Thriller in Dutch League

April 1st, 2007 | By: Jan | 4 Comments »

It seems were heading towards an interesting end of the Dutch competition 06-07 here…

PSV was crowned the winter champs some months ago, with a very comfortable lead over AZ and Ajax. Now, PSV has trouble holding on to their first position and with 4 matches to go, they find Ajax, AZ or even FC Twente catching up with them… PSV coach Ronald Koeman already publicly stated that his team could get into trouble. Only one more loss is needed for PSV to be on par with Ajax. The loss of giant Alex in defense is certainly a factor, as is the scarsity of strikers. Farfan was out for some time, Tardelli doesn’t really deliver, Kone had his injuries and Kluivert…well, Kluivert has shown his incredible skill in the meager minutes he did play, but he is still not considered match fit.

Ajax on the other hand, has found it’s spirit. It crushed number 4 FC Twente, they went on to crush PSV in the Philips Stadium, and they seem to be on a roll. So is AZ, but AZ still has the UEFA-cup to worry about, so most eyes are on the Sons of the Gods from Amsterdam.

PSV played 1-1 against NAC Breda,Ajax beat Heracles in a show of form with 3-0. Apart from the win, it was particularly good to see how Sneijder and Huntelaar play together. Last season - under Danny Blind - the average age of the Ajax team was 21 years. Now, with Stam, Davids and Gabri, the team has more balance and is on average 26 years old.

AZ won their game easily (2-0), Feyenoord beat Vitesse (1-0 Van Hooydonk) in Arnhem and FC Twente didn’t make any mistakes against FC Utrecht (3-0).

Tags: Patrick Kluivert, The Netherlands, Wesley Sneijder

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Comments

By Bruce | April 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm

PSV are in rough shape. I don’t know if my team is going to be able to hold on to the title with all these injuries… and the chances are quite good that they will get destroyed by Liverpool (my other team) this week.

Posted from Canada

By goose | April 3rd, 2007 at 6:37 am

well its mainly cause they miss Alex at the back, which is also mentally a great loss.. think it still is a great accomplishment to get to the last 8 with a dutch team..just learned that affelay will miss the game aswel but it still is football and anything can happen Bruce..keep up the faith!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Bruce | April 3rd, 2007 at 3:57 pm

The thing is I’d probably prefer to see Liverpool through, because they are way more likely to take it all (and I’d love to see my man Kuijt win with them)….

Faith is one thing, but rational expectations is another, and boy did Liverpool rip through PSV today. I wonder if Kuijt got that yellow card at the end of the game on purpose. I believe he did so he can play in the semis with a clean sheet.

Posted from Canada

By goose | April 3rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm

@Bruce: well he was asked by a dutch reporter and he said: “sometimes you have to be smart, but first we have to go trough to the next round and then well see if it was clever”, so yes, he did that on purpose…

psv was terrible but they only stand a change if all their top players are fit, without Alex, Affelay, Farfan (sec. half), Cocu wasnt fit all game..they never stood a change…well have to look at Az v Werder Bremen, i think that that could be a great game to watch, Bremen is the most scoring team in the Bundesliga and Az doenst do too bad either… will vanGaal (who just got a new 3 year contract with Az) do it again??

Posted from Netherlands

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