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Trouble for Ajax and Feyenoord; PSV wins…

August 31st, 2008 | By: Jan | 15 Comments »

Heitinga scores…

Well, we’re off… and what a start!

PSV does what it always does. It wins. 5-1 to be precise. With an Afellay on fire! The youngster recently declared he wants to leave PSV next summer but this season will have to be his season. The neo-international scored two goals in the whole of last season and copped some criticism for his lack of scoring. This time around, he scored two goals in the first season-game. Well done, Ibby! Koevermans and Amrabat scored the other goals.

Van Basten said it before the match already: “I don’t think we’re ready”. And they aren’t. Willem 2 clearly had the better of the game. Ajax couldn’t live up to their reputation as dominant, attacking side and Ajax lost 2-1 in Tilburg. New signing Evander Sno - who started - was red-carded (again!) in the end of the match. Aissati stayed on the bench.

Feyenoord’s coach Gertjan Verbeek wasn’t too confident either. He predicted a tough start, what with all the injuries in his camp. Jonathan De Guzman was fit and he played a tremendous first 30 minutes, inwhich Feyenoord opened the score (Bahia goal in the first minute!). But when De Guzman was red-carded after 30 minutes, Heracles took the game to Feyenoord and the Rotterdam-club lost 3-1 (with the third goal scored in the dying seconds).
Verbeek was furious about the red card: not at De Guzman, but at the ref. “It was clear that Jonathan was pulled on his jersey. When he tried to free himself, he incidentally hit the other guy with his arm. These things happen. The first foul was the other guy’s. I expect the KNVB to pardon Jonathan.”

De Guzman red-carded

Last season’s revelation NEC won. Heerenveen won their first match but Van Gaal’s AZ again couldn’t win an official Eredivisie game. This time against NAC (2-1). Stijn Schaars even missed a penalty for AZ. Newcomers ADO Den Haag (Goose!) won their first match 5-2 against Sparta Rotterdam.

Other news then:

Ryan Donk, AZ’s young and talented center back, is leaving for the EPL. The relationship Donk - Van Gaal turned sour last season and Donk wants to move to West Bromich Albion, the club that signed Gianni Zuiverloon earlier on.

New AZ signing Brett Holman - socceroo for Australia - is high on Newcastle United’s wishlist. The former Feyenoord and NEC player could be part of a trade. Newcastle wants to offload 34 year old Ooijer in the deal and add some English Pounds as well.

Fred Rutten’s Schalke 04 is the new leader in the Bundesliga.

Real Madrid and Barcelona both lost their first match. Madrid played with Van Gol - who scored a beauty - and Robben. Drenthe came in as a sub. Vaart is suspended and Sneijder injured of course.
John Heitinga scored his first La Liga goal for Atletico in their 4-0 win over Malaga.

Tags: Ajax, AZ, de Guzman, Donk, Dutch Eredivisie, Feyenoord, PSV, Real Madrid, van Nistelrooy, Verbeek

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Comments

By Michel-Olivier | August 31st, 2008 at 8:57 pm

psv:
it was nice to see 3 jong orange players in the starting 11. pieters, amrabat and marcellis had a good game.

ajax:
i’m disappointed. with vertonghen, sno and vermaelen we have no chance of winning the league. v.d.wiel and aissati should be in the starting 11.

guzman is overrated, go play for canada.

Posted from United States

By dave | August 31st, 2008 at 9:39 pm

Jan, Ooijer plays for Blackburn, not Newcastle.
@M.O. VD Wiel? Too inexperienced and too short. If he has a top future its definintely not at cb. Agree that upgrades are needed at the back and in the midfield, but its too late now I’m afraid.

Posted from United States

By Jan | August 31st, 2008 at 9:40 pm

@Dave: my mistake. You’re so right.

By dirk v.d.berg | August 31st, 2008 at 10:36 pm

Arjen Robben was the most dominant player in the Real Madrid game, and I’m glad Amrabat scored, I think he plays a lot like Karim Benzema, and will be the top scorer in seasons to come. Don’t know why all the Dutch players are getting carded all of a sudden, its the World Cup all over again. Ajax are looking like they won’t even make UEFA cup next year, because last year they started with an 8-1 win, and only got UEFA cup.

Just another bit of an update, Liverpool barely managed to beat Standard Liege winning 1-0 in extra time, and now Gerrard and Torres are injured, so the Champions League is looking better for PSV, though they still have to get past John Heitinga, and Boudewijn Zendens teams.

Posted from Canada

By bobotoh | August 31st, 2008 at 11:53 pm

How is Zenden these days? I think he is an important player for Marseille.

