Dutch Eredivisie weekend highlights…

@Goose:

Congrats take them while you can. 8000 people has to be a worry though,no?

V.Persie was very generous to give Adebayor his penalty, He basically got his hattrick from Robin. PSV did decent. Afellay leader in midfield. Marcellis did give a good long pass as well. Feyenoord got lucky hope for them their injured players will come back soon. AZ dramatic defensively, Jaliens was hopeless, responsible for at least 2 of the goals conceeded.
V.Gaal better quit there, i don’t think hé’ll be able to make anything of of it, in the worst case he’ll get them straight to the Jupiler league. Hope Luirink will be able to replace Jaliens soon, it should give them some more defensive security, alhtough i don’t know if Luirink is still as good as he used to be.

Posted from  Netherlands

@finn; cheers, wont last that long im afraid

8000 is too few.. we still have a very bad imago as a club and few families come and visit the games; they are too afraid that the supporters start rioting again
but things are starting to improve, we just got a new shirtsponsor deal for the next 3 years and we have a manager who knows what he wants and is at the club for the LONG term
we just have to be patient, not going down this year is our only priority

ill have more Eredivisie once Jan has made his post on this weekend, Lerkot, one of your countryman scored a pretty sensational goal for Groningen, i see if i can find the YT vid

@Alex; hard times for Louis (still feel sorry they didnt win the other year) next game PSV - AZ, another loss and hell be in serious trouble

btw; next week; Ajax - Feyenoord

Posted from  Netherlands

Ajax - Feyenoord, the memories.. My dad took me as a 12 year old to my first Dutch game while on holiday. Awesome, although Feyenoord won 3-1. I’ve been at 4 more of those since, mostly in the eighties. The atmosphere is unbelieveable. For other foreigners, if you haven’t tried one of those you should. Used to fly down from Glasgow as a student to Amsterdam a lot to catch an Ajax game and just have a wonderful time in Amsterdam. It is such a beautiful and charismatic city.

In fact the more I think about it, I am due a return if I can schedule a break at work. Unfortunately working in NY, we don’t have the European holidays…

Nice to see Feyenoord in the winning column.

I believe in the 70s tickets for Ajax Feyenoord were impossible to get. Most of them sold to English/Scottish/German fans at double the normal price and it was always packed even outside the stadiums.

Posted from  Singapore

Does anyone think van Gaal is a good Manager ? I sometimes think that there are Managers who can mould a team of good players into a Champion Team yet there are Managers who take a Team of Champions(Holland 2002) and fail miserably. Look at what Mourinho did with Porto ? Advocaat with Zenit ? German Manager of Greece 2004 EC ?
van Gaal made his name steering Ajax in the mid 90s but he had GREAT players at his disposal - Sar/de Boers /Seedorf/Davids/Litmanen /George/Overmars etc etc.
SAF was prize less in his first 7 years with ManU I believe. Now he gets and builds up the best players but he also buys poorly at times (Veron etc.)
One of the most under rated coaches I believe is David Moyes of Everton who always gets the best out of his (average-good) players.

My favourite coach remains Arsene Wenger - he instills great football into his youngsters as could be seen again last week. Arsenal are very much the modern day Ajax and will always be a club that sells the talent after starting and making it with Arsenal. Many end up nowhere (Anelka/Petit) because they look good at Arsenal but not everyone plays like they do. So the magic is not there if you dont have “Arsenal” players around you. Comments ?

Posted from  Singapore

@Carlos: Wenger is class as a coach, and unquestionably their academy/youth program is top notch. Won the youth league last year. However, I also think he is arrogant and I find it hard to like him. He reminds me too much of Mourinho, but in a slightly more positive way.

SAF, as much as I hate Man U being a ‘pool man myself, is still a character that I have the utmost respect for. Maybe his best days are over, but he managed to shut up Ronaldo (at least for another year) and I dont think too many coaches would have stood up to him in that way.

Unfortunately I believe Rafa Benitez is a cry baby and try to blame everything on the bad American owners. I’d like to get rid of the lot of them to be honest.

