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And so by July 2006 I found myself back in the Netherlands, albeit not in Rotterdam. But the circle was almost complete.
ADO Den Haag had been relegated to the First Division a year earlier and they had just been promoted to the Eredivisie again. Against all odds, I might add. ADO had ended in sixth place, but by playing above their level they had managed to win promotion through the playoffs.
Now the last thing ADO wanted to become was another FC Volendam, a yo-yo club that was regularly being promoted and relegated. And ADO had a very decent squad to battle against relegation - including a large number of experienced players.
Their most experienced player was Michael Mols (36) who had just played for Rangers for two years. But they also had the likes of Goran Bunjevčević (33) who had played for Tottenham for five years, Stefan Postma (30) who played for Villa and for Wolves, Richard Knopper (28) who had played for Ajax, Tininho (28) and Paul Bosschaart (26) who were both former Feyenoord players, Laurent de Lorge (27) who had played for Coventry and Stijn Vreven (33) who had played for FC Utrecht. And they had Ferrie Bodde (24) who would play for Swansea in later years.
But ADO also had talented youngsters Eljero Elia (19) and Wesley Verhoek (19) who would eventually join Feyenoord.
Interestingly, Feyenoord and Ajax happened to be the first two sides we would be facing...
This story uses the unofficial April 2007 [2006-07 season] Database and non-WibWob tactics against the WW AI Tactic Pack - samsami v2
Last edited by samsami on Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:42 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Don't know the quality of some of the players, but you appear to have every position covered.
I wonder how Mols legs will last over 90 minutes.
3rd keeper perhaps needed ?
Will Willie Howie be coming into the midfield ?
Kingsley wrote: ↑Fri Jun 03, 2022 8:02 am
Don't know the quality of some of the players, but you appear to have every position covered.
I wonder how Mols legs will last over 90 minutes.
3rd keeper perhaps needed ?
Will Willie Howie be coming into the midfield ?
Apart from the fact that we had to try and stop the yo-yo years - a huge challenge in itself - there was the persistent hooligan problem at ADO Den Haag. A problem which was even more serious than at clubs like Feyenoord or Ajax.
Even former Swansea City shareholder John van Zweden (yes, there is a Swansea connection here!) has been an ADO hooligan in his younger days when he was given a two-year stadium ban.
Van Zweden had become interested in the Swans through a pen pal when he was sixteen years old and by the time he was forty he decided to invest £50,000 in the club after talking with his mate. This was in 2002, in the days of the Save The Jags campaign. Like the other owners of Swansea City Van Zweden ended up making millions of pounds by selling his shares to American investors some fourteen years later, but that's a different story altogether.
Meanwhile, in 2003 ADO Den Haag had been promoted to the Eredivisie but two years later they were relegated to the First Division again and the very next year, so when I left Swansea, they had just been promoted again.
The Board let me know in no uncertain terms that these highs and lows were not what they wanted. ADO needed to try and get off this rollercoaster that they were on. We needed to break that cycle of yo-yoing between the two divisions.
There were other problems as well. The Zuiderpark Stadium was to be demolished soon and in 2007 ADO would have to move to a new stadium.
And then there were problems with our squad. It turned out ADO did not have any proper central midfielders. They had an abundance of wingers and quite a few defensive midfielders but we had no creative central midfielders like James Pinnock at Gillingham, or Willie Howie at Partick Thistle, or David Bryan in more recent years at Swansea.
Nor did ADO have an assistant manager for me. I was supposed to find my own assistant! There was precious little time, though, because within a few days we were scheduled to play a friendly against SC Paderborn 07.
I decided the best thing to do was to play a 4-1-3-2 formation...
Paderborn competed in the Second Bundesliga at the time and it wasn't a very memorable game. The players were not really match-fit yet. In other words, it was a regular pre-season friendly apart from one thing. Michael Mols, our most experienced player, picked up his first injury of the season.
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Mols' injury made me wonder how our 36-year-old striker would last over ninety minutes in a long and demanding league season. Perhaps it was a good thing after all that we had so many strikers, including two attackers on loan: Mark de Vries (from Leicester) and Rick Hoogendorp (from Wolfsburg).
Anyway, we would soon find out. The season was about to start already with games against non-League teams in the KNVB Cup group stage as well as league games against Feyenoord, Ajax and NAC Breda.
We started the season with two cup games against amateur sides ASWH and Be Quick '28.
Now these amateur sides basically compete in the third or fourth tier competition in Dutch football and they are known to occasionally defeat First Division sides but not usually Eredivisie sides.
