Man, PSV youth squad? Too small for me! NEC here I come!

Another reason why I didn’t post the news was because I was like “oh, another guy gone?” when I heard the news. Why? For the past 15 years, we’ve already seen (!) 10 head coaches take up the post. For the one aspect of football that requires the most stability in order to excel, the youth squad has still surprisingly churned up talents that slotted into the first team, but arguably still not at full potential due to the constant change. All our 10 ex head coaches left due to their ambitions to become head coaches of clubs, which is understandable but frustrating.

But now, we’ve found someone to fill in the vacancy! And this isn’t any nobody… Well he is still relatively “nobody”, but he is definitely top notch.

Now this man has quite a lot of youth player experience under his belt. Managing the Dutch U-14, U-15, U-23 and Estonian U-21, he even went on to manage the Estonian senior side between 2004-2007.

Current head of youth development at CSKA Moscow, Jelle Goes arrived at the capital of Russia under the recommendation of Guus Hiddink due to his position of the Russian national team. And like Johan Cruijff is to Barcelona, Guus Hiddink is to PSV. For those who don’t know, Hiddink actually still has a certain large amount of influence and connection with the club, as he discusses techincal things with Fred Rutten frequently.

Now we might be able to lend his almight influence again. Goes landed his current job thanks to Hiddink’s connections, and PSV are trying their best to appoint Goes as our new man thanks to Hiddink’s connection. This man might just be our ideal candidate, cause with his experience the youth system would definitely benefit. With finger crossed, please Jelle Goes, please go to PSV!

I’ll think about it…

He was a nice player to watch. You wouldn’t say he was top notch, but he was always consistent and scored crucial goals and provided crucial assists when PSV needed them. Being the first Ecuadorian to score in UEFA Champions League, it was no surprise to see him being nominated in the top 50 list for the Balloon d’Or during the 2007-2008 season when PSV beat Arsenal to march into the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League.

But as with most tales (especially footballer ones), there’s always an end. He said goodbye to us at the end of the 2009 season. He stated personal reasons for his transfer, and he got his dream transfer – back to his original team, LDU Quito.

Now how is he doing with his team at the moment? Well for those who didn’t know, LDU Quito won the 2008 edition Copa Libertadores (the South American version of the Champions League) before Mendez’s return. Despite the regular trend in South America of the winning team ending up selling all their star talents due to financial luring from bigger clubs, Edison Mendez returned as the topping to a team still beaming with quality.

And together, they have marched into the final of this year’s edition of the Copa Sudamericana. I’m not claiming to be an expert in South American football, but in my eyes Copa Sudamericana seems to be the Europa League equivalent, which is still a very prestigious award. And at the moment, it seems like the trophy’s bound to end up in LDU Quito’s hands.

Why? Edison Mendez scored a hat trick in their 5-1 thrashing of the Fluminense first leg of the final. A freekick, a rebound shot after his second on target free kick and a header, beautiful. Unless the Brazilians come up with a 4 goal come back second match, Edison Mendez can consider himself a happy man to win one of the most prestigious prizes in South American football.

Now if he were still in PSV…

However, PSV also has a very powerful scouting network in Asia too (arguably just East Asia). Remember the two asian faces in the starting line up when PSV marched into the semi finals of the UEFA Champions League just a few seasons ago? Lee Young Pyo and “oxygen tank” Park Ji Sung also played and prospered under the colours of the red and white.

Now I can keep rambling on and talk about our scouting system in Netherlands, and Europe and all that. But that’s irrelevant. What I’m trying to say is, we might find our next Asian talent, and if PSV can find it, then he must be good.

Kim Min Woo, a 19 year old attacking midfielder hailing from the same country as Park and Lee, is currently on trial with PSV.

So what’s with the hype? Well, the Korean showed up in the U-20 World Cup that was recently held this year. Sorry, let me repeat my statement, the Korean showed up and shined for South Korea in the U-20 World Cup. 3 goals in 4 games really says something, and it was unfortunate the Korean could not keep striking the ball into the net when South Korea narrowly got defeated 3-2 by Ghana.

