Gio

[Uilleam 5,960]

Giovanni Van Bronckhorst is doing well at Feyenoord, and should wrap up the club's first title since 1999, sometime soon.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/may/06/giovanni-van-bronckhorst-feyenoord-18-years-title

 

Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s quiet revolution returns Feyenoord to summit

The former Arsenal and Rangers midfielder has taken the Dutch ‘club of the people’ to the verge of their first title since 1999 despite his unassuming nature

Feyenoord need one win from their final two Eredivise games to be assured of the Dutch title and ensure their current crop of players can party like it’s 1999

 

Ed Aarons

 

Saturday 6 May 2017 10.00 BST

Just when Feyenoord supporters thought it was safe to crow after 18 years in the wilderness, along came Bertrand Traoré, Kasper Dolberg and co. Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side travel to Excelsior on Sunday knowing victory would secure a first Eredivisie title this century, although Ajax’s 4-1 victory over Lyon in the Europa League semi-final first leg at the Amsterdam ArenA on Wednesday has already threatened to put something of a dampener on the celebrations.

 

“All the emotions are a little bit spread at the moment,” admits Bert Konterman, the former Rangers and Holland defender and a member of the Rotterdam club’s 1999 title-winning side. “Half the country supports Feyenoord and the other half Ajax so some people really don’t know whether to be happy or sad.”

 

With two matches to go, a 10-match home winning streak at their De Kuip stadium has cemented De club van het volk (The club of the people) into pole position in the title race. But while Ajax’s surprising achievements in Europe with a squad with an average age of less than 23 have evoked memories of their mid-90s triumphs under Louis van Gaal, Feyenoord’s success this season has been firmly built on a mixture of youth and experience.

 

Five of Van Bronckhorst’s squad have Premier League experience – the former Liverpool goalkeeper Brad Jones and veteran forward Dirk Kuyt, the ex-Aston Villa midfielder Karim El Ahmadi, plus the wingers Eljero Elia, who was on loan at Southampton last season, and the Watford loanee Steven Berghuis – yet each of them arrived in Rotterdam with a point to prove. The 21 goals and 11 assists provided by the Denmark striker Nicolai Jorgensen have proved invaluable to a side that employs the traditional 4-3-3 Dutch system, with the emphasis firmly on attacking.

 

“In July, the chairman announced that they were hoping to win the title this year, although the goal for the season was to qualify for Europe,” recalls the NRC Handelsblad journalist and Feyenoord supporter, Mark Lievisse Adriaanse. “Everyone was saying: ‘Yeah, sure, winning the title: look at last season. You finished third but lost seven games in a row so there is no chance of winning the title this year.’ So nobody expected this. They have dominated the league by being top of the table since day one and it feels like a wave of suffering is falling off after 18 years of waiting. This will probably be the most beautiful league title the club has ever won because the suffering has been so hard. We were almost bankrupt, lost 10-0 and were not serious competitors for years.”

 

That 10-0 defeat by PSV Eindhoven in October 2010 proved to be a watershed. With the club already mired in €40m of debt, the most humiliating result in the proud history of the 1970 European Cup winners hastened the arrival of Martin van Geel to replace Leo Beenhakker as technical director. One of his first acts was to sack the coach, Mario Been, at the end of the season and replace him with Ronald Koeman, who had been out of work since leaving AZ Alkmaar 18 months earlier.

 

“At the time Feyenoord had a very young side that wasn’t much different to the team that had lost 10-0,” remembers Lievisse Adriaanse. “Players like Stefan de Vrij, Georginio Wijnaldum, Leroy Fer and Bruno Martins Indi had started to come through but Koeman introduced a very professional attitude that meant he would not accept losses or small influences in the club that blocked progress. Hiring him was very important for the process and Van Geel must take a lot of credit for that. But on the other hand he also hired Fred Rutten, who was less successful. When he left in 2015, there was no other candidate for the job than Van Bronkhorst.”

 

Despite spending four years as an assistant to first Koeman and then Rutten, who coincidentally was in charge of PSV for that 10-0 defeat, the former Rangers and Arsenal midfielder was an unexpected choice. But Konterman believes the appointment of the former Holland midfielders Jan Wouters and Jean-Paul van Gastel, club captain in 1999, to his backroom staff was a masterstroke.

