Dutch Eredivisie — match round 30

Leaders FC Twente had the hurdle of VVV in Venlo to overcome and ended up overcoming them in a rather comfortable manner. In a game of few chances, most of them falling to Twente, the home team could not put up a creditable fight and the first blow for Twente came in the 38th minute when Blaise N’kufo opened the scoring. Only later on did VVV try to put any pressure on Twente but it was Bryan Ruíz who got the clincher two minutes from time to make it 0-2 for the team from Enschede.

The logo of Vitesse Arnhem

Ajax travelled to the Hague for the encounter with ADO, a match which is often cause for concern because of fans fighting. On this occasion, it was more the players who were the aggressors in this often tetchy game. Ajax dominated the first half but it was ADO who missed an open goal after forty minutes. The pattern continued into the second half with ADO looking dangerous on the break. They had lost their keeper to injury in the first half but the replacement saw red near the end after a case of handbags with Ajax’s Danny de Zeeuw. Van den Bergh, an outfield player, replaced him in turn and held out until injury time, when Alderweireld smashed home a fine strike from distance to give Ajax the 0-1 victory.

PSV went to Tilburg, home of lowly Willem II. As expected, the outfit from Eindhoven went on the attack from the first minute onwards but failed to make the breakthrough by halftime. Keeper Aerts continued to frustrate the
PSV strikers until not long before the end when PSV converted a softish penalty. Not pretty to look at but job done by PSV.

Feyenoord welcomed NAC Breda to the Kuip in Rotterdam. Honours were even in the early stages with both teams having chances which went begging, Makaay missing the best of them for Feyenoord just before the break. Cissé missed another on the hour mark as the home team ratcheted up the pressure and the final chance also fell to him in injury time, again without success as the match petered out in a 0-0 draw.

In-form Heracles faced NEC Nijmegen at home in Almelo and the opening stages were uninspiring, to say the least. The lack of good chances led predictably to the 0-0 halftime scoreline. Heracles improved in the second period and were denied a couple of decent penalty shouts before substitute Armenteros opened the scoring with a fine shot ten minutes from time. He struck again shortly afterwards to ensure the points for the home team as the game ended 2-0.

AZ Alkmaar were in front of their own fans as they faced up to the potential banana skin of FC Utrecht. But there were no comedy antics as AZ opened their account after 5 minutes in the form of a cracker of a shot from the charmingly named Maarten Martens. NEC came back into it a bit after this but their resistance faltered as half time approached in a hail of AZ chances, none of which were converted. After the break Martens hit the post but it was a long wait till the 76th minute when striker Lens was fouled in the box and El Hamdaoui completed the 2-0 win with the resulting penalty kick.

Vitesse have been slowly working their way out of the relegation zone of late so the visit of Groningen would be a further test of their resolve. There was nothing like resolve in the first half from either team in a colourless performance which offered little to the spectators. What a difference a half makes, however. Vitesse were in the ascendancy and scored on 67 minutes as Claudemir converted a cross from the right. Groningen finally woke up and fought back for a bit but dozed off again towards the end allowing Kolk and Büttner to augment the final scoreline to 3-0 for Vitesse.

Elsewhere Heerenveen dished out a duffing at home to Sparta. The Rotterdammers spurned a chance to get back into the game at 1-0 down when they were awarded a penalty which saw Heerenveen reduced to ten men. The penaltly was missed and the ten men went on to win convincingly in a 4-1 romp. A similar lesson was handed out in Kerkrade where home team Roda JC thrashed visiting basement team RKC Waalwijk 5-1 in a game that also saw a late twenty-minute hat-trick from Roda’s Mads Junker.

Standings

Twente continue their incredible season in top place with 77 points, with Ajax and PSV four and five points behind them respectively. Feyenoord remain fourth on 56 but their draw let AZ catch up to within two points. Sixth-place Heracles are on 49 with Utrecht just a point adrift and Groningen and NAC compete the top half of the table on 42 and 41 points respectively. In relegation country, RKC are still rooted to the bottom with Willem II, ADO and Sparta a good few points ahead of them.

Next week: Twente host Heerenveen and VVV travel to Ajax. PSV are involved in a home ‘classic’ against Feyenoord in a third/fourth place meet-up. Elsewhere NEC host AZ, Heracles travel to Sparta, Utrecht welcome ADO, Groningen are at home to Willem II, NAC play Roda in Breda and Vitesse go to RKC.

Tags: Eredivisie, football

This entry was posted on 4 Apr 2010 at 21:14 and is filed under Orange Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.