The Odd Tumble of the Eredivisie

It has been a strange, strange year in Dutch football. The clubs currently partaking in the Dutch top flight have won a combined 49 Eredivisie titles, with Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord having won a modest 48 of those. Hegemony might be a start, but it’s still some way from an apt and thorough description. But that’s all changing, as AZ, who hold #49, have firmly planted nine fingers on the trophy – perhaps dominating relative to the competition better than any team outside Catalonia*. A trophy celebration which will almost surely be devoid of a Big Three crown for the first time since 1981. And now the country’s biggest game, De Klassieker, the derby between Feyenoord and Ajax, has seen away fans banned for a five years.

A team not named PSV, Ajax or Feyenoord with the title? A tepid De Klassieker? What’s the world coming to?

* – Delving a bit deeper, the parallels between AZ and Barca are ghosting towards eerie. Both got off the blocks in rocky fashion with humiliating losses to newly-promoted sides on September 13th. Both have gone undefeated since those losses on September 13th, while drawing just three times apiece (AZ has one extra loss from their opening game against NAC). Both are coming off incredibly disappointing years, with AZ unable to crack even the top ten of a water pistol league. Both have revolutionized themselves with eye-catching systems, though via wildly different methodologies. Both are making a good deal of noise for their attacking exploits, but both are winning results on the back of stellar defensive work. And last but not least, both are being coached by men who won multiple titles in the late 90’s with a Barcelona team being coached by Louis van Gaal. (Helping the odds considerably is that one of those men is Louis van Gaal himself.)

At Ajax, Marco van Basten was supposedly shepherding in the revolution which would see Ajax reclaim its former glory; now he’ll spend the remainder of the season attempting to reclaim some semblance of job security. PSV’s demise is hardly baffling, given they spent most of their summer pawning off their most prized jewels only to replenish with knockoffs. They managed to keep hold of and prominently display their glimmering gem, Ibrahim Afellay, but that showcase, much like their status as reigning Dutch champions, is on borrowed time. Feyenoord? The best thing we can say about Feyenoord is nothing at all. The Rotterdammers are slowly but surely, year by year, making their way down to a relegation dogfight. As one of three Dutch teams never to have touched the frigid waters of Eerste Divisie footy, they could be in danger of losing perhaps the only trump card they hold over the other two members of the Dutch holy trinity.

The Big Three, at best, are slumbering.

Only serving to compound matters is the loss of away fans for Ajax and Feyenoord for the next ten derbies (at least). It has been coming for some time and unheeded warnings were issued back in 2005, but five years – the punishment will be “reviewed” after two, however – is still an incredibly long time. The accusations are just, but derbies, by nature, are not exactly for the children and like those worthy of being dubbed such, the Ajax-Feyenoord fixture is no exception. We can comfortably say one probably wouldn’t find a substantial improvement in behavior upon traveling to Rome, Glasgow, Belgrade, Milan or Istanbul.

Surely some away fans will sneak in, but the atmosphere and, consequently, the aura surrounding the game will undoubtedly dampen, much like the rapidly dissipating aura of the Eredivisie. They’re now by and large UEFA Cup contenders at best, Champions League doormats at worst. AZ are really the only team which deserves the big ticket right now, and there’s no guarantee they won’t be shown up by the middleweights of Europe’s bigger leagues next year, as was the case with PSV during their unceremonious – to put it politely – fall campaign.

Is the fan ban an isolated incident and the rise of AZ the righteous reward for proper team football? Or is it something more? Is seeing PSV’s title-winning roster scattered across Europe, Ryan Babel and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar riding glorious benches – with Luis Suarez not far behind – and AZ’s stands littered with a multiplying colony of salivating scouts the product of the rich getting super-rich and the increasing willingness throughout Europe to buy young, younger and youngest? Maybe, but only time will tell.

Whatever the case, the suits in the league offices will be hoping the competition gets its act together, both domestically and in Europe, or else the Eredivisie will go the way of De Klassieker’s away fans: out of sight, out of mind.

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Category: Dutch Eredivisie, World Football