 

“Giovanni has surprised me,” says Konterman. “I played with him at Rangers and for Holland but in my eyes he wasn’t a leader. What he is doing now is fantastic and he has done well to organise a strong team around him. The combination of these three, who are very different characters, has been so influential. There has been a lot of pressure on the group, especially over the last few weeks, and it can be difficult to handle that. So the experience of players like Kuyt and El Ahmadi has also been crucial.”

 

In particular, the transformation in the midfielder Tonny Vilhena has caught the eye. Having burst into the first team under Koeman as a teenager, he appeared to be on his way out of the club after refusing to sign a new contract and falling out of favour with Van Bronkhorst. Lucrative moves to Leicester and Milan were on the table but the 22-year-old’s dramatic U-turn ensured he remained at the club he had joined 15 years earlier.

 

“Everyone was surprised he stayed. But the most important thing was that his mother had cancer and he didn’t want to leave her,” says Lievisse Adriaanse. “He knew that if he went overseas then he would not get the chance to see her much. He’s been one of the star players this year. A couple of years ago the criticism was that he was too selfish but all the problems that he’s had seem to have vanished. In the Netherlands we’re used to having teenagers in the team but it’s usual to have a period after they break through when it’s more difficult.”

 

Vilhena’s commitment to the cause was underlined this week when he agreed another contract extension until 2020, with rising stars Terence Kongolo and Emil Hansson following suit as they prepare for next season’s Champions League group stages. A new 63,000-capacity stadium is also in the pipeline. They may yet be followed into the group stages of the Champions League by Ajax should they win the Europa League but Konterman, who now coaches the Twente under-19 side that produced Leicester’s Wilfred Ndidi, is convinced that rivalry will only benefit Dutch football in the long run after recent years in the doldrums.

 

“More young players must be given a chance and then there will be confirmation in what we are doing in training and educating the young players,” he says. “We have been searching for the right way to make changes and have lost our vision. The average age in the Dutch league is much lower than it used to be – in my day it was around 27 or 28. A lot of the boys from 1999 were internationals already and used to the big games. There are also more Dutch players in the teams now – we had players from Argentina, Russia, Brazil and Poland and I think that reflects the fact that the Eredivisie has become more of a feeder league. We know our place in Europe and that means we have teams with young players who end up going to England or Spain to earn the big money. It’s not nice because we want a strong league as well but we can’t compete with the TV money in those countries.”

 

For now, though, the focus is firmly on Sunday. Defeat at Excelsior would give Ajax a sniff of overhauling Feyenoord at the summit but, with a match against Heracles at De Kuip to come next week, surely they cannot blow it this time. “The significance for Rotterdam is huge,” says Lievisse Adriaanse. “I was five in 1999 so I don’t remember anything about the last league title. For a whole generation of supporters, we are experiencing what is happening right now for the first time. I don’t really know how to feel.”

[Uilleam 5,960]

Of course, Feyenoord only go and get horsed 3 - 0 at Excelsior.

Ajax won 4 - 0 at Go Ahead Eagles, and are only 1 point behind.

Both teams have one game to play.

 

I hope that I haven't jinxed the lad.

[Uilleam 5,960]

Congratulations to Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

The boy done well.....

 

Feyenoord won their first Dutch title since 1999 thanks to captain Dirk Kuyt's hat-trick in their win over Heracles Almelo on the final day.

 

Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side needed to win, with Ajax one point behind them, and nerves were settled when 36-year-old Kuyt pounced on a defensive mistake to score the opener after 38 seconds.

 

He headed in his second in the 12th minute and scored a penalty late on before Peter van Ooijen's consolation.

 

Ajax won 3-1 at Willem II,and finished 2nd.

 

Note the following

 

Their manager Peter Bosz fielded the youngest starting XI in Eredivisie history for the game, with an average age of 20 years and 139 days.

 

Captain Davy Klaassen, at the age of 24, was the only player over 21 starting. But goals from Kasper Dolberg, Davinson Sanchez and Klaassen proved to be in vain for their title hopes.

[MacK1950 2,399]

Golden Oldies do it again that is why we should keep Hill for another year for his experience.Well done Gio,a quiet unassuming type,but bound to be a success.