Mark de Vries, on loan from Leicester for one year, played his debut game for ADO against ASWH.
Wednesday 2nd August 2006
"We had Mark de Vries replace the injured Michael Mols as we played ASWH today and you might say it went well."
"Four goals is not bad against one of the stronger amateur sides. Knopper scored the early opener and De Vries netted a brace, so Mark had every reason to be pleased with himself. Bunjevcevic scored from a Vreven corner."
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Wednesday 9th August 2006
"We had Mols back as striker but it was Knopper who scored the early opening goal again - this time within 60 seconds - and Hoogendorp doubled our lead."
"After the break we brought on youngsters Eljero Elia and Wesley Verhoek and they played well enough but there were no further goals. Henk Stam even managed to score a consolation goal for Be Quick."
"I think our lads minds were on the game against Feyenoord already and one can hardly blame them of course."
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"So this means that we have already qualified from our group along with First Division side RBC Roosendaal. Obviously this was only to be expected."
"I am also pleased that we have managed to sign Dick Lukkien as my assistant manager. Dick was assistant manager at Veendam so I am sure that he will be a great help."
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And so we were more or less ready for the league season to start with the big match against Feyenoord. We still did not have any proper central midfielders and we were still experimenting with Pascal Bosschaart as defensive central midfielder. Bosschaart had done well in our cup games but this time he would be tested on a totally different level.
You can only play what is in front of you, but you would have been disappointed not to win both of those games.
Does topping the group give you a bye in the next round ? I'm sure there is some advantage to winning the group.
Big game next, on many levels. How do you set up to play "your team". No matter the result, you will be disappointed on some level.
Kingsley wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 1:09 pm
You can only play what is in front of you, but you would have been disappointed not to win both of those games.
Does topping the group give you a bye in the next round ? I'm sure there is some advantage to winning the group.
Big game next, on many levels. How do you set up to play "your team". No matter the result, you will be disappointed on some level.
There is no such advantage, I'm afraid. But that's fine because having to play Feyenoord four days prior to that game and then Ajax four days later means we can to rest players.
When the 2006-07 league season officially started we had to play first Feyenoord and then Ajax - with a cup game in between!
This was the real test and we could only hope that we would not be humiliated.
Feyenoord were no longer the team they were when they had won the UEFA Cup back in 2002. They did not have any real star players anymore. Angelos Charisteas was now their striker but Charisteas was hardly the Super Greek Feyenoord had hoped to sign.
Charisteas played alongside the nearly 37-year-old Pierre van Hooijdonk who had returned to the club in January 2006 after two reasonably successful years at Fenerbahce and a short six months spell at NAC Breda.
But obviously Feyenoord, with the talented 18-year-old Jonathan de Guzman as attacking midfielder, still had a far better team then we did.
Saturday 12th August 2006
"Well, it wasn't a humiliating defeat, but a defeat nonetheless."
"Bahia scored the early opener and that was enough for Feyenoord who never looked to not win the game. Of course we kept hoping for a lucky goal until the final whistle was blown, but we were left empty-handed."
"Our defence did well. Postma, Loumpoutis and Bosschaart were our best-rated players and probably because if our recent cup games we were slightly less rusty - but clearly less efficient - than Feyenoord for whom we have often been a bogey team in the past."
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Wednesday 16th August 2006
"The cup game did not really matter anymore so we rested a number a players, but the way we played was a disgrace and we shall have to do a whole lot better against Ajax is all I can say..."
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And to top off the week we had to play Ajax who were obviously a real force to be reckoned with and we knew we could not expect to beat them or even hold them to a draw. Edgar David (33) had returned to Ajax and they had 22-year-old Wesley Sneijder playing alongside him and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar as striker.
Sunday 20th August 2006
"Another loss. Our third loss in one week. But we were not humiliated."
"Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored the opener and a second Huntelaar goal was ruled out but just before the half-time whistle was blown Sneijder doubled Ajax lead and we feared the worst, but just like Feyenoord they seemed content with the scoreline and forty-five minutes later we could leave the Amsterdam ArenA with our heads more or less held high."
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So that was a week to quickly forget. We had not been humiliated, which had been my greatest fear, but we had still lost our first two league games and a loss is a loss. All we could do was hope for the best as we prepared to play more normal sides next including NAC Breda, Heerenveen, Willem II and Sparta.
3 games played and no goals scored.
I know it didn't matter, but losing to RBC is a sore one
Only positive is that Postma played well in both league games.
Need to get some points on the board pretty quickly or it could be a long season.
If you are second bottom on alphabetic order at the end of the season (and therefore with a playoff chance) would you take it ?
