The Dutch newspapers are unpacking, the day after the thriller in the third preliminary round of the Champions League between PSV and AS Monaco (3-2). The Eindhoven team secured a place in the play-offs thanks to a goal by Luuk de Jong in the extension. In this, the Rangers FC of Giovanni van Bronckhorst is the opponent. Was it luck or wisdom of the team of coach Ruud van Nistelrooij?
According to Valentijn Driessen, Van Nistelrooij did not panic about the enormous French dominance and the overwhelming percentage of possession for Monaco. “No, the team gambled on those few moments that always present themselves,” the football chief writes in The Telegraph. “The PSV players had to show the return that typified the deadly finisher Van Nistelrooij as a player. Only more top players from PSV will have to give home against Rangers if the club does not want to die for the third time in four years in the run-up to the Champions League. .”
The diptych with Rangers is scheduled for August 16 and 23. Van Bronckhorst’s team settled on Tuesday-evening with Union Saint-Gilloise (3-0 victory after an earlier 2-0 loss). It General Newspaper already hands out a serious warning to PSV and comes with a negative series. “For the eleventh game in a row, PSV failed to keep the goal clean. That is the longest run without a clean sheet since only 2012. Then the team conceded nineteen games in a row,” according to the daily.
‘Festival of Errors’
Fidelity describes the fight between PSV and Monaco as a ‘foul festival’. “Both teams struggled to play the ball more than three times to someone with the same shirt, which created a rather messy game image. It may well be in keeping with the current zeitgeist, in which football clubs increasingly become a trading house for players in the summer and ( new) coaches at this early stage of the season are diligently looking for permanents in their team. Money is becoming an increasingly determining factor in European club football.”
Also De Volkskrant saw how PSV came to stand with their backs against the wall after the break. The Eindhoven team conceded two goals, but executed the sentence through Érick Gutiérrez and Luuk de Jong. “Monaco actually deserved more than PSV to advance to the play-offs. The French number three was simply better than the number two in the Netherlands. Only this time PSV managed to beat an opponent with whom the club “It was more luck than wisdom. It broke a trend from the Schmidt era. In the two seasons under the German coach, PSV failed to win important European matches.”