Dutch Football Review Week 22 & 23: Hiddink’s comeback, Feyenoord gets closer to Ajax

Yes, dear reader: The Dutch Football Association takes things seriously. Round 22 & 23 were merged into one week, just to grant the Dutch national team an extra week of preparing for the World Championship this summer. It hardly should come as a surprise that several coaches and players started to complain about such a tight schedule: three matches in a week, was that were they were paid for? Unfortunately it did not stop there: some of the teams, like Vitesse, messed up and lost valuable points. In the meanwhile Maurice Steijn of Ado Den Haag was sacked and replaced by Henk Fraser, a former merciless Feyenoord defender who earned the nickname “Kung Fu Fraser” during his career. Just the kind of pepper Den Haag needs at the moment? PSV came, out of the blue, with Guus Hiddink as to save the ass of its struggling coach Cocu.

Kung Fu Fraser

The Hiddink effect

And suddenly there he was again: Guus Hiddink. The experienced coach won several prices with PSV, including the treble (title, national cup, Europa cup) in 1988 before getting into the coaching of national teams. Guus earned fourth places at World Cups with both the Dutch and South Korean National Squad and brought Australia to the second round. During his next job, for the Russian national team, Guus risked to lose his Dutch nationality when he had the audacity to knock out the Dutch national team during Euro 2008. It goes beyond mentioning that his Odyssey did not only earn Guus a wide variety of nicknames like Hiddingu, Tsar Guus, Lucky Guus and Aussie Guus, but also a vast amount of Roebels, South Korean Wons and Australian Dollars. To top things off Guus Hiddink is rumored to be the successor of Louis van Gaal after the coming World Cup.

In between, Guus has  come to Eindhoven for some consultancy work -ad interim. Most people expected that PSV would sack its coach Cocu, but PSV came up with an unexpected and interesting alternative: Guus Hiddink will work as mentor with Cocu the coming half year and help him to overcome the crisis. Whether this is going to work out has to be seen, but the first signs are positive: PSV won 3-2 against title candidate FC Twente. The Hiddink effect?

Guud Hiddink in action for FC Anchi, another well paid project

Twente up for second place

The national press started to consider Twente as a serious title candidate after a consistent row of six victories in seven matches, including the 0-2 win against Heerenveen last Wednesday. That was new: so far Twente was more or less ignored by the Dutch press which traditionally focuses more on Amsterdam and Rotterdam (not only when it comes to football). The title aspirations of Twente got a blow however last Saterday when the team suffered a 3-2 loss against PSV in Eindhoven. Coming Wednesday Twente will play against Groningen, a match that was earlier cancelled due to heavy snowfall. A win is crucial and will bring Twente to the second place of the league.

Marsman conceded three goals against PSV

 Vitesse: Post winter depression

Vitesse threw away its chances to win the title last season straight after the winter break: the team lost crucial points when its super striker Bony (now playing for Swansea FC) was off to the Africa Cup. This season there is no Africa Cup and Vitesse got some extra players from Chelsea as a Christmas present; but unfortunately Vitesse woke up just as slow from its winter sleep as was the case last season. In the last five games the team won once, drew thrice, and lost once. Especially the last two games, both at home, were dramatic: the team lost 0-2 to AZ and could only manage to draw 0-0 against Kung Fu Frasers The Haag, the number 18^th at the league. It has brought Vitesse down to a fourth place.

Vitesse: losing out on Ajax. Can they recover in time?

Ajax: not able to take distance

With Vitesse and Twente losing points Ajax got an unique opportunity to create a gap of seven points, but the Amsterdam team failed once more in an away match. Two weeks ago the team was not able to win in Utrecht (1-1), and the same happened in Zwolle. In spite of an early goal of Klaassen as well as a number of good opportunities in the first half, the match ended 1-1 when Fernandez scored an equalizer. In the second half Ajax was lucky not to lose the match: Zwolle hit the upright and the crossbar, but did not manage to score a second goal.

Feyenoord: back in the league

Everyone was sure that Feyenoords chances to win the Dutch title this year had vanished after its defeat in Den Haag 2 weeks ago, but the loss of points by Vitesse, Twente and Ajax has brought Feyenoord back on track. NEC was blown away 5-1 Saturday after a midweek 2-1 victory of Roda JC.

Especially the performance in the match against NEC was impressive at times: the attacking game of Feyenoord was brilliant with Boetius and Pelle as great animators. Both players scored twice, and Pelle’s second goal – a brilliant volley – was spectacular. The excellent shape of Boetius (only 19 years old) surely has been noticed by Louis van Gaal: in this shape chances are immense that the young attacker will be playing for the Dutch team in Brazil this summer.

Three points for Feyenoord against NEC…and back in the fight for the title

Dutchies abroad: Maarten Stekelenburg

Maarten Stekelenburg was the goalkeeper of the Dutch team that managed to reach the Worldcup in South Africa 2010; his performance was impressive and everyone was sure he was going to be the goalkeeper of Holland for the coming 10 years. Things turned out nasty for Maarten after the Worldcup however: Stekelenburg suffered from several injuries and was put on the bench at AS Roma. Frustrated and having lost its place as first goalkeeper in the Dutch national team Stekelenburg left Roma for Fulham last summer. Although some injuries prevented Stekelenburg from playing a lot in the first half of the British season, the last week Stekelenburg is physically fine and slowly getting back to his old level. It was because of some tremendous saves of Stekelenburg that Fulham snapped away a point from Old Trafford against Manchester United this Sunday (2-2). Just in time for Brazil?

Stekelenburg gets a ball through his legs against Denmark during Euro 2012

Results round 22 & 23

League table

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