Moyes has done a remarkable job indeed with very little resources. The other coach I do like is Harry Rednapp. I bet he will be the next England coach after Capello screws up.

I think Fabio Capello is better. Because he can work with different teams.

Posted from  Indonesia

Van Gaal is a great tactician and a good motivator IF he can work with people that adore him and follow him in everything. Hence his great results with a bunch of wannabe’s in 1990s. All young players in a pre-Bosman world. Van Gaal’s rigid approach didn’t work with Oranje anymore. Players - even the De Boer’s - got sick of him and his constant mindgames and perfectionism.

Van Gaal only knows one way of working and if that doesn’t “fit” he doesn’t have anything to fall back on. I like coaches with a high EQ (emotional intelligence) such as Willem van Hanegem, Co Adriaanse, Ron Jans, Fred Rutten and of course Guus Hiddink. JC was great too. Others I like(d): Sacchi, Happel, Wenger, Klinsmann, Rijkaard to name a few.

Van Gaa’s public outbursts say it all for me. I met him several times (when he still played for Sparta and later when at Ajax) and he is actually a very nice guy in private. But his ego and insecurity make him an unstable coach. Guus H. is a perfect opposite example. A mensch. I don’t think Guus is brilliant tactically, as some here think, but he plays “the game” right.

By the way: Ajax won vs Roda JC 1-0. Ajax missed dozens of opportunities, in particular one KJ Huntelaar, who was taken off by Van Basten after 80 minutes. Hunter wasn’t happy. Marco: “I understand he didn’t like it, but something needed to be done. Hunter is a pro, he’ll understand…”

@Alex - It wasn’t Van Persie’s penalty, Eboue won it (with a possible dive). I do wonder why Van Persie let’s Adebayour take most of the penalties though… maybe they had a competition in practice and Adebayour won, so he get’s to take most of them..?

@Carlos - I wouldn’t say that Anelka has ended up nowhere. He’s had quite the long career, doing well at many other teams besides Arsenal, and he’s now playing at another top team (Chelsea).

Spoiler for Real Madrid game:

The Dutchies all played excellently against new team Numancia. It was an exciting game with 7 goals in all. Van Nistelrooy got two assists, with both passes to him coming from Dutch players (Vaart and Robben) - nice Dutch combinations. Vaart also scored a sweet goal at the near post.

Posted from  Canada

@Carlos; vGaal is a great manager if he can work with YOUNG players… he was a PA teacher and always has stayed one but he can make players better footballers

manager like Hiddink, vHanegem have never mad a single player a better footballer .. i think Hiddink has been lucky and has built some sort of semi-God like status among managers,
vHanegem as manager is a laugh, we all love Willem but hes not a real manager, hes a relic from the past whos funny, thats it (btw, Utrecht are 0 in 2, my prediction is that vHanegem will be gone before the season ends)

btw Jan; Adriaans doenst belong in that list; his a vGaal boy

Posted from  Netherlands

Well, I think Van Gaal WAS a good coach. At Ajax and Barcelona he got some achievements and knew how to deal with the players. At De Meer (in its last times…), he did something even better: he taught some young players not only how to play in their positions, but how to play in an integrated way with the others. And those young lads went good in their careers (at least, in a part of them), from VDS to Kluivert.

But, after that failure on qualifying Oranje to 2002 WC, Van Gaal’s career felt heavily. Since then, he was more a prima donna (my compatriot Rivaldo knows a thing or two about it. than a strategy master. And, when he returned to Ajax and now at AZ, even doing that good job which almost put an end to the PSV-Ajax-Feyenoord sequence on Eredivisie, he couldn’t continue in such quality. If AZ continues on this bad way, I have no doubt his days on Alkmaar are numbered. Oh, yeah: and he don’t have many valuable fellows he had at his Ajax times, like Bobby Haarms or Gerard van der Lem…

@Goose: good to know you’re an ADO fan! Well, even knowing that the dream will probably not last forever, the team - and Knopper - are doing good, aren’t they?

