European Football again, at last…

A day at the office of Jhon van Beukering, NEC-striker

The European euro-ball is starting again, next week. Champions League football! What a posters to look out for… Liverpool – Real Madrid, anyone?

But before Robben takes revenge on The Reds (his Chelsea was beaten twice in a row by ‘Pool), there’s a starters’ course this week. UEFA Cup football. With three Dutch clubs involved.

The once mighty Ajax plays Fiorentina, NEC takes on Martin Jol’s HSV Hamburg (Jol: “Rafael won’t come back to Hamburg…”) and FC Twente against Geret’s and Zenden’s Olympique Marseille.

Interesting matches. Ajax isn’t too relaxed for the match against Mutu, Gilardino & Co. Gabri, Cvitanich, Jan Vertonghen and Robbie Wielaert won’t be starting in Florence. The latter isn’t allowed to play since he played UEFA Cup football with FC Twente already. The other three aren’t fit to play.

NEC’s Mario Been has some headaches as well, but where Ajax is expected to do well, anything goes for the club from Nijmegen. The fact that they qualified in itself is seen as an enormous victory already. Mario Been can’t use his usual forward three due to injuries and other setbacks.

Been demands a clean fight: “Last Sunday, we lacked spirit. If we aren’t able to push ourselves to the limit against HSV, we might as well forfeit the game and go straight to the Reeperbahn (the erotic section in Hamburg).”

Steve McLaren doesn’t have any worries for his game in France. Everybody is fit. Ex-NEC signing Peter Wisgerhof can’t play, because he already played UEFA for NEC.