Listen to the full interview via the Off The Ball Football Show podcast
AC Milan's new manager Clarence Seedorf is far more fascinating than one would believe.
Behind the scenes, the former Dutch international is quite a character.
Indeed as football writer Simon Kuper wrote in 2007 has been a larger than life figure since birth - quite literally.
Nicknamed "King Kong" by the nurses following his birth in Surinam and having graduated from breast-feeding after just eight weeks, Kuper told Off The Ball about a highly intelligent man who can put people's noses out of joint - but in a polite way.
"He's very clever. He skipped a year in kindergarten. By the end of kindergarten he was the de facto manager of his kindergarten. He's never officially held a coaching job but as we saw at Milan, he was trying to coach the team even when he was a player there. It caused a bit of irritation, although he's a very well-meaning guy," said Kuper.
That willingness to coach the team saw him clash with Fabio Capello at a training session, when the Italian was in charge of Real Madrid in the 90s as Steve McManaman revealed to Kuper.
"Seedorf would step forward and say 'you don't want to do it like that, you want to do it like this and then give the ball to me'. There was one scene at half-time where Capello tore off his own jacket, threw it on the floor and said to Seedorf: 'If you know it so well, why don't you be the manager?' Of course that is what's happened now."
As Italian footballer writer James Horncastle explained last night, Milan's owner Silvio Berlusconi and his daughter Barbara have been keen on appointing Seedorf as manager.
But will he make a good manager in a team that is struggling?
"He's not a confrontational guy like Mourinho. He likes to think that everybody is working for the greater good and we're all in this together but of course I Clarence Seedorf am supremely gifted and must make the ultimate decisions. So I wouldn't expect the angry set-tos that Jose Mourinho brings," said Kuper who also pointed out that Milan has been run like a family club by Berlusconi and added that the former Italy President has a habit of making good decisions at the club.
