Phillip Cocu Was Very Good at Football.

Because of the absolutely exhausting finish to the Dutch season, I haven’t gotten around to posting about something that truly deserves mention. On Sunday, PSV not only won the championship, but also avoided having to partake in the play-offs for the Dutch Champions League Qualifier ticket, meaning their season ended after the game against Vitesse. This has some implications, none bigger than that Phillip Cocu has played his last game in a PSV shirt.

Astonishingly versatile, a true leader both on and off the field, a strategist. A joy to watch, even when he decided to play as anonymously as possible to help his team.

Because the details of his career and his accomplishments are probably already known among the most of you (and if not, shame on you), I am not going to write all that down and make his stats into my argument of why Cocu is, perhaps, the best Dutch football player since Marco van Basten. Instead, I’ll tell you why he is because of something I saw very recently.

A few weeks ago, when PSV had almost completely imploded and apparently whisked away its chances at a third consecutive Dutch crown, I found myself in Eindhoven. Kick-off in the Philips Stadion was about to happen, for what could be the final nail in PSV’s coffin. PSV hosted FC Twente, who were and are having a marvellous season, and had to win. Much, much earlier in the season, the two had faced off in Enschede, and PSV hadn’t, in fact, won. Twente had. Considering both that result and recent form, a victory for PSV was far from certain. But it came.

By this time I should probably explain what I was doing in Eindhoven on that night. I was staring at two screens, each no larger than a CD-case, in a truck just outside of the stadium, and occasionally rewinding what I saw so it could be beamed into people’s living room in slow-motion. The screens I watched were the incoming feeds of Camera 1 and Camera 2. Camera 1 is the traditional overview camera, and camera 2 does close-ups from above. Because the director never needs a replay of the first camera, my primary attention was focused, for more than 90 minutes, only on the space of play visible on camera 2.

Cocu ruled it.

In that small space, all game long, I saw Cocu running, tackling, coaching and passing. The camera had instructions to follow the ball, and Cocu was never far away. Whenever FC Twente’s Orlando Engelaar was unfortunate enough to find himself under the scrutiny of camera 2, he was quickly, subtly dispossessed by PSV’s captain. After Cocu won the ball himself, the cameraman who worked camera 2, more often than not, quickly had to pan along with yet another brilliant pass.

In the small space visible on camera 2, I saw Cocu completely locking down one of the most creative midfields in the Dutch league. I also saw him give an assist that was so unexpected, the camera only caught up with it a few seconds after it had been given, because he thought the pass would go somewhere else entirely. And even if Cocu wasn’t in sight, he somehow influenced whatever was. A bad pass was given, and a quick glance to camera 1 revealed what I didn’t see on camera 2: the pass was hurried because Cocu was closing in, or because he quickly covered the best option for the pass. I had never seen a performance like it.

On Sunday, I didn’t have to work in Eindhoven. Whichever colleague of mine did, stared at the camera 2 feed like I did a few weeks ago and on it, he or she saw Philip Cocu score PSV’s last goal of the season, which won PSV the title. There is a word for performances like Cocu's last Sunday and earlier against Twente. Greatness.

My only complaint? This year's final goal, although infinitly more imporant, wasn't nearly as pretty as last year's ;)

I’d appreciate it if maybe you would share your favourite Cocu memory in the comments section. Thanks a bunch in advance.

Well That Was...Different

Sure, Ajax and PSV have dominated Dutch Football for as long as anyone can remember, and that’s not about to change. AZ is slowly getting to the level where they can compete, and Feyenoord is not so slowly falling behind. So on first glance, parity is not the word that would best describe the Dutch league. But we found it yesterday, parity-wise, the Dutch league comes closer than any other league in the world, and was indeed decided, very much so, up in the sky.

Olympique Lyon clinched the French title roughly halfway through the season, as did Celtic in Scotland and Internazionale in Italy. Chelsea is (only?) five points of the pace in England and Spain and Germany look like they will be close, but yesterday’s finish in the Dutch League redefined what a race to the wire really is. Check the bar to the right to try and keep up:

From the kick-offs at 2:30 PM, the ‘title’ changed hands five times. Five. Times. AZ started out as virtual champions, but quickly lost that honour when PSV scored twice in the first ten minutes of their game against Vitesse in Eindhoven. They also conceded one, meaning Ajax would be champions if they would just score once in Tilburg. And they did. AZ, meanwhile, messed things up very thoroughly and wouldn’t rear its head in the title race again until later in the afternoon. PSV needed to outscore Ajax overall, and did when they reached the 4-1 to take the virtual crown once more. Ajax, of course, would have none of that and went up 0-2, only to see PSV notch their fifth and go up again. AZ managed to equalize at 2-2, creating a situation in which, for the final twenty minutes of the game, a single goal by any of these three teams would have been enough to ensure them the championship.

