Saturday 29th March 2014
VITESSE 2-2 HEERENVEEN
Vitesse missed the chance to jump in to second place as Peter Bosz’s men and Marco van Basten’s Heerenveen shared the points in a hard-fought 2-2 draw in a great game in the GelreDome.
Van Basten gave 18-year-old winger Daley Sinkgraven his first start in the same week the players signed new contract with the club replacing Rajiv Van la Parra who was left out of the matchday squad for disciplinary reasons.
The first real chance of the game came when Zakaria Labyad forced a save from Kristoffer Nordfeldt on 15 minutes, and Valeri Qazaishvili lashed the rebound towards goal but his effort was blasted just wide of the post.
On the half hour, Mike Havenaar notched his tenth of the season after Ronald Achenteh found him free at the back post, and the Japanese striker arrived to tap home.
Heerenveen nearly had the perfect response a minute later when Bilal Basacikoglu surged forward down the left and swung a ball into the area for Hakim Ziyech but Piet Velthuizen pulled off a great stop to preserve his side’s lead. Opposition goalkeeper Nordfeldt was called into action moments later at the other end when Chelsea’s on-loan full-back Patrick van Aanholt smashed a low left foot drive but the big Swede got down to protect his net.
The visitors got the levelling goal through the Icelandic hitman Alfred Finnbogason with a superb goal. Joey van den Berg played the ball into the striker’s feet on the edge of the area, the Eredivisie top scorer strongly held off the challenge of Jan-Arie Van der Heijden, kept his composure and fire into the goal.
After the half-time team talks, Bertrand Traoré replaced Havenaar after the Vitesse goalscorer had fallen awkwardly on his ankle midway through in the first half.
The visitors grabbed the lead just before the hour mark after some great work from young substitute Joost van Aken, after being one the pitch for less than two minutes. The left-back surged down the wing and beat Achenteh to cross in for Bilal Basacikoglu to rise above Van Aanholt to head past Velthuizen.
Another substitute brought the hosts back level, Chelsea midfielder Bertrand Traoré with a great finish in the 67th minute after being put through on goal by fellow Chelsea team-mate Christian Atsu.
Both sides pressed for the winning goal but both keepers saved their team. At first, Finnbogason looked certain to score ten minute from time but Velthuizen got in front of the striker’s close range effort. Meanwhile, with just a minute remaining, Nordfeldt had to tip over a Traore free-kick.
The draw helped neither team although Vitesse move up into second at the expense of PSV as Heerenveen stay in sixth.
TEAMS
VITESSE: Velthuizen, Achenteh (Vejinovic 82), Mori, Van der Heijden, Van Aanholt, Pröpper, Qazaishvili, Labyad, Atsu (Djurdjevic 73), Havenaar (Traoré 46), Piazón.
SUBS NOT USED: Room, Bosz, Metalsi.
GOALS: Havenaar 31, Traoré 67.
BOOKINGS: Qazaishvili 61, Mori 84.
HEERENVEEN: Nordfeldt, Marzo, Kum, Kruiswijk, Raitala (Van Aken 56), Van Anholt, Van den Berg, Sinkgraven, Ziyech (Slagveer 90+1), Finnbogason, Basacikoglu.
SUBS NOT USED: Vandenbussche, Otigba, De Kamps, Fazli.
GOALS: Finnbogason 39, Basacikoglu 58.
BOOKINGS: Raitala 44, Van Anholt 72, Ziyech 86, Van Aken 88.
NEC 1-2 HERACLES
The already relegation threatened NEC Nijmegen suffered a last minute defeat to ten man Heracles to stay four points adrift of safety but have played more games than all the other clubs in the relegation battle.
The hosts opened the scoring on 20 minutes as Englishman Michael Higdon notched goal number fourteen of the Eredivisie campaign. Higdon skipped past Heracles keeper Remko Pasveer to finish into the vacant goal.
The equaliser did not arrive until the 80th minute with Australian Jason Davidson making the NEC Nijmegen pay for not clearing a cross. A few minutes later, the visitors were down to ten men as Mike te Wierek was shown his second yellow card by referee Kevin Blom for a bad tackle on Søren Rieks.