If he actually makes the trials, kudos to him, cause man PSV trials are hard. One of my favourite upcoming goalkeepers was Wang Dalei (not because he was insanely good in FM), as I actually watched him play for China a couple of times, and even he failed to pass the trials in PSV. But if he makes it, he would be a great addition to our squad, instead of just being another marketing strategy targetting Asia (Zhou Haibin ring a bell?).

4-0 sums up the scoreline of what was deemed another “you must win or you’re not PSV” match. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy this deja vu landslide domination game against an arguable under strength “under” team. The referee decision that was pretty harsh didn’t help the cause either. Martin Pieckenhagen (Heracles goalkeeper) was sent off for a slight foul against Ola Toivonen on the 28th minute.

Everything else was history. Afellay scored on the 45th minute, before Balázs Dzsudzsák (50), Ola Toivonen (62) blasted PSV into 3-0. Highlight of the match for me though, with buckets of rain pouring through second half, was Jagos Vukovic’s stunning 20 yard goal on the 87th minute. He only showed up for PSV on the 77th minute, substituting Erik Pieters, and boy watch him go. I never knew he had potential to score those kinds of goals?

But as the title suggests, what caught the attention of my eyes was Lazovic’s hugging streak. It was kind of… lovely in a sense, him running around hugging his team mates whenver they scored.

With the current club atmosphere high, the players truly enjoying themselves in practice, it’s really not a surprise why. Since the 21st of March 2009, we have been undefeated. Yup, that’s right, undefeated nationally and internationally.

Our last defeat was against Feyenoord on March 15th on a scoreline of 1-0. Since then, we have won 24 matches, drawing 6 matches. If we win or draw our next game against Heracles Almelo on Sunday, then we would tie our own club record of 31 matches undefeated streak.

What’s nice to know is if we win, then we would essentially beat our own club record that was set between 1974 and 1975. Why is that you say? Well, our club record at the moment is 24 wins… but 7 draws. So 25 wins would see the current crop of players claim a new record.

This certainly gets my blood boiling, until I realise we’re still in UEFA cup Europa League, not even in the Champions League. Oh well, the record still makes a point about PSV’s consistency. And if we win or draw Heracles Almelo, we can solidy our record even more with the following match against Sparta Rotterdam. Sorry Sparta, you just aren’t that good technically compared to us.

Another interesting statistic is that we have scored 64 goals within these 30 games (shoot man, around 2 goals / game). I think currently we have a great mix between young and old, and if we bring a 32 undefeated game record to match 5 of the group stages in the Europa League, it would certainly help us seal off qualifications in style.

I’m back Huub Stevens you sucka!

Otman Bakkal has gone through one heck of a transformation since the beginning of the season. A itty bit part person who made the constant substitutions under Huub Stevens’s one season. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have talent. He played an integral part in PSV’s starting XI the season before Stevens came, and also played for Netherlands U-21 team that won the Euro in 2007 and the Olympics team in 2008 Beijing. Once again, he has proven to the world how important he can be.

The 24 year old has scored 7 goals in his first 12 Eredivisie games (his best goals record in one season was 8 goals with 31 games two seasons ago), and he is leading the scoring charts for PSV. Interestingly enough, his position is not even striker, so that just shows his goalscoring prowess.

Why the change all of a sudden? Well it helps to have games of course, and I think being kept away from starting a match under Stevens has actually helped him grow. Speaking from experience, growing from a sub player to a first team regular is hard, but reverting the process while you show no sign of slowing down in growing is very very hard. I was captain of my volleyball team, but was relegated to the bench just because the setters on court for my position was “better” than me in my coach’s eyes. It’s very frustrating when you know your better than the players on court, but are still not being able to play a full match. This helps contribute to the extra hunger and drive to perform your best whenever you have the chance, cause you appreciate it more than words can describe.

And he has been doing that. Running around like a mad man (literally), and showing up in the most dangerous spots all the time. You’ve never seen someone as motivated as he is, and his morale boost and confidence is just oozing out of him whenever you see him play.

