Scott Musgrave
To call the state of football in the Netherlands a ‘crisis’ is perhaps taking things a little too far, but there is indeed a weakening of a once great and competitive league competition. Long gone are the days of Cruijff, total football, and the unwavering
To be blunt, the quality of the Eredivisie has dropped. No longer are Dutch superstars staying in their home country for the betterment of the league, nor are the quality players around the world wanting to come to the Eredivisie because it is a top competition.
No, now some would prefer to sit on the benches of higher co-efficient ranked league teams. Rafael Van De Vaart, Nigel De Jong, Joris Mathijsen and Romeo Castelen all ply their trade with Hamburger SV in the German Bundesliga, but why?
Arguably the quality is that much better in
Past movement of players to Real Madrid,
These players either need to wait for a big club to pick them up, i.e one that regularly challenges for league honours particularly in
Here is the main point, because of the talent drain on the Eredivisie and the perception of it as a ‘development league’ , the quality simply isn’t there to cope with the big spending teams of
Young talent is seemingly shipped off to any team with money. Nacer Barazite of Arsenal and Patrick Van Aanholt of
This is the start of something terrible for the Eredivisie, if various clubs can’t hold onto their academy talent something is wrong.
It has been gradually getting worse. Things were better particularly during the 1980’s where most quality players played in the Eredivisie. The European Cup win of PSV Eindhoven in 1987 proves this along with the Euro ’88 win by the Dutch National Team which was comprised mostly of home based players or those at the ‘big’ clubs of Europe.
It has been gradually getting worse from this point however. Since this time only Ajax have spurted up with a European Cup triumph in 1995 and the best effort in the years after was the 2005 semi-final run by a Guus Hiddink coached PSV Eindhoven who were the major surprise packet of the tournament.
However most notably, after these successes, players went on the greener pastures; Ajax (1995): Clarence Seedorf, Edwin Van Der Sar, Edgar Davids , Patrick Kluivert, Marc Overmars, Frank & Ronald De Boer, Jari Litmanen and Michael Reziger.
All these players played in the European Cup final of 1995 and all of them moved on to different clubs soon after. Most however would move to the big clubs of
Similarly with PSV’s triumph in the 2005 Champion’s League, as soon as the success had sunk in, the player drain came.
PSV (2005) – Wilfred Bouma, Young-Pyo Lee, Ji-Sung Park, Mark Van Bommel, DaMarcus Beasley, Robert and Johan Vogel.
Case in point however, not all of these players went to the big clubs of
The only exceptions were captain Mark Van Bommel who left for childhood favourites
This is the main gripe. Quality players are not moving to better teams. They could stay with PSV for example and continually compete at the highest level in
Due the drain of players to lesser clubs, getting younger and younger, the quality of the Eredivisie suffers and thus its competitiveness in
PSV is the only club in recent history to have competed at a high enough level to progress to the latter stages of the European Champion’s League with Ajax reaching pitiful lows of not even qualifying for the UEFA Cup Group Stage. AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord Rotterdam haven’t done themselves any favours either.
This year has been absolutely disgusting for fans of Dutch football with only ONE TEAM remaining in European competition after the winter break; PSV, after managing 3rd spot in their Champions League group, advanced to the last 32 of the UEFA Cup .
There is a problem with the Eredivisie and someone needs to fix it.
Players need to be encouraged to stay in their home country, if the Dutch remain in
Maybe it is just greed in the end that drives players over borders to different footballing nations, after all there isn’t as much money in Dutch football as there once was. But who’s fault is that? The blame lies squarely with the players and their ambitions. It would be foolish to deny a player his ambitions, but they have to be good enough to realise that ambition. Sure, if for example, Ron Vlaar (Feyenoord) wants to go to
We don’t want players moving from the big clubs of
If
We need to keep the Aissati’s and the Huntelaar’s for as long as possible before they move to big clubs even if they are to move at all.
Keep the Netherlands Oranje and proud.