2023/24 Dutch football

[Marten]

The eredivisie has started again. Last week PSV won the first trophy of the season by beating defending champions Feyenoord away in the Super Cup. Almere City, Heracles Almelo & PEC Zwolle got promoted to the eredivisie, replacing FC Groningen, Cambuur Leeuwarden and FC Emmen. Almere are debutants in the eredivisie, while the 2 other promoted after an absence of just 1 season.

Ajax started with a 4-1 win against Heracles, PSV beat FC Utrecht 2-0, AZ beat Go Ahead 5-1. The only one of the big sides who dropped points were Feyenoord, who drew 0-0 against Fortuna after going down to 10 inside the opening 30 minutes. The sending off was very harsh in my opinion. The other promoted sides also lost: PEC Zwolle 1-2 Sparta & Almere City 1-4 FC Twente.

My team Excelsior had a spectacular win, 3-4 away against NEC Nijmegen. We got 3 new Swedish players who made their debuts and they all scored, including the winner in 90+10 with literally the last kick of the game. NEC also had 3 scoring debutants, so 6 in total. Must be some kind of record!

[The Holiday Song]

Pierre Van Hooijdonk having to admit he had no evidence and  apologise to new Ajax manager Maurice Steijn after saying on TV he was involved in dodgy dealings when Steijn was manager of Breda. 

First game of the season for me tomorrow (second round of games). ADO at home to Roda JC. Can't wait to get back into it but not really sure how ADO will do this year.

[jagfox]

Go Ahead Eagles of Deventer, currently 3-0 up on FC Volendam. 

[Marten]

Excelsior 2-2 Ajax, I believe only the third time in history we got any points off Ajax, brilliant!

[Marten]

Feyenoord also drew their second game, their derby away against Sparta, they were 2-0 down but ultimately equalised in stoppage time. PSV & AZ won 3-1 away at Vitesse & RKC respectively, they are together with FC Twente (3-1 at home against Zwolle) & Heerenveen (2-0 away at Utrecht) the 4 remaining teams on 100%. Two of the promoted teams (Almere & PEC Zwolle) are still on 0, but Heracles picked up their first points of the season at home against NEC.

[hague]

On 19/08/2023 at 21:05, Marten said:

Excelsior 2-2 Ajax, I believe only the third time in history we got any points off Ajax, brilliant!

Poorest Ajax side I have seen they have no chance of the title this season qualifying for Europe would be the best they can hope for.  The lead up to horemans goal was brilliant.

[Marten]

9 hours ago, hague said:

Poorest Ajax side I have seen they have no chance of the title this season qualifying for Europe would be the best they can hope for.  The lead up to horemans goal was brilliant.

It's very early on obviously but I agree Ajax are poor for their standards. Based on what I've seen so far I'd make PSV title favourites. 

[Marten]

I didn't post after the third round of league games but it was a truncated weekend as all clubs in European qualifiers have been given the weekend off. Not that it did them much good tbh, only PSV won on the night and they played against a very poor side (Ajax and AZ did go through though). Therefore the only one of the "big" clubs to play were champions Feyenoord, who got their first win on the board after 2 draws by beating newbies Almere 6-1.

This weekend Ajax again dropped points in a poor 0-0 draw away at Fortuna Sittard. Feyenoord (5-1 at Utrecht) and PSV (4-0 at RKC Waalwijk) both had convincing away wins, AZ also won away, 2-0 at Vitesse, while Twente won 2-0 at Volendam. This makes AZ, PSV & Twente the remaining teams on a 100% record, all with 9 points from 3 games. Volendam, Utrecht, Almere and RKC Waalwijk are all still on 0 points.

[Marten]

Last weekend, Ajax dropped points again. This time they lost 3-1 against FC Twente which saw them drop to the 12th place in the table. It's still very early on obviously but it's still remarkable. On Sunday is the perfect game for them to try to climb out of it when they host arch rivals Feyenoord in "De Klassieker" (The Classic). But if they lose that one, there can be early pressure on their manager Maurice Steijn.

Just like Twente, the other teams on 100% won again: PSV beat NEC 4-0 and AZ beat Sparta 2-0. Feyenoord remain unbeaten and are in 4th after spanking Heerenveen 6-1. At the bottom of the table, RKC & FC Utrecht both won while Almere got a draw, leaving Volendam as the only remaining team still on 0 points.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Marten

[Squeaks Snowy Bicycle]

What is happening with Ajax this season?

[Marten]

22 minutes ago, Squeaks Snowy Bicycle said:

What is happening with Ajax this season?

It's still a bit early obviously, but especially 2 poor draws harmed them, against Excelsior & Fortuna Sittard. Losing away at Twente isn't anything to be ashamed of as that's one of the harder games. They lost a few players but normally you'd expect Ajax to be able to get adequate replacements, as they have a decent record of doing so. Maybe they will gel later on, but this seems to be a poor team for their standards.

