Yesterday, both PSV’s U21 and Ladies teams played their matches. The U21 won and secured their fourth position in the Jupiler League, while the ladies lost and saw the possibilities for their first national title go down the drain.
U21 secure fourth position
Pascal Jansen won his last home game as coach of PSV’s best talents. After an enervating first half with several chances on the 1-0, the second half offered less entertainment, but also the necessary tension to secure the best ranking ever. During the first 45 minutes, Lammers, Gudmundsson and Verreth (twice) couldn’t get the ball in the White Lions’ net. In the 73rd minute, Koopmans saw a shot of Zamouri only just bounce away against the goalpost. Soon after, PSV reacted with a well set-up attack, with Zinchenko passing the ball on to Gudmundsson, who did what he’s been doing so well so often this season: kick it against the net and settle the score. Telstar weren’t able to score the equaliser and PSV did only what was necessary to keep the points in Eindhoven.
With only one single more match before the end of season 2016/17, PSV’s U21 wrote down a fourth position into the history books for the first time since joining the Jupiler League in 2013/14. Alfred Gudmundsson scored his 16th goal this season, goalie Koopmans kept a clean sheet again, and with only 34 goals against, PSV shares the first position of best defense with champions VVV Venlo. Earlier on this season, Eindhoven’s best talents won the Bronzen Stier (bronze bull) as the first U21-selection ever, so all in all, it’s been a great year.
Ladies run out of luck
This away match against Ajax was also the last chance on winning their first national title. The women from Amsterdam have been leading this season’s ranks from the beginning, but lost their first game from PSV back in March. Last night, the luck was on Amsterdam’s side, with an early lead in the 12th minute by Marjolijn van den Bighelaar. Goalkeeper Angela Christ already saved PSV several times from an earlier arrear, but this time couldn’t keep the goal clean after a well executed attack by Marlous Piëete and Loïs Oudemast. The same Oudemast almost scored the 2-0, but the crossbar assisted Christ to prevent this from happening. Aniek Nouwen passed the ball on to Kirsten Koopmans, but she saw her shot blocked by Elixabete Sarasola.
After stoppage time, PSV tried to create more chances and dominated the game. Ajax had their hands full to keep Eindhoven’s women from scoring and saw their own attempts to bigger the gap blocked by Christ. The 1-0 therefore was also the end result, keeping the Ajax ladies in lead and PSV’s ladies on the third position on the ranks. With 13 points difference and only 4 more matches to play, PSV will definitely not win the national title this year. However, PSV and Ajax will play each other two more times this season: on May 26th, the last day of the playoffs, and on June 2nd, for the Cup Finals. Maybe those two times will be enough for a sweet revenge for the Eindhoven selection?
Eindhoven News reporter: Joey