Posted from Indonesia

By Tjeerd | September 1st, 2008 at 12:00 am

Feyenoord,…..I hope we do not have another long season.

By dirk v.d.berg | September 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am

Zenden’s already gotten 2 goals for Marseille, in four games, one from a free kick, but he’s normally a substitute.

Posted from Canada

By jason | September 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am

A lot of the big teams lost on their opening games. It should make for an interesting season.

I wish the Eredivisie was televised outside of the Netherlands in North America. Is there any sites that might stream the matches over the internet?

Posted from Canada

By goose | September 1st, 2008 at 11:43 am

@Jason; not sure; ill post YT highlights of as much as a can find each monday

Fc Utrecht - Psv
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kxxfGnhGc

Heracles - Feyenoord
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=guOM3DmANXs

Sparta - Den Haag
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=W-C8rWtLBCA

NEC - De Graafschap
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=oiUM9sRva3s

Vitesse - Groningen (check the first goal)
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=a6VrNXWxQSQ

Ajax - Willem II (cant find any highlights, just the Ajax goal)
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=V-SniB-23gw

it has been a great weekend; think its more than 60 years ago that both Ajax and Feyenoord lost their opening matches…

Psv looked very strong; think Affelay will be the best dutch player this season, he scored 2 (as much as his total last year) and played like a master, Amrabat is ok but has behaviour problems, will have to wait and see if he makes it..

Feyenoord did play with almost 1/2 the team injured, and without Makaay they lack a decent striker (Michel Mols was great 6 years ago), stupid foul by deGuzman who elbowed somebody, Verbeek should know better
think it will be another tough year for Feyenoord

Ajax played awful, esp. mentally! they seem unable to fight for a victory
you can have a team with 11 balerinas and you wont win a thing
guess vBasten can finally learn his trade!!

Az lost another game, but they do look stronger than last year, Schaars is back and thats a plus (altough he did miss a penalty!)

Fc Den Haag who is newly promoted won 5-2 in Rotterdam v Sparta
ill try and find some more highlight

grtz

Posted from Netherlands

By dirk v.d.berg | September 1st, 2008 at 1:41 pm

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=568503&sec=europe&root=europe&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2&cc=5901

this is an article about how Dutch clubs are losing all of their talent. Apparently Arsenal provided the Barazite family with a new home, so that they could sign him under the age of 18, and he would count as homegrown.

Posted from Canada

By Tjeerd | September 1st, 2008 at 9:49 pm

Affeley looks awfully good

By jason | September 2nd, 2008 at 12:51 am

This is off topic but with all the talk about fixes in world cups hitting the headlines I can’t help but think Argentina 78 was a fix from the get-go.

Who agrees with me???

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | September 2nd, 2008 at 1:09 am

Sure was Jason. Remember the Peru game?

Also, do you guys remember the 1982 WC Germany- Austria 1-0? I have never seen so much ping-pong on a soccer match ever. Nobody on either team never even tried to score after the first goal.

By Jan | September 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 am

@Jason: I think it has been proven that Peru threw the game (semi finals?) to allow Argentina to get to the finals.

Also, that infamous 12-1 win of Spain over Malta - ousting Holland in the process - was dodgy. I believe the Maltese goalie got rewarder heavily for his “bad luck”. I don’t know if the game is on YouTube but that goalie - who actually was pretty solid and moved to Spain (!) - was hopeless on that day.

By Alex | September 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 am

Afellay absolutele class performance, and strong play from Amrabat, Marcellis and Pieters. De Guzman is very far from overrated, is only 20 and he still needs to learn a good deal, but defenitaly on of the biggest talents, one red card doesn’t mean sh*t, I thought half of Feyenoord deserved to be in the Jupiler League the second half. Heitinga impressed me by how easily he adjusted, but let’s hope he’ll learn a few more things from Ujfalusi as well. I’d like to see an internationally apreciated Dutch defender again, and let’s hope Boulahrouz can truly return to the defender he used to was. AZ were unlucky, bad defending by Swerts, Jaliens as well, i feel especially Jaliens doesn’t deserve a start in the line-up anymore, rather put in Luirink instead. He’s 10 times better, and still only 24/25.

Donk should learn a great deal from his trip to PL, hope he picks up where he left when he just played for AZ, Oranje could defenitaly need some talented defenders right now instead of Ooijer. Vlaar(unfortunately injured), Marcellis, Zuiverloon, Donk, Loovens, Braafheid, Kruiswijk, at least a few of them should get a chance.

Hope to see some improvement at Ajax by the way, Vermaelen and Verthongen were very impressive at the Belgian U-21 on the Olympics but they missed the entire preparation of Ajax so they still have to adjust to the group. I think it’ll turn out better next time.

Posted from Netherlands

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