A lot of football, money and more football in this week’s article. Not only are there 3 matches to talk about, PSV has done (some ugly) business as well. This article is free for you to read nonetheless!
Goals, goals, lots of goals. (Or: money, money, lots of money.)
Last Sunday at the Philips Stadium, PSV ‘did what it had to do’ against Heracles and beat them with 3-0. Shortly after, main rivals Ajax beat Feyenoord in Rotterdam with 1-4, resulting in a 5 point lead position for PSV at the top of the Eredivisie.
Managing Director Toon Gerbrands was excited to announce PSV will start a pilot together with Jumbo, called Foodcoach. This app is designed to help the selection choose the healthy options and tasty combination while shopping at the supermarket. The kind of news that isn’t exactly surprising, considering the fact that Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd is both Chief Commercial Officer of Jumbo supermarkets and a member of the Board of Directors of PSV Eindhoven. Let’s say both PSV and Jumbo score pretty well by this announcement.
In search of more (undeniably necessary) money from sponsoring, PSV announced to be one of the first clubs in the BeNeLux to have signed a deal with WELLBET, an Official Asian Betting Partner. Another step into selling football’s soul seems more and more unstoppable, globally, and since many fans are betting their money on football matches, it appears this thing is going to be very normal in Europe soon as well. A gigantic score for business, not football, you could say. Will PSV be sportive enough to help those who get into gigantic depts because of this decision? I wonder how Luc Nilis feels about this partnership.
A new contract with the VDL Group has been signed as well: a long-term partner and big sponsor who are currently replacing the seats at the Philips Stadium and now are connected to PSV for another 6 years. Next to this deal, PSV officially opened their eSports Room: a room equipped with modern technology that is suitable for recording and live streaming of the channels of PSV eSports (get a glimpse of the Room here. eSporters Romal Abdi and Ali Riza Aygün will play their home matches here, but the room is also commercially available for tournaments, clinics etc. Made possible by: energiedirect.nl and 100% Voetbal, Suppliers EA Sports, Philips, AOC Gaming, Sony PlayStation and PlaySeats. Score!
Back to football: KNVB Cup
Apart from business, there was the national cup tournament. Without the slightly injured Bergwijn, Locadia and Pereiro, Cocu also gave captain Van Ginkel some rest. Bart Ramselaar, Adam Maher and Albert Gudmundsson made their appearance in the basic eleven but couldn’t help PSV score during the first 90 minutes. Maher and Gudmundsson were even taken off the pitch earlier, making a place for Lammers and Mauro Júnior. However, it wasn’t until Van Ginkel got off the bench that PSV scored the opener, and several minutes later Lozano closed the deal: 0-2. The drawing of lots decided PSV will play the next round against VVV-Venlo late December at the Philips Stadium in Eindhoven. That’s actually a goal in advantage for PSV. (you can place your bets soon!)
Top match in Arnhem
Vitesse are performing really well after a start that is comparable to PSV’s: they were kicked out of the KNVB Cup by an amateur team in the first round of the tournament. Extra painful for a team that won their first prize in their 125 years of existence, last season against cup fighters AZ. In one game they threw away the hope for a new season of possible glory. Just like PSV threw away the hope on a great season of European football against NK Osijek, an unknown team from a relatively small football country. But after that, things got better for both teams, resulting in a number 1 and 3 position for PSV and Vitesse respectively. Now, what’s to say about the strength of the ‘wasps’ from ‘above the rivers’?
To begin with, Vitesse simply has a very decent selection and technical staff. Some of them have a history at PSV: Head Coach Henk Fräser has worked at PSV’s youth academy, Remko Pasveer was last year’s substitute for Jeroen Zoet, Tim Matavž is a former striker of PSV and Alexander Büttner was named as one of the possible replacements for Jetro Willems, last summer. Next to these players, you see a lot of quality, experience, and talent within the group, with creative wingers like Rashica and Linssen. In a way, you can compare the selections of both teams, and for coach Fräser this competition is the only competition left, so he will be eager to keep PSV from taking points back to Eindhoven.
Ex-Vitesse players in Eindhoven
Eloy Room, Marco van Ginkel and Phillip Cocu have played for Vitesse in the past. Room and Van Ginkel are products of their Youth Academy, for Cocu it was the last step before signing with PSV back in 1995. One can conclude both coaches and teams have not too many secrets for each other. PSV will surely want to increase the lead and Vitesse wants to stay on track for a place in the top 3 of this season. Betters would want to put their money on PSV though, looking at the statistics.
Statistics
PSV and Vitesse played 73 official matches against each other so far. PSV won 48,5% of their away matches and lost 9,1%. Vitesse won 3 times at their home stadium, all 3 times with 1-0, for the last time in the season of 1996/97. Last season, PSV scored their biggest away victory and left Arnhem after beating Vitesse with 0-2. You can watch the resume here: Whether or not PSV will repeat this on Sunday is nothing more than a wild guess…
Match information
Date: Sunday 29 October 2017
Time: 12:30 (00:30 pm)
Location: GelreDome, Arnhem
Referee: Serdar Gözübüyük
Broadcast: Fox Sports Eredivisie
Tickets: SOLD OUT FOR PSV FANS, try Vitesse’s ticket shop here.
For Eindhoven News: Joey
