Belgium
My game this week was Royal Excelsior Mouscron at home to Charleroi. Strangely these are two French speaking teams with Mouscron being literally yards across the France/Belgium border. Unfortunately I collected a speeding fine on the way to the game and the home team duly followed my example by storming to a 2-0 lead after 25 minutes. But in the second half Charleroi looked by far the fitter team. It ended 2-1 and with Mouscron visibly going backwards they had to hang on to all three points. This was especially the case after the referee added six minutes stoppage time at the end.
The weekend’s biggest game saw Club Bruges take on Brussels rivals Anderlecht in a 1-1 draw.
Scotland
Guess what? Yes Celtic beat Hamilton Academicals away 2-1 and Rangers beat St. Mirren 2-1 at Ibrox. No change there then! How Scotland could use a Hull City or anyone to break the ‘Old Firm’ stranglehold.
Holland
Our Euroscore featured match this week took place at the Amsterdam Arena, Sunday lunchtime. It ended Ajax 4 PSV Eindhoven 1.
Whether you like football or not watching this match could probably have illustrated exactly why the sport is called ‘the beautiful game’. Ajax have a long history of producing wave after wave of some of the most exhilarating footballers you can hope to see. For this grudge match they were without several first choice players including their captain the much sought after Klaas Jan Hunterlaar. It didn’t stop them from systematically dissecting PSV and eventually romping to a well deserved 4-1 win.
Ajax is a club with an undeniable aura of magic about them. Their tradition of total football has bred generation after generation of multi skilled footballers who can play in nearly any position. When a defender or midfielder pushes forward someone fills the position and the team’s shape is rarely lost.
Today it was Luis Suarez, Urby Emanuelson and Eyong Enoh that caught the attention. Goal number one came after 27 minutes when Ajax had enjoyed 66% possession. Emanuelson, slipped Dennis Rommadahl in on the right, and his cross was slammed low into the PSV net by Suarez after a sublime first touch.
PSV’s central defender Peiters was having a torrid time trying to keep check on Suarez who was threatening to run riot. When Ajax attacked they swarmed forward. It was the home team’s runs from deep that were inflicting the real damage.
The second half saw PSV take off Wuylens and replace him with Lazovic. His first contribution was to break wide on the right, trick the advancing Vermeer in the Ajax goal before laying it in the path of Ibrahim Afellay who tapped in for 1-1 on the hour. If anyone thought this would signal a PSV revival they would quickly be proved very wrong. Ajax simply stepped up a couple of gears and proceeded to destroy their opponents.
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