With the game heading to a draw, Heracles substitutes Matthew Amoah and Iliass Ben Hassini combining to steal the points. Ben Hassini whipped in a ball to the back post and Amoah was on hand to nod the ball past Dennis Gentenaar in goal.
Heracles have climbed up to tenth in the league standings with the positive results, however for NEC, it’s looking highly likely that the Nijmegen side will be at least participating in the relegation playoffs come the end of April.
TEAMS
NEC: Gentenaar, Vermijl, Nielsen, Conboy, Leiwakabessy, Jahanbakhsh (Castillion 88), Rieks, Štefánik, Koolwijk (Mulder 53), Jantscher (Hemlein 82), Higdon.
SUBS NOT USED: Johnsson, Stutter, Disveld.
GOALS: Higdon 20.
BOOKINGS: Rieks 90.
HERACLES: Pasveer, Te Wierik, Rienstra, Schenkeveld, Davidson, Tannane, Quansah, Bruns (Veldmate 74), Rosheuvel (Bel Hassani 62), Uth (Amoah 58), Linssen.
SUBS NOT USED: Telgenkamp, Koenders, Cziommer, Belterman.
GOALS: Davidson 79, Amoah 90+5.
BOOKINGS: Linssen 62, Te Wierik 74, Quansah 85.
SENT OFF: Te Wierek 83.
PSV 2-3 FC GRONINGEN
After an eight-game winning streak, PSV Eindhoven were defeated for only second time this season at the Philips Stadion, 3-2 by FC Groningen.
With Philip Cocu sidelined for the rest of the season after an operation midweek to remove a benign tumour from his back, his assistant Ernest Faber led the PSV team out for the first time. The team were boosted with Georginio Wijnaldum’s return as he had been out of action since September with a back injury.
PSV exploded out of the blocks and made Groningen pay for a defensive error within the first two minutes. After Maikel Kieftenbeld had gave the ball away, goalkeeper Marco Bizot rushed out to punch the ball away from Jürgen Locadia’s path, the quick thinking masked-man Memphis Depay acrobatically chipped the ball towards goal from outside of the box to make it 1-0.
Two quick fire goals not only got Groningen back in the game but saw them take the lead.After a good run from Filip Kostic on 18 minutes, the Serbian rolled the back to Richairo Zivkovic inside the six-yard box for the youngster to tap home his eighth goal of the season.
In the 20th minute, Filip Kostic robbed PSV defender Karim Rekik of the ball in his own area and fired past Jeroen Zoet to make it 2-1 with two goals in two minutes. The Philips Stadion and the PSV players were shell shocked.
The scores were level at the half-time break as PSV were handed a lifeline on 37 minutes. Bryan Ruiz earned his side a penalty and Jürgen Locadia sent the spot-kick low to Bizot’s right and into the bottom corner to make it 2-2.
However, PSV did not go onto to win the game even though they boasted much the possession and only 64 minutes, Tjaronn Chery hit a free-kick that missed everyone and nestled into Zoet’s goal to give his side the three points.
As Edwin van de Looi and Groningen celebrated, PSV sulked as this was a bitter blow to their chances of Champions League qualification for next season.
TEAMS
PSV: Zoet, Arias, Willems, Bruma, Rekik, Schaars (Georginio Wijnaldum 46), Park, Hiljemark (Maher 87), Ruiz (Narsingh 77), Depay, Locadia.
SUBS NOT USED: Tyton, Brenet, Zanka Jørgensen, Bakkali.
GOALS: Depay 3, Locadia 37.
BOOKINGS: Bruma 21, Rekik 46.
GRONINGEN: Bizot, Hateboer, Botteghin, Kappelhof, Burnet (Giliano Wijnaldum 30), Lindgren, Kieftenbeld, Chery, Van der Velden, Zivkovic, Kostic (Kirm 90+2).
SUBS NOT USED: Van der Lei, Adorjan, Van Nieff, Clintje, Zeefuik.
GOALS: Zivkovic 18, Kostic 20, Chery 64.
BOOKINGS: Burnet 10, Botteghin 36, Wijnaldum 66.
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