Kingsley wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 11:29 am
3 games played and no goals scored.
I know it didn't matter, but losing to RBC is a sore one
Only positive is that Postma played well in both league games.
Need to get some points on the board pretty quickly or it could be a long season.
If you are second bottom on alphabetic order at the end of the season (and therefore with a playoff chance) would you take it ?
After that difficult week we had to play NAC Breda at the Zuiderveld Stadium.
Now NAC had had a good start to the season. They had former Feyenoord goalkeeper Edwin Zoetbier between the sticks and Glenn Salmon, who came from SuperSport United in South Africa, was their main striker.
Sunday 27th August 2006
"Expectations were high, but for the fourth time in a row we failed to find the net..."
"Our opponents were keen to continue their good run and they created more than we did but not for the first time Stefan Postma and Konstatin Loumpoutis were our best-rated players to-day."
"Hoogendorp lacks confidence in front of goal while Michael Mols may be a clever player (causing Zonneveld to get booked) but Mols, too, hasn't found the net yet."
"In the second half we brought on Mark de Vries for Rick Hoogendorp. Also, Rankovic, who is having difficulty adjusting to the Dutch lifestyle, picked up an injury so we brought on Jesper Håkansson to replace him. Both subs played well but there were still no goals and to be perfectly honest, NAC came closer to scoring a goal than we did. Richard Knopper was the only one who actually got a couple of shots on target."
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"Rankovic will be fit in time for our next game, in two weeks time. However, if he continues to have problems adjusting we may opt for Håkansson. In fact, Dick Lukkien had already recommended that we'd give Håkansson more game time."
"Fortunately, the Board keep a positive attitude in all of this. It's going to take time and we shall need a very patient chairman!"
"Now it's already evident that we have a good goalkeeper in Stefan Postma. There is no need for a great many changes, but we shall have Mark de Vries replace Rick Hoogendorp for our next game. Both of them are on loan, so there's no reason to prefer the one over the other and Mark seems to have more confidence."
I'm thinking that the chairman's chequebook needs to be opened. You can't go much longer without scoring.
The defence does look solid, just creating virtually nothing.
Do you think it is players, formation, or both ?
Kingsley wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:45 am
I'm thinking that the chairman's chequebook needs to be opened. You can't go much longer without scoring.
The defence does look solid, just creating virtually nothing.
Do you think it is players, formation, or both ?
It's the players. I want to get to know them well and then decide to replace the weakest links.
Kingsley wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:45 am
I'm thinking that the chairman's chequebook needs to be opened. You can't go much longer without scoring.
The defence does look solid, just creating virtually nothing.
Do you think it is players, formation, or both ?
Kingsley wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:45 am
I'm thinking that the chairman's chequebook needs to be opened. You can't go much longer without scoring.
The defence does look solid, just creating virtually nothing.
Do you think it is players, formation, or both ?
SC Heerenveen had started the league season with three losses in a row but when we faced them at the Abe Lenstra Stadium they were clearly the favourites.
Heerenveen had some experienced players including former Feyenoord midfielder Paul Bosvelt and former Feyenoord goalkeeper Rob van Dijk and they had Lasse Nilsson as striker.
We started with Jesper Håkansson for the homesick Aleksandar Rankovic and with Mark de Vries for Rick Hoogendorp. We desperately needed someone to score our first league goal of the season!
Saturday 9th September 2006
"Not for a moment did it feel as if we were playing the team residing at the very bottom of the league table. Last season Heerenveen ended in seventh place and although Klaas-Jan Huntelaar left them to join Ajax they were still considered to be one of the better Eredivisie sides. And so, when Nilsson scored just before the break we feared the worst again."
"But we - or should I say, De Vries - did not give up hope. Four minutes into the second half Gonzalo Sorondo went in hard on De Vries, only the referee turned down our claims for a spot kick. With 73 minutes on the clock De Vries came close when he hit the post. But then, four minutes later Lampoutis fed the ball to Bunjevcevic who crossed it into the box and De Vries beat Van Dijk to the ball and netted the equaliser!"
"Heerenveen tried to restore their lead but we withheld the pressure and so not only did we get our first goal of the season but we also left the Abe Lenstra Stadium with a precious point in the bag."
"De Vries was our best player. Oddly enough, Vreven was our weakest link today. Let's hope this was only a rare offday for the 33-year-old defender."
There are a lot of former Feyenoord players around !
Got to be happy with your first goal and a point away from home.
Why was Bunjevcevic up there putting in a cross ?
Must be some easier games coming up.
