For fear that a player will shoot a free kick under the jumping wall, teams in the Eredivisie and other competitions increasingly choose to put a player on the ground behind the wall. Willem van Hanegem mentions it in his column for it Algemeen Dagblad ‘total nonsense’ and states that it would have been unthinkable in his time as a professional football player.
Van Hanegem mentions in his column a moment from the match between PSV and Feyenoord (1-1), when Eran Zahavi and Philipp Max took place behind the ball for a free kick. The Curve was especially curious whether a player would lie behind the wall. “Because that’s suddenly fashion, isn’t it. What a total nonsense that is. No, at the Dutch in 1974 no one had gone to lie behind the wall, even though the national coach had begged for it. By the way, Rinus Michels had never asked. And if so, I would have said: you can relax yourself. ”
“Johan Boskamp would have been suitable for Feyenoord,” someone recently said to me on the golf course. No, that’s crazy, ”continues Van Hanegem. The former footballer saw Sérgio Oliveira score from a free kick on behalf of FC Porto against Juventus last Tuesday. Cristiano Ronaldo jumped up and could not prevent the ball from going towards the goal. “The reporters were shouting all over the boy, but Wojciech Szczesny really couldn’t do much about it. Hopefully Juve will not suddenly put one behind the wall anyway. The Juventus players just shouldn’t have jumped, then it would never have hit. ”
Van Hanegem writes that it did him good to see that Feyenoord did not put a player behind the wall. Moreover, he thought the team of trainer Dick Advocaat appeared well for the day in the Philips Stadium. Steven Berghuis signed for the 0-1, after which Donyell Malen determined the final score before half-time. “PSV has at least as much offense as Ajax, but they are giving away so many opportunities. And that is actually the case every week ”, says Van Hanegem.