Which is very good news, and I really think he deserves it. And despite no one at the moment is nailing a spot in the starting XI for Oranje from PSV, I’m not too worried. What I’m more worried about is the Jong Orange team for PSV.

Jong Oranje just beat their Spanish counterparts 2-1, leaving them the undisputed undefeated leaders of their qualifying group. Now, out of the 21 players who are in the U-21 group at the moment, there is only (!) 1 player from PSV. And that is Erik Pieters. And well Rens van Eijden is ex-PSV, but that only makes less than 1/10 of the group if we include him too. That just shows how pathetic the PSV youth development of Dutch players is right now! Feyenoord (man their youth generation is nasty… in a spectacular way) and Ajax are by far still leading the charts in terms of providing the youngsters (9 players in between them), while we have 2 Premier League club representativies too (Arsenal – Barazite, Chelsea – Bruma).

At the moment, the person I can think of that will one day no doubt represent Netherlands U-21 level in the near near future is Jereon Zoet our goalkeeper. He’s just very talented, and he’s only 18 years old. But except for that, is there anyone else emerging from our youth set up?

Did someone just say my name?

But that being said, we always let other clubs develop the youngsters, then we just buy em over. Philip Cocu, Ruud van Nistelroij, Mark van Bommel, Arjen Robben are just some of the notable examples… I guess we don’t have to worry that much then?

It was a great opportunity for PSV to try out different players against a proper first team opposition, as Valenciennes have not suffered from losing players to international duty.

Rymenants and Labyad from the youth squad showed up to play, while youngsters from senior squad Stef Nijland and Cassio Ramos played too.

Cassio Ramos finally had another go at playing keepy for the club. Despite Isaksson’s hot form prior to Copenhagen, I still find it amusing how the coach just wouldn’t let the Brazilian have a go at beating Isaksson out of the no.1 spot. Rumours behind the decision of still hanging onto the Sweded after his debut season was so that PSV could sell the goalkeeper for a higher price after 2010 if Sweden qualified for World Cup. I guess the betting/investing went wrong, as Sweden have failed to qualify.

Despite the non-concrete substance behind that, it’s sad how the management isn’t giving the Brazilian enough chances. Didn’t Gomes start when he was 22/23 years old? Cassio Ramos is turning 22, and my goalkeeper coach who regular visits the PSV team training reckons Cassio is around the same level as Gomes in terms of technical abilties. But I guess it’s an universal thing for goalkeepers around the world, as clubs are reluctant to hand the duties to youngsters due to their vulnerability and uncertainty. Just think Rob van Dijk from Feyenoord, who’s over Erwin Mulder and Darley Torres despite his ancient age.

For Stef Nijland though… it’s just a matter of too much competition in the forward position, and his abilities still needing to be honed. Nothing he can really do about, although he really needs to get loaned out soon, or else he’ll have to get transferred. He was playing games for FC Groningen prior to coming to the South Side.

Oh, and for being stripped of first team appearanes, our captain in theory Timmy Simons finally played in PSV colours today just to remind the fans.

You are… You don’t know me? I’m the PSV captain Timmy Simons! I thought Afellay was the captain…

But the biggest surprise for me was the addition of Steve Olfers into the starting line up. For all of those who don’t know (me neither until I saw him showing up), he is a 27 year old Dutch defender who lost his job recently after not having his contract renewed after his stint with Danish football club Aab Fodbold. Apparently he’s been training with PSV, so I suppose that’s why Fred Rutten (or maybe Rekers) gave him a chance.

<— Steve Olfers

And the scoreline? 1-0 to PSV, courtesy of a Nijland assist and a Toivonen goal.

It be nice if I gave a brief history of the beloved stadium of ours to start the entry off with.

The Philips Stadion as we know now, has been hanging around the blocks of Eindhoven since 1913. However, despite still being in the same location, the stadium has evolved with the team over the years. There are different numbers offered for the original stadium size up until 1933, ranging from 300 – 3000. But imagine, even if it was 3000, it’s still very very small compared to the current stadium, or even stadiums within the Eredivisie. The stadium subsequently was expanded to 18,000 seats in 1941.

