The Dutchman counts FC Zwolle, NAC Breda, Sparta Rotterdam and PEC Zwolle among the clubs he played for.
He recalled to Liverpoolfc.com: “When I became a bit older, I became the captain.
“And you know how it is, managers always ask – some managers always ask – ‘What do you guys think about it?’ And everybody is quiet, they are all waiting for someone to step up and say something.
“To be honest, it was mostly me then because it also gave me the chance to express what I thought we could improve. Hopefully, as I remember it, in a positive way.
“It was also a chance for me because I really needed the team, I wasn’t a player that could do anything on an individual basis, I always needed my teammates to play OK-to-good.
“I needed the team for sure because I had no individual quality. I couldn’t dribble, I could only pass so I needed my teammates. I could pass quite well for the level I was at. But then you need your teammates to go in the right moment deep and to play you the ball in the right moment.
“Because I wasn’t that fast, if I was free I needed to get the ball in the right moment and at the right timing. So you start to think about that in a younger age if you’re not that fast, and I did this.
“And I always liked to work with people and hopefully to help them – even the younger players in the team – to help them to become better or to play better.”
Slot also said, “The last choice I made in my career – to leave Sparta, where we played together, to go to my former club PEC Zwolle – was all about me wanting to become a manager, because I already put in that contract that after I would stop as a player I would become an assistant coach for two years.
“Why two years? Because at that moment you needed two years of experience as an assistant coach before you could do the course in Holland to become a head coach. So I was like, OK, that is the minimum I need to have.
“When I was at Sparta, maybe I could have still played at a bit higher level than the club I went to, Zwolle, who at that moment were a first division club. But it was a choice for my managerial career.”