It didn’t come, so PSV’s fifth and final goal of the day was enough to ensure them the championship. By one goal. Over 34 games.

Gracias to Niva for the kick ass graphic representation.

Up in the Sky

I’ve long wondered exactly what specific sight in football I hold dearest, and yesterday I was reminded of it once again. Sure, moments like the one Messi provided us with last week are breathtaking. They dominate my days, or at least my free time. But for sheer television drama, I’ll go with a moment only very rarely seen. You forget about it through the long, gruelling course of the season until in the final game, maybe the game before that, you can see it again.

Like most leagues, the Dutch league has a format in which all the games on the final one or two rounds of the season are played at exactly the right moment, barring some sort of excuse for a crowd like ADO den Haag’s, who found it necessary to ruin the final game ever to be played in their somewhat legendary stadium. But all the games of the 33rd round neatly kicked off simultaneously at the blow of a whistle, and other than the ADO game, they all ended at roughly the same time as well.

The situation at the top of the league here in Holland is close. PSV, in what must surely be one of the most spectacular meltdowns in human history, blew away what was once an eleven point lead to get both Ajax and AZ back into the race for the title. The former politely passed on a momentous opportunity to take the lead two weeks ago, the latter never had a chance to do so – until yesterday. And it was one of those moments I cherish so much.

AZ led SC Heerenveen two to one, when in the 85th minute, the stadium erupted. Now, stadiums tend to erupt, so nothing particularly strange there, but there had been no immediate cause for the mass celebration that took place here. A mere throw in was accompanied by the biggest explosion of joy in Alkmaar I have ever seen, and then I understood, what had happened. Some fifty kilometres to the south, Utrecht had equalized against PSV, putting AZ, if they would just beat Heerenveen, at the top of the table for the first time in the season. A minute later, with the AZ fans still in the midst of their most primal scream, Simon Cziommer scored with a beautiful long distance lob to put AZ up three to one, and the people on the stands had to gasp for air so they could scream some more.

In Amsterdam Ajax fans, up five to two, stopped paying attention to the game and started watching the massive scoreboards. That complete uncertainty about one’s own fate is one of the sights I enjoy the most about football. It’s the purest mixture of fear, hope and anticipation you’ll find. Me? As a Roda JC fan, I never have to worry about winning the title or not. But next week, I worry about fifth place and the automatic European ticket it provides. I hope Roda beats Heracles. I hope Heerenveen and Feyenoord tie. I hope Groningen doesn’t win its game by a bigger margin than Roda does. I fear one of these things will not happen. But in a production truck near the Willem II stadion, I’ll be watching the numbers, completely uncertain of my own (club’s) fate. And I will love it.

Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your Hands upon the Wheel

I don’t remember exactly what year it happened. But there was a time when the Fruitella-filled trip in the backseat of my parents’ car to where I was actually going was one of the highlights of the entire vacation. Fights with my sister over pillows, nagging my parents over what music should be played, running around the sunny French or German stops along the route. All of it seemed even better than the two-week stay at some Austrian or French campsite itself. And all of it was always accompanied by the same old tune.

’We zijn er bijna, we zijn er bijna, maar nog niet helemaal’

Which translates to

’We’re almost there, almost there, but not quite yet’

But when I grew up, I didn’t feel like singing it anymore. I wanted to get out of the car as fast as possible. I wanted to be there already and swim. The fact that I was almost there but not quite yet didn’t seem like cause for celebration and singing anymore.

Two years ago, both PSV and AZ crashed out of their respective European competitions in the most dramatic fashion possible. They had been almost there, but not quite yet.

Everyone grows up eventually. PSV and AZ have stopped singing.

Magpies Crash Out in Holland [Skysports]
Gunners Bow Out in Alex Show [Skysports]