As with most football stadiums across Europe, the bad news was that the majority of them were wrecked during World War II. The good news was that the majority of them had “excuses” to expand in size and renovate. This meant that the stadium expanded to 22,000. Surprisingly, it was only until 2002, did the stadium finally “settle” with it’s “final” seat capacity – 35,119.

So why plans to expand all of a sudden. Well PSV has had plans to expand for quite some time, but the board never really settled to materialise those plans. It was never really an urgent priority anyways, because stadium expansion is expensive. However, with Netherlands and Belgium trying to emulate their experience in hosting the Euro and metamorphosise that into a World Cup for 2018, opportunities open up.

According to FIFA, 44,000 is apparently the number needed for seat capacity if Philips Stadion are to be one of the hosting stadiums for the event. The major of Eindhoven wants the expansion to happen, as… well aren’t the reasons obvious? The money, the fame, the entertainment for the masses. Also, with the government actively providing favourable mortgage terms and all kinds of lovely financial incentives, PSV in return have to contribute more to the community.

“If Ibrahim Afellay went to the poor districts for promotion/participation of social projects, the effect would be much greater than if the mayor himself visited. PSV is in everyone’s mind, so it is logical if we contributed as much as we can through our active involvement with the community” was what Jan Rekers, our PSV general manager said.

It’s great for PSV, because now, the estimate costs of 50 million euros would be expected to be much easier to deal with, since the whole city is behind the plans. Also, the stadium is almost nearly full house every match, so expansions would accomodate all the fans who really want to show up and watch the home team play. Concert sizes can be larger, and the atmosphere would change immensely during home games. Plus, a stadium expansion would probably boost our chances to host another UEFA competition finals after our last UEFA cup final hosted in 2006.

You still remember me? Oh you’ve forgotten me already?

Under Huub Stevens, we conceded the same amount of goals Gomes conceded the previous season before the season was half way there… Now? My goalkeeper coach who used to play for the PSV A1 squad, but unfortunately retired very early due to an injury, kept dissing Andreas Isaksson about how crappy he was. My coach claimed he would do a better job than Isaksson anyday if he were to play between the post today (he said that a few months ago). After Isaksson heard my coach diss him, he went on to pull off a 7 game clean sheet streak before halting in Copenhagen…

FIFA claims PSV is 1 game short from breaking our club record (where they get that number from? Gome’s longest individual clean sheet streak is 956 minutes… that’s 10 games right there), but 7 game clean sheet streak is an achievement in itself. And despite his critics, I must say even with my mind influenced by my goalkeeper coache’s “biased” comments, I have been impressed with his performances. Shall we say, he is was in hot form (well not quite so after Copenhagen…).

And don’t get me wrong, cleansheets are rarely an individual efforts, it’s a joint effort. In the days of our successful runs in Europe (stupid AC Milan who barely beat us), the defence has always been our major strength, with Gomes just enjoying his time earning cleansheets 60% of the time.

Last season was such a hard season for us PSV fans to swallow, just because our defence looked so shabby… Fred Rutten came, he shuffled the defence around (where’d Timmy Simons go? Anyone?), and formed the twin towers of Mexico in front of Isaksson. Smart choice, cause afterall, Salcido enjoys playing centre back much more than left back. Also, Maza Rodriguez’s towering height of 1.91m (!) compared to Marcellis’ mere 1.81m, absolutely complements Salcido’s 1.75m body. Salcido and Marcellis are no Vermaelen (dang that boy can jump high), and if Salcido needed help to head a cross out of the box, he just needs to shout “¡auxilio!” (Spanish speakers, excuse my Spanish…) in his native tongue.

Another record that is going on at the moment is our undefeated streak. In my previous article, I said we have been undefeated since the beginning of the season. That statement is still true, but you can extend that statement all the way back until “8 months and 29 matches ago”.

Now, it would be nice if we could pull off an “invincible” season if we keep going on like this. Boeren!

Coming back from the Europa League draw away against FC Kopenhagen from what Fred Rutten deemed a “fair result”, PSV were grinding their teeth in hunger to extend their undefeated season as of yet. They certainly had a point to make, a win.