[Squeaks Snowy Bicycle]

2 minutes ago, Marten said:

It's still a bit early obviously, but especially 2 poor draws harmed them, against Excelsior & Fortuna Sittard. Losing away at Twente isn't anything to be ashamed of as that's one of the harder games. They lost a few players but normally you'd expect Ajax to be able to get adequate replacements, as they have a decent record of doing so. Maybe they will gel later on, but this seems to be a poor team for their standards.

What team do you support in the Netherlands mate?

[Marten]

10 minutes ago, Squeaks Snowy Bicycle said:

What team do you support in the Netherlands mate?

Excelsior Rotterdam, so I was happy with the draw between ourselves and Ajax.  

It was only the fourth time in history that we got any kind of result against Ajax, 3 draws and a win, all but 1 draw was at home. I was at the game we won, in the pub after the game (wearing my Excelsior shirt), I immediately got offered free beer by Feyenoord fans who were there too, lol. They weren't too happy with me a month later when we beat them too, mind!

Edited September 20, 2023 by Marten

[GNU_Linux]

Jong Ajax have had a rough start as well currently sitting 2nd bottom in the Eerste Divisie overall standings.

[Squeaks Snowy Bicycle]

6 minutes ago, Marten said:

Excelsior Rotterdam, so I was happy with the draw between ourselves and Ajax.  

It was only the fourth time in history that we got any kind of result against Ajax, 3 draws and a win, all but 1 draw was at home. I was at the game we won, in the pub after the game (wearing my Excelsior shirt), I immediately got offered free beer by Feyenoord fans who were there too, lol. They weren't too happy with me a month later when we beat them too, mind!

I have been to only one game in the Netherlands which was Ajax V FC Twente in 2004 which Ajax won 1-0. What I can remember it was bloody freezing and Ajax won 1-0 in a very poor game.

After the game we got on the train to go back into Amsterdam but we ended up going in the wrong direction and got off in a pretty bad area. We eventually did get back safely into Amsterdam.

[stevieKTID]

They appear to be a bit of a shambles on and off the park, the appointment of Schreuder was seen by the fans as underwhelming at best - a lot of my Dutch mates thought they should've gone for Peter Bosz who is doing pretty well at PSV, in the past their recruitment has usually been pretty decent but since they sacked Overmars ( sacked for being a creepy dick pic sending weirdo ) it's gone a bit flat, a lot of bickering in the background hasn't helped, they remind me of Liverpool a few years ago when they always seemed to employ Liverpool minded people behind the scenes, can't see Schreuder lasting long.

[Marten]

54 minutes ago, stevieKTID said:

They appear to be a bit of a shambles on and off the park, the appointment of Schreuder was seen by the fans as underwhelming at best - a lot of my Dutch mates thought they should've gone for Peter Bosz who is doing pretty well at PSV, in the past their recruitment has usually been pretty decent but since they sacked Overmars ( sacked for being a creepy dick pic sending weirdo ) it's gone a bit flat, a lot of bickering in the background hasn't helped, they remind me of Liverpool a few years ago when they always seemed to employ Liverpool minded people behind the scenes, can't see Schreuder lasting long.

Yep, for a long time, Feyenoord were constantly a shambles on and off the park and very poorly run with much bickering, while Ajax were the stable, well-run, club. Roles well and truly reversed currently.

[stevieKTID]

29 minutes ago, Marten said:

Yep, for a long time, Feyenoord were constantly a shambles on and off the park and very poorly run with much bickering, while Ajax were the stable, well-run, club. Roles well and truly reversed currently.

Helaas pindakaas as they say

[Marten]

24 minutes ago, stevieKTID said:

Helaas pindakaas as they say

Not that I care that much about these 2. The Ajax v Feyenoord game on Sunday is for me similar to what Celtic v Rangers is for most fans of other clubs in Scotland, if only they can both lose! 

[stevieKTID]

On 20/09/2023 at 20:53, stevieKTID said:

They appear to be a bit of a shambles on and off the park, the appointment of Schreuder was seen by the fans as underwhelming at best - a lot of my Dutch mates thought they should've gone for Peter Bosz who is doing pretty well at PSV, in the past their recruitment has usually been pretty decent but since they sacked Overmars ( sacked for being a creepy dick pic sending weirdo ) it's gone a bit flat, a lot of bickering in the background hasn't helped, they remind me of Liverpool a few years ago when they always seemed to employ Liverpool minded people behind the scenes, can't see Schreuder lasting long.

Ha I'm an idiot I meant Maurice Steijn not Schreuder, in my defense there's been a lot of comings and goings.