Champions League Matchday 4

It’s all cycles. I watch a lot of Dutch football and difference is marginal. Currently, the dutch clubs are not strong but that is largely due to Ajax’s board selling their souls and their Mother’s klompen for a quick buck. Feyenoord is also no picking up the slack BUT on a positive note both of hose teams have some interesting young talent. PSV is clearly learning to live with the loss of some key players - you can’t expect them to perform like they did with the emergency pick up of their keeper and the loss of Alex.

Let’s wait until some of the massive clubs in the UK and elsewhere go bankrupt as they are all riddled with debt. It may take some time but it will happen. If there is one thing the dutch know, its how to manage money and at the end of the day, that may just bode well for the dutch in the future.

Posted from  Canada

Having Belgium and Holland join forces would be nice. They could create a new division between the Eredivisie and the Eerste Divisie with the abundance of competitive teams. Personally I would love the see Ajax vs Standard Liege vs PSV vs Anderlect vs Feyenoord on a regular basis. It would raise the overall level of play.

Posted from  Canada

Ajax in particular set the standard with their scouting and youth development. Clubs like Arsenal and Man United weren’t actively scouting in Finland or Brazil in the 80s and 90s.

Other countries followed suit. Players like Finidi, Kanu and Romario would today never play in Holland anymore. Most top clubs are scouting like idiots in Africa, Eastern Europe, South America to name a few regions. And the type of contracts youngsters from AZ, NEC and Feyenoord can sign at EPL clubs are beyond belief.

Competition has landed and the big bucks and the high profile competitions win in that race.

But, we don’t have anything to worry about: Aissait, Afellay, De Jong, Wijnaldum, Fer, Tiendali, Vincken, Sno, Marcellis…all talents who emerged in the Dutch competition…

The Bosman court case was the end of top club dutch football .. it has never been the same again ever since … we in Holland just have to accept that Uefa-Cup football is the max and always will be in the future….just accept it (the dutch league is much more interesting now than it used to be)

and please; no talks of a dutch / belgium league; only 3 belgium teams would be of the proper level (Anderlecht, Liege, Club Brugge)…even with these teams we will never be able to compete with the big boys

Posted from  Netherlands

The belgians are so caught up in trashing each other Flanders vs the french part, that they’re almost letting everything else slip into chaos, and endless talking about who’s fault it is or which side exactly is discriminating or taking advantage of the other. They’re even splitting up the national belgian footbaal association KBVB. I think it’s time we Dutch move into Belgium and claim it. Their politicians will be so busy calling names at each other they won’t even notice untill it’s too late.
We have proven we can handle minorities with another language, look at Friesland, they’re happy, Who’s with me, Dutch takeover of Belgium, we already have a part of Fortis.

No really, I’d say Dutch-Belgian competition would be more competitive, maybe the Danish(semi-Friezen) would want in as well, Standard Luik, Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Racing Genk can certainly perform just as well or better then Sparta, De Graafschao, Volendam, ADO den Haag, Willem II, Roda JC or Vitesse
Í suggest 10 dutch clubs - 6 belgian
Ajax
AZ
PSV
Feyenoord
FC Twente
FC Groningen
SC Heerenveen
and three others: NAC Breda/Vitesse/NEC or Maybe FC Limburg

Anderlecht
Club Brugge
Standard
Racing Genk
and maybe Cercle Brugge/ AA Gent or something
Just a thought, the belgians don’t seem to mind, but Dutch clubs are much more stubborn, they won’t face the reality that they’re slipping into the same hole as Belgian football.

Posted from  Netherlands

@Alex; You just pissed Goose off. You left out Den Haag…Ouch

Kind of like the idea though. Would surely create more (media) interest, and with that comes income and bigger players.

Lets face it before Sky moved in to save the English Prem, they were far behind Spanish and Italian league, and arguably even behind Bundesliga. It wasn’t that many years ago. And look at the teams and players now. Completele CL dominance, Liverpool even having more Spanish players (current EC champions I might add in case we forgot) than Athletico Madrid, because they can’t afford them anymore. Times have changed, and it is all media and TV deal driven.

Liverpool needs Torres back desperately though. I thought Kuyt had a very bad day in the office. And Babel was invicible when he came on. Why does he always drift in to the center? If he stayed on the wing, used his speed to take on the defender and then just make a cross, he would be awesome. I think it is because he can’t cross for sh!t. I love Liverpool, but my patience for Babel to take the final step in development is running out.

Agree about Liverpool, they definitely bought a point with that weak penalty. Can’t say I’m unhappy though because I certainly like Liverpool more than Atletico.

I have more mixed feelings about the Roma Chelsea game though… I mean I always enjoy it when Chelski loses, but I also hate Roma and want them to lose… I’m so torn!