And they made their intention very clearly when they cracked open the gates of The Hague twice within the first 15 minutes. Arsenal being my second favourite club behind PSV, I leaped out of my seat when I saw PSV pulling off a “walking the ball into the net” style goal.

Danko Lazovic, who was tackled and shirt pulled to the extent of rolling on the floor in the beginning minutes of the game, was seen dashing down the left flank after an indirect PSV free kick. Beating his marker with raw speed, he clicked a floor rolling cross into a box full of around 7 players (!), before Ola Toivonen gracefully just flicked the ball into the net close range. The Swede certainly found himself a happy man after being benched the past few games due to a dip in form.

With a team name called ADO (Alles Door Oefening – means everything through practice) Den Haag, they certainly continued to demonstrate their “strong” efforts in practice by following up with the previous event of everyone staring at the ball rolling in the box. After the goal, Ricky van den Bergh ploughed / rammed into Ola Toivonen like he was a vertical cushion mattress. Referee didn’t seem to have any problems immediately reaching for a red card.

That’s pretty much the beginning of the ending of the story. With one man less, PSV found themselves with even more space to play around with the team represents one of the three largest cities in Netherlands. It was Lazovic once more, who was cutting in from the right flank into the front of the box, passing a slick pass to Balázs Dzsudzsák (inside the box on the left hand side), who subsequently rolled the ball to Ola Toivonen (unmarked in a box crowded with around 7 people, again), who once again gracefully poked the ball into the back of the net.

Third goal came in a courtesy of a corner kick into an even more crammed box, where the ball kept swinging around inside the box, before a short high flick that landed in pretty much the same exact position where Toivonen previously scored. Well, guess what, he did it again, this time with his head. Oh, and it was Lazovic who made the pass to the head, another assist from the fellow striker/winger.

An interception in the opponents half after the second half whistle began meant that Lazovic had a chance to create another assist, this time all the way on the right flank. A beautiful lob that connected with Bakkal’s head (where’s the marker?) Meant 4-0 for PSV.

The dramatic part of the game followed after Lex Immers from the home side was substituted onto the pitch for a tactical change around 55th minute. Before the man was even able to fully operate the manager’s tactical plans, he slide tackled into Danko Lazovic. Feel sorry for the fellow, as his only had a few minutes of cameo appearance before earning himself a ban preventing him from finishing the game or participating the next game.

Drama kept rolling in when the home fans were finally really fed up. Two red cards and 4-0 down? I’d be fed up too if I was an ADO Den Haag fan. 15 minutes of play was stopped when fans were singing obscenely at the referee.

Once play was restored, ADO Den Haag showed PSV that they weren’t the only side who were at fault defensively, when all the attention were shifted to Carlos Salcido’s marking on the left side of defence, before a pass to Soltani (unmarked) just outside the box enabled him to latch a fine hard low shot into his right far corner. All Isaksson could do was watch and stare.

Near the end of the game, Toivonen bagged (head) his fourth goal of the game from an Orlando Engelaar cross. Around the same spot for the fouth time I must say, but this time no more celebrations, just minimal high fives out of respect. Who wants to have thousands of people singing obscene stuff at you afterall?

Some relatively insignificant substitutions late in second half for PSV. Dirk Marcellis went on for Manolev, Jonathan Reis (yeah, that Brazilian on fire for PSV) went on for Pieters (weird one to be honest, striker for left back?), and Amrabat for Lazovic.

Personally thought the referee was very harsh. First red card, fine I’ll give you that. The second red card… replays did show that he did touch the ball, so I reckon yellow card at most. As a PSV fan, of course it is nice to see your teams thrash opponents with 5 goals, but it wasn’t fun to watch PSV thrash a 9 men team 5 goals. Despite easily being fallen into the trap of lazy relativism, PSV was playing a weak team that was weakened even further by having two men dismissed. If PSV didn’t score those 5 goals, they shouldn’t even be called PSV. Wish PSV could convert that kind of performance onto the European stage…