I'm sincerely surprised for only seeing one dutch team at the CL. I thought you guys were only suffering an occasional crysis that comes with UEFA coefficients for all countries rated below 6th. But this is lasting for too long. What is the reason for this downfall?
Poor season by Feyenoord last year in the league. Ajax losing Babel and Sneijder because of transfers this year. AZ not beating Ajax in the playoffs last spring. Pretty simple.
There isn't really a downfall as the situation hasn't changed. PSV has been the only Dutch side to perform well in the CL for years. AZ are the only side that's been doing well in the Uefa cup. The Netherlands is too small a target audience to attract serious money from serious investors so this won't likely change. Not that we the Dutch care. You might be interested to know that the highest Dutch league, the eredivisie, is more popular than ever, last season we had another attendance record, and the number of active footballers (that is registered Dutch FA members who play for a club) has for the first time surpassed 1.7 million, with women's football growing by 30% annually and quickly becoming the most popular women's sport also. So Dutch football is thriving like never before.
Portugal is even smaller than Netherlands and we still manage to put 3 clubs in the CL. In fact, 7 clubs are involved in european competitions for the first time but it's going to be deadly... since only 1 out of 3 in the CL go through the group stages and only Braga usually performs decently in Uefa Cup. Belenenses also has a good team but unfortunately they're going to face Bayern München. Anyway, portuguese league is gradually growing internationally since Euro-2004 while the dutch are suffering the opposite. We have no magnats investing in our clubs and the financial status has been the same or better because of today's marketing and stuff. So I really don't think that's a valid argument unless they're ruled by bad management. I do know that according to what you just told me and your U-21 team, you guys are creating all the conditions to be back on top in a few years. It's a feeling
In my opinion, the eredivisie has become more competitive because the "Top 3" have become increasingly mediocre in the past couple of years. It makes for exciting domestic football, but absolute shit in Europe. The other thing in my opinion is that the mentality seems to have shifted from the players in the eredivisie as well. Whereas players used to spend a good 5 years on a team before thinking of big money in another league, these days they leave after 1 or 2 decent seasons - the eye of the big clubs has been cast upon the eredivisie, and it's stripping a lot of the talent early. The Maceo Rigters transfer is a case in point. In Portugal, I assume this hasn't happened to the degree it has in Holland. As the talent pool dries up in Holland, I'm sure that you'll see your players go more quickly...
Good point. FC Porto young promises would often spend 2 or 3 years forcefully in the team before selling them out for a great amount of cash (or cases like Quaresma that is still indispensable to the club). Sporting and Benfica learned with their rivals lately and now know how to keep their best players in. Of couse some national key players leave but that's when good scouting pays a great influence. For example, M. Fernandes left Benfica but they hired Di Maria, Anderson left FC Porto but they signed Bolatti, Nani left Sporting but they signed Vukcevic. As for the academies, we're both countries that are a factory of producing good talents but you guys need to greedy sons of bitches with your own players. Ally that to good scouting and there you go.
Well like I said, I simply don't see why you would call it a downfall as the situation hasn't changed over the past couple of years. There's only one club to blame for there only being one Dutch club in the champions league and that's Ajax, who have been underperforming both in Europe and domestically for years. That has a knock-on effect as you know. If one club fails in the champions league, down goes your coefficient and you lose out. The point being that you can't blame Dutch football overall for one club failing. I'm not bothered in the slightest by the way by the CL, I could not care less about it. It's an elitest tournament that produces a lot of boring football, there's so much money at stake that the fear of losing has a paralysing effect. I'd much rather watch a Dutch league game any day and I'm not alone in having that view I can assure you. As I pointed out before, the interest in the Dutch league has never been higher, never before have there been so many active footballers in Holland, never before have our national youth teams performed so well. Dutch football is thriving, and with all due respect, I really couldn't care less what outsiders think of it.
Maceo Rigters is a case in point FOR Dutch football rather than against it. He wasn't considered good enough for the highest level of Dutch football. Yet a premiership club thought he was good enough for theirs! Yes players are leaving too early. But that's hardly unique to Holland. And it hasn't affected the entertainment value of the eredivisie one bit, it's only got more interesting. Meanwhile I watch the premiership and sometimes even see half-empty stadiums. Now that's one thing you won't see over here. We all love our football and again are not bothered by what other people make of it.
Very interesting discussion, especially when brought up by someone from portugal, our main rivals at the coefficients rankings. Here is the thing. Dutch clubs are only underperforming in the Champions league whereas Portugues teams are underperforming in all european competitions. The country rankings are based on the last five years in european competitions. Last year we managed to get a solid 8,2 average from all clubs whereas Portugal only managed to get a 8,0 average. This difference isnt that big but the years before that are significantly different. Season 2006/2007: Netherlands 7,6 and Portugal 5,5. Season 2005/2006: Netherlands 12 and Portugal 8,1. The two seasons before that where slightly worse and Portugal did manage to get a better average those years. However, those two seasons will fade away in the next two years. So when you look at the facts (coefficients) its not a case of dutch football falling down but a case of Portuguese football falling down. Can you perhaps explain me why?
It's easy my friend, like I mentioned before it's all due to the uefa coefficients. NO COUNTRY rated below 6th has depth enough to compete at a high level, Portugal included so it's an endless cycle. And don't even try to compare both countries when it comes to rankings because since the beggining of the 90's (most of the times) Netherlands as been under Portugal. And since u're referring to statistics that have a span of 5 years, you should of probably mentioned the couple of years before that altogether Portugal made 21 while Netherlands 11,5. And I was only talking about CL alone if you didn't noticed. I didn't come here to trash netherlands but being genuinely curious why you guys are taking so long to make an impact like the old days. No conflicts please.
I didnt want to get a conflict, it was just my part of the discussion. But I dont think youre right about the ninetees thing. Halfway trough that era the Netherlands where the third country of Europe because Ajax won the CL in 95, reach the semis and the finals the two years after that. But still, its pretty strange we underachieve in the CL in recent years indeed. Only PSV manages to get a decent result each year but with a stronger Feyenoord this year then ever before I really think this situation could change in the next years. We finally have 4 very strong teams again.
We're just arguing against your point that there's a downfall, which in our view isn't the case. You can agree with that or not, it's all fine. The old days are a very long time ago by the way. The last time two Dutch clubs made a real impact in the CL was, well actually, never.
True. Sorry, it was my mistake. I guess I got it confused with another country. Good, I liked watching the eredivisie but in the last years the portuguese tv stopped transmitting any games whatsoever. Hopefully if your teams go according to expectations i'll get the chance to see them on SportTv (national cable channel). I think this year Portugal is also more strong than ever. 4 teams as well. Benfica started slow but showed in the last superliga fixture that they have a great team. And Braga doubled their strenght, i'm really surprised how a non big 3 club managed to get so many good players this year. Anyway, not that it matters, but AZ Alkmaar is going to beat the hell out of Paços that has no experience or quality.
It's even worse in Italy (who some say is the best league around). Of course some of the games are played before empty stands because of other problems. We get matches from all four of the "big" leagues (wish we could get Eridivisie matches!!!!). Bundesliga matches appear to be played before full stadiums. Same with Spain.
I am convinced that the current trend of foreign investment and ever more money in the game is alienating traditional football fans (with extortianate ticket prices!), the irony being that 'new' fans would rather watch from the comfort of their home. Which is what's happening in England and Italy I reckon.