Looking forward to watching Real Madrid’s and Arsenal’s games today… although I’m somewhat worried about Arsenal lately.

About the BeNeLux league - a good idea in my opinion. More coverage = more money, which is definitely a good thing, and more teams = more competitive league. Even if most of the Belgian or Luxembourgian (is that right??) teams aren’t up to the level of the top Dutch teams, some certainly would give competition and the other teams would give competition for the lower-quality Dutch teams. The result would be only the top teams from each country make it to the Eredivisie making it much more competitive overall (which is a good thing for all the teams).

Posted from  Canada

@Alex

I am pretty sure us peace loving hippies in Canada will support a dutch takeover of Belgium. I’ll even help out just let me know when you want me on plane…

It sort out the whole worldwide confusion about the names Holland and the Netherlands.

Posted from  Canada

@ Alex
“it’s time we Dutch move into Belgium and claim it.”
the dutch should also take back nord-pas de calais from france too, however it’s against EU laws.

@ finnster01
liverpool suck without torres, they have to cheat to get a draw.

@ Jason
here in the states some people still say czechoslovakia, so holland to netherlands never going to happen.

Posted from  United States

Can we add Scotland to the league ? Benesco ? This would add a touch of raw british football to the league and everyone profits from the experience as well. (and the Scots will help us invade Belgium )

Posted from  Singapore

Carlos, I think there was actually talk some years ago about a league consisting of the leading Dutch, Belgian and Scottish clubs. I think they were going to call it the Atlantic League or something like that. Might have been interesting…also, heads up to those interested, looks like in the US FSC is showing the Twente-Man City Uefa cup match tomorrow at 11:30 am (PST) and rebroadcasting it at 8:00 pm (PST).

Posted from  United States

Benelux???I don´t think that is the solution.

So did any of my US friends barrack for Obama ? (Barrack is an Aussie term to tell people which football team you support. They will ask u “so who do you barrack for ?

Posted from  Singapore

Well, I barracked my girlfriend last night. Does that count mate?

haha finn

there will never be a BeNe(Lux) league ..

shocking game by Real yesterday…very poor

Posted from  Netherlands

I think in twenty years time we’ll have combined european competitions, Scandinavian competition; Spain and Portugal; Great Britain and Ireland; Germany, Austria and Switzerland; France and Benelux etc. Or one competition with all clubs in the EU or something like it, in that case, if we get lucky, maybe still one or two dutch clubs will have the opportunity to join in.

Posted from  Netherlands

Take a look at this idiot, he actually steals his own yellow card and get’s sent off.

http://www.vi.nl/web/show/id=309929/langid=43/contentid=157802

don’t mind the dutch text, the clip is what it’s about.

And just found out that Robben missed 42 procent of all his club matches since he left PSV in 2004. That’s pretty bad for such a good player. I really feel for him, now he has a hamstring injury. Maybe he should stop with football at all, cause if you’re injured that much it could be a sign that his body just can’t handle the physical aspect of this level.

Posted from  Netherlands

@Alex; Hahahaha. That is even worse than Van Persie…

There seems to be only two things that are absolute guarantees these days:

1) Stock market is down
2) Robben is injured

There are many who can’t handle the physical aspect of football; Litmanen, from injury to injury, Bouhlazrouz, van Persie, to name a few, they all had or have injuries at a regular basis. It’s inherent to the sport, some can cope with it, others don’t. Agreed, with Robben it is evident, nothing new… if he can play he’s usefull, but if not, well… I am not going to frustrate myself, it is wat it is… after all, I don’t have to pay his salary… but even van Basten was injuried many times. The last years at AC Milan, he was injured all the time and didn’t play much… he’s almost an invalid now, many people forget about that… If he had stopped earlier and listened to his body, things would have been different…

Posted from  Netherlands

I feel sorry for Robben, at one time I thought he would be our best player and he was much better than Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo and many others but they don´t get injured that often and have grown a lot as players. Robben is the same great player that left for Chelsea but hasn´t developed more skills.

He got injured while warming up with Madrid and will be 6 weeks out. Poor Robben, I think his career will not be very long like Cocu´s, Maldini´s, Romario´s and other great players.

Posted from  Mexico

1-1 twente -man city after 17min go Twente

Posted from  Canada

Is FC Twente just good or does Man City suck 0__o

Posted from  Canada

^&**%%*!! i cant see the Twente game!! not on dutch tv ; watching Ajax now who are leading 1-0 (Suares)
Feyenoord lost 3-1, Gio scored but also made a huge mistake wich lead to the 2-1

Posted from  Netherlands

Twente were really unlucky they definitely deserved at least a draw. Benjani’s goal was def offside. They lost because they they only started playing in the second half after they went down by 2 goals. The game was very entertaining though. I find that I enjoy watching the Dutch far more though, they make stuff exciting.

Posted from  Canada