Last week’s leaders AZ Alkmaar had travelled to the Hague to meet ADO with some confidence but – as also happened last year around this time – the little-fancied green and yellows from the Hague pulled off the shock result of the weekend, beating Ronald Koeman’s high flyers 2-1. Not, admittedly, as big a shock as last year when it ended 3-0!
The Abe Lenstra stadium in Heereveen
This was grist to the mill for PSV Eindhoven, who went joint top with a comfortable 3-0 home win over Roda JC Kerkrade which included a goal from MVP so far this season, Dzsudzsak.
The keenly-awaited match-up between last week’s fourth and fifth place clubs – FC Twente and Utrecht – dished up plenty of goals but little in the way of attractive football, especially in the first half. Utrecht took the initiative with the first goal but were 2-1 down by half time. In the second half Utrecht equalised but saw their reputation as the team who had lost the fewest points disappear in injury time when Ruiz tied up the points for Twente, who join PSV in joint first position.
In the ‘battle of the North’, the derby between home team SC Heereveen and FC Groningen saw the first away win for Groningen in the Abe Lenstra stadium (see photo) since 1997. Although historic, the victory was pretty much undeserved. In Groningen manager Ron Jans’ own words: “If you look how we performed and the amount of chances we created, we did not deserve to win. But when you consider that Ron Jans has spent eight years managing Groningen, then we did deserve to win here at some point!”
Feyenoord became the third team to share the leading honours with a hard-fought 2-3 away win at Willem II, the ‘royals’ being very much the underdog for this game with the Rotterdammers. Two goals from Tomasson and the winner from de Guzman sealed all the points for Feyenoord.
The most spectacular goalfest this week was in the Ajax ArenA in Amsterdam, where visiting NAC manager Robert Maaskant commented that his team were in the game for about 45 seconds. After that, it was all Ajax with a hat-trick for Cvitanich and just the one this time for leading scorer Suárez, the final 6-0 scoreline leaving Ajax coach Martin Jol with an expression not unlike that of a cat with a fulfilled cream penchant.
Elsewhere VVV Venlo defeated visiting Heracles Almelo by a single goal, Sparta did the same against current whipping boy RKC Waalwijk, and Vitesse continue to underachieve following a home 2-2 draw with NEC Nijmegen.
Next week: PSV travel to Rotterdam for the classic match-up with Feyenoord; Twente travel north to Friesland to face SC Heereveen; Ajax look a banker for three points in Venlo versus VVV; and AZ should similarly win at home against NEC. There is also an interesting contest for ADO in the Hague against Utrecht, both teams on equal points though ADO have played a game more at this stage. Roda take on NAC in Kerkrade and the list is completed by the visits of Sparta to Heracles and Groningen to Willem II in the first match of the round on Friday.
Tags: Eredivisie, football
