related to football when I was just eight or nine years old,” he says, smiling. There are old boots. There is a book collecting pictures of players from the 1969/70 season. There is even a model of a football player that he made as a kid.

“At least it looked like a football player. I must have been seven. But it shows that it was in the bones. I was really passionate about football even then. It is really great to see it all again, to feel that passion. It does not disappear. It is still there. I just love football.”

Naturally, he names Van Gaal as one of his biggest influences. The others are no great surprise either. “I am from Amsterdam,” he says, as if this is all the explanation required. “The influence of Rinus Michels, of Johan Cruyff… that made me the football lover I am.”

He has had to adapt his ideas, of course. “The men and women of this century cannot be compared to the men and women of the last century. The game has developed very much physically, it is at a higher tempo so the brain and the feet have to be quicker.”

He stops short of saying the football is better. But he does believe he is a better coach. “You develop with the game, new influences come. In the end, you find yourself becoming a completely different coach. I am much better now than I was 20 years ago.”

Jonker’s first experience coaching in the women’s game came even before that, working with Dutch youngsters. It was then that he first noticed how it brought out different qualities in him as a coach. “Immediately, I felt I was doing it differently,” he reveals.

“At the time, I thought about it. Why am I talking differently to the girls than the boys? I spoke in a different tone. I had more patience. Maybe it was how I was brought up, the time I was brought up. But it just went that way and I have decided that is the way it is.”

It is not as if he is not demanding. He has big expectations of his team ahead of Euro 2025 and was disappointed by their showing against Germany and Scotland at the start of June. The hope is that a short break has rejuvenated a squad he maintains is strong.

“On paper, this is maybe the best team we have ever had.” Bold talk given that Sarina Wiegman, whose England team they will face during the group stage in Switzerland, won this tournament with Netherlands in 2017, going on to reach a World Cup final.

“Sarina had success with 10 or 11 outstanding players and managed to keep them fit. Of course, the others helped. But we had 15, 16 or 17 players at the highest level.” Now, there are more options. “I have some difficult choices. That is a big difference.”

Many of what Jonker describes as Netherlands’ “golden generation” – think Vivianne Miedema, Sherida Spitse, Danielle van de Donk, Jackie Groenen, Shanice van de Sanden, Dominique Janssen and Jill Roord – are still around for this tournament.

Miedema has fought to be ready, scoring twice against Finland in the final warm-up game. “She is a world-class player and worked very hard, bringing a physio with her on holiday, training with [partner] Beth [Mead]. We are doing everything to get her fit.”

But others are now emerging too. “With the young talents like Veerle Buurman, Esmee Brugts and Wieke Kaptein, it is special. And this is the chance. When the older ones stop, Arjan Veurink has to do a lot of work on creating and building a new team.”

The mention of Veurink, who, in a delicious coincidence, will help prepare England to face Netherlands in his role as Wiegman’s assistant, is a reference to the fact that Jonker is to be replaced at the end of Euro 2025. The change was not his choice.

“I was surprised and disappointed. There are a lot of other things to say but that is what I can tell you.” Between now and then, his task is to prepare his team for group games against England and France – but only after their opening fixture against Wales.

“Everybody in my environment seems to think Wales are a piece of cake. And I think they are all wrong. I think Wales is tough. I do not have any sand in my eyes.” The group favourites? “It will be who is in the best shape or maybe who has the most luck.”

For Jonker, the hope is that he can bow out in style. “When I accepted the job, I said two things. One, I wanted to enjoy a World Cup and a European Championship. The second thing was to help women’s football make a few steps forward. I think we did that.”

He explains: “We play very attractive football and we try to inspire, especially, children who love to play football. And that is what we managed to do. And it would be the crown of my work if we could do this tournament very, very well.” But what does that mean?

“The best thing that we can do is win the tournament,” he says. But perhaps in a nod to those inspirations of the past, Michels and Cruyff, as well as the little boy who just loved the game of football, he adds: “At the very least, we have to play a great tournament.”