Weekend Action and Willem van Hanegem…

Well, I commented on the biggest upset of this weekend already… Feyenoord losing away to Ajax, 5-1. That hurts. Every Feyenoord fans secretly thanks the referee for that debatable red card for Babovic, so they can now claim that maybe maybe maybe with eleven, Feyenoord would have had a chance.

Ajax played impressive without being brilliant. But from the start, it was clear Ajax wanted to win this game. Feyenoord was overwhelmed and thankful that Pantelic and Suarez’ canons weren’t aimed right. When Feyenoord got back into the game, after 15 minutes or so, Ajax got some scares. Vlaar was the danger man from Rotterdam, with a sneaky header and a rocket on the post.

A marking mistake of Fer resulted in the first goal. By Fer. De Zeeuw couldn’t connect with the ball too well and Fer’s leg pushed the ball under Van Dijk. 1-0 and credited to De Zeeuw. Within 60 seconds the game was altered. Where Suarez was left unpunished for his wide arm in Babovic (!) face, the latter got red-carded for a similar offence. There was blood, so ref Blom thought red was the color in fashion.

Playing ten against eleven Ajax players is tough for any opponent and when Emanuelson scored the 2-0 right after the break, Feyenoord was ready for the slaughter. The 3-0 (Van der Wiel) was another lucky. Pantelic wanted to play the ball wide, but a Feyenoord shoe pushed the leather in the stride of the young right back, whose finish was impeccable.

A nifty pass of ol’ timer Gio on the other ol’ timer Landzaat brought hopes back in Rotterdam. The pass was superb, the first touch Van Basten-like and JC once scored a similar chip from distance: 3-1. Feyenoord pushed forward to go for 3-2 but as ever, it was the Ajax machine that knew how to find space. A smart dummy by De Zeeuw resulted in the 4-1 ( making the defense believe he’d pass the ball, but instead he fired in the opposite corner. In the dying minutes, Ajax got a penalty kick (and Feyenoord goalie a red card) for another debatable challenge in the box.

Honey, I blew up Engelaar!

PSV seems to have the patent on winning close games with one goal difference. Tight Vitesse tried not to give anything away but after an hour of play, Dszudszak scored the winner.

AZ Alkmaar finally won a game. Away in Groningen – struggling this season sans Berg – it was sub Lens who gave AZ a reason to celebrate at long last.

FC Twente still leads the standings. The Tukkers won away against Roda JC, 2-0. The making of true champions, playing weak football, but still winning. Goals by Ruiz and Stoch.

FC Utrecht and NAC lost their games, leaving Feyenoord on spot 4, after Twente, PSV and Ajax. AZ is now number 7. Gert jan Verbeek, the highly criticized former Feyenoord coach, is currently head coach of Heracles. His team takes number 6, after FC Utrecht.

Manchester United is closely monitoring Suarez. The Ajax goal machine is high on Sir Alex’ shopping list for next season.

The Dutch newspaper Telegraaf published news that Gio van Bronckhorst, Denny Landzaat and Roy Makaay will be sold by next season. Their salaries are too high for the Rotterdam club.

Willem van Hanegem’s column in the AD:

Ajax – Feyenoord is not a real classic anymore. It’s a normal, mediocre game. The players simply need to make it a classic and yesterday they didn’t. After Babovic red card the game was played and became boring. The pace was low, the quality lacked and there was no tension left. Whenever Ajax deservedly wins, I’m fine with it. But yesterday I got annoyed with Ajax’s attitude. As if they played tremendous. Come on, they didn’t. They had a man more and were leading 1-0. Not that hard, then. By the way, the ref should have given Babovic a yellow. He killed the game and Babovic didn’t even give Vertonghen a conscious knock. It was dangerous play. And that means a yellow.

I blame Feyenoord for not wanted to play. Feyenoord came to Amsterdam to stop Ajax from scoring. I don’t like that. Feyenoord always needs to play to win. I’ve once lost to Ajax, 5-2, as a coach but we did enter the game to win. We created opportunities and we played along in the game. Even before the red card yesterday, Feyenoord had trouble keeping the ball. Feyenoord’s football was horrible. I can understand it when you don’t want to go firing on all cylinders if you don’t feel strong enough. Sure, but why do you play the youngsters in that case? You have all that experience on the bench, which is what you need. Fer, Biseswar, Wijnaldum…they can’t carry a game like this yet.

I’m a Fer fan, but what he demonstrated in the first half was pathetic. Was he nervous? What would Makaay have thought on the bench. I think that Makaay is treated horrible at Feyenoord, although they do pay his salary on time. Why doesn’t Been dismantle his contract? That would be honest towards Makaay and it would save Feyenoord some money. I know Makaay has lost some of his edge, sure, but he’s probably still a better striker than Slory, who recently showed himself from his worst side.

But, I want to end this piece positively. I would like to ask Bert van Marwijk to invite Urby Emanuelson and Ron Vlaar to Oranje. In particular Vlaar deserved to at least train with Oranje. We keep on moaning about how we don’t have good defenders, but when you watch Vlaar play you can’t help but smiling. Vlaar will become a regular starter in Oranje, I’m convinced.