Jon Dahl Tomasson was outlining the pedigree he brings to Blackburn, and he did not need to reference his status as Denmark’s record scorer. Rather, he was citing the managers who afforded him an elite education in his playing days. There was Carlo Ancelotti at AC Milan. “The best team in the world at that time,” he recalled. Ancelotti, he said, was an expert at managing downwards and upwards. “Keeping the dressing room together, having control regarding the owners at that time with [Silvio] Berlusconi and [Adriano] Galliani.”
But there was another Real Madrid great, Leo Beenhakker, for whom he played at Feyenoord. His first stint in Rotterdam also included a couple of years under Bert van Marwijk, later to lead Holland to the World Cup final. He played for Denmark for a decade under the long-serving Morten Olsen.