About Feyenoord: the Het Legioen did good, but let’s not forget Volendam’s defense was complete rubbish. But the result, anyway, was good. The Rotterdammers deserve better than the last seasons. But, for a month, they’ll have to deal with it without Slory.

And Hasselbaink retired, did you see it?

yes, i heard about Jimmy.. pretty crap player if you ask me

its great for me and my friends for as long as it lasts (btw, we in The Hague never call our team ADO, we only say FC Den Haag) i just hope they get enough points not to go down and get a bit stronger each year

i still believe it was the player that let vGaal down in qualifying (he maybe made a mistake away in portugal) think the players were too arrogant

the real problem i have with vGaal is the way he hadles himself in the press..hes such a sore loser that it isnt funny anymore, great people should be great in victory but also great in defeat and vGaal isnt… AZ plays PSV next week, if AZ loses again the pressure is on though Scheringa (AZ boss) will back him as long as posible

Posted from  Netherlands

@Goose - I only saw Hasselbaink during his Chelsea days and I always thought he was a pretty good player. Had a wicked shot in his legs, that’s for sure.

Posted from  Canada

PSV:
the had a young staring 11. nijland(20), pieters(20), afellay(22), marcellis(20), and wuytens(18) all had a good game. young team, conceded 0, scored 1 goal, overall good game.

Feyenoord:
georginio wijnaldum played the entire 90 minutes. wijnaldinho is going to be a true phenomenon in the near future.

Ajax:
v.d.wiel and sno had a good game. the hunter had a bad game, miss a lot of chances. cvitanich did not play i dont know why.

jimmy hassel(hoff):
“Jimmy.. pretty crap player”
i don’t agree, he was awesome during his chelsea days. i don’t know about his dutch record but his a great player.

Posted from  United States

Off topic - Finn ? How’s Wall St & Lehman Brothels affecting your concentration on Football ?

Posted from  Singapore

Guys - I think Felipe is really a Dutch Coach in disguise or maybe a Dutch Journalist, he knows way too much about Dutch Football then I do and I lived for some time very near to the ADO stadium in Den Haag ???

Posted from  Singapore

@Caleb, I think Adebayor taking penalties goes back to last season, when van Persie missed one against Casper Schmeichel, and then another one the game after, and Adebayor took them from then on.

Posted from  Canada

@carlos: You are right buddy, right now it is scary days here. First Lehman then Merrill. Earlier in the year it was Bear Stearns.

Now Wamu (Washington Mutual) is the next on the list to go. Sometimes I wish I was a plumber (nothing wrong with that trade by the way), but it would make my life a lot easier. Crazy times on Wall street at the moment.I can kiss any bonus good bye this year, never mind having a job.

Any player like Hasselbaink deserves my respect, I think. No Dutch club wanted him, he just wasn’t good enough. And then through this shoddy Portugal side he suddenly made it big! I love that. He made it to Chelsea and into the Dutch team. And he scored a couple as well.

Gotta respect the man!

Posted from  Australia

@MO thats right if u mixing young blood and experience u will get the results like PSV showing currently to everybody .I think their analysts eyes are very sharp and they know whom to buy for PSV.Ajax management lost this ability especially vanbasten?
young blood will give enough stamina for 150 minutes and they will out run the opponent

Posted from  India

@Dirk - you may be right. I remember that penalty. Van Persie was injured most of last season as well though, so that might be another reason Ade was taking them all. I think Van Persie should get to take his share of penalties again too… everyone misses one every now and then, and there’s no sense giving all the goals to Adebayour!
@Carlos & Finnster - interesting times indeed… and it must be worrying for you Finnster. But for the rest of us it may soon be a good time to buy more for the future and take advantage of the low prices. Also glad I’m living in Canada

Posted from  Canada

i respect Jimmy very much .. i always had more respect for those players who had to fight their way up .. just think he wasnt a very special player

@Carlos; youve lived at Het Zuiderpark?? visit any games?? you may be right on Felipe … too much knowledge there… Felipe explain!! haha

lets see how Psv will do

Posted from  Netherlands