And we’re off… much to look forward to!

Well my friends, the Dutch Eredivisie started and from out of nowhere the number of football news-items is exploding.

Quickly then:

FC Groningen trashed Vitesse in their away game 0-4. It seems Ron Jans is doing it again.

Marco van Basten wants Kees Jansma to become Ajax’ new general manager. San Marco worked with Jansma at the KNVB for four years where he was in charge of press- and media-relations. Jansma of course, was one of Holland’s most influential journo’s at VI and Studio Sport. He moved to Canal+ for a while, started his own Sports TV production companies, sold his shares and became wealthy and is now still the PR guy for the National team. Jansma didn’t want to comment.

Foppe de Haan ousted Evander Sno (now Ajax) and Royston Drenthe (Real Madrid) of the U21 squad. “Not only did they play under par at the Olympics, their behaviour off the pitch made it very hard for me to gel a team at the Games. I am not angry with them but severely disappointed. I told them so, too.”

De Haan didn’t want to go into examples of their behavior but did confess that at some point Drenthe made the players’ bus wait for quite some time because he had to buy an expensive watch. The door isn’t closed for the youngsters, but De Haan – who needs one more win to qualify for the EC play offs – said he really wanted to see some progress before he’d select them again.

Kenneth Perez has left Ajax and signed a two year deal at FC Twente. The Danish international and former AZ, Ajax and PSV midfielder seems to leave a trace of disaster everywhere he plays .

The UEFA Cup draw has been presented in the comments here already, I will go into the fixtures at a later stage.

Orlando Engelaar has excused himself for the Australia match with Bert van Marwijk. The Schalke 04 midfielder is still injured.

Bert van Marwijk criticized his son in law for copping another red card in the Bundelsiga. “It’s weird and definitely not handy, right for an international. Mark should by now know he has a reputation in Germany. It’s weird. He never got red-carded that much at PSV, Barca or even Oranje. I never had issues with him at Fortuna. He needs to wise up.”

Feyenoord is angry at PSV. The Dutch champs stole Feyenoord’s fourth goalie this summer. This chap, Toonen, was signed on an amateur basis because he didn’t want to give up his day-job yet. This means that any club can sign the bloke without having to pay a transfer fee. Weeks after his deal with Feyenoord, PSV made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Gertjan Verbeek: “The four top clubs in Holland have a gentleman’s agreement. We never sign each other players without discussing it a board-level first. If you don’t, you’ll get a signing and bidding war. No one wants that. But PSV broke that rule and this is just class-less, pathetic behaviour of a couple of double-tongued crooks. I am not impressed.”