retired_jgirl87

Sunday 19th August 2001:

Vitesse’s first match of the season has been a 3-0 home loss to Feyenoord and they were obviously smarting from that defeat. I was sure that they would be fired up to get something from their trip to Enschede. They’d employed a 3-5-2 formation on their last start and I didn’t expect my counterpart Edward Sturing would change things too early in the season. There were a number of players in their side that would bear careful watching by their direct opponents today. Thankfully their most dangerous striker Matthew Amoah was out with a groin strain, but midfielder Theo Janssen and winger Nick Hofs would both be dangerous. In defence the impressive young Ruud Knol would give Afonso and Montano a hard fight.

My general preference as a manager was to find my best eleven and stick with them. I wasn’t a real fan of the squad rotation system. However injuries and suspensions are a part of football and changes would be required, but not too frequently I hoped. Rahim was the only change to the team that UNA 2-0 in the previous match as he came in for the suspended Resit Schuurman at right-back.

Premier Division:
Vitesse (H)

Boschker, Rahim, Majstorovic, Zomer, Heubach, Cziommer, Sibum, Goncalves, Culina, Afonso, Montano.

Subs: 74-N’Kufo.

There was a healthy crowd of around 12,000 fans in the Arke Stadion for our opening league match of the season. Cziommer was relishing his starting role and he set up Sibum and Montano in the first five minutes for chances which neither player could finish. The clearest opening came in the 13th minute when the overlapping Rahim ran onto Sibum’s fine pass and sent a low ball into the box for Afonso to hit it first time from 14 yards out. Vitesse’s Jevric did well to beat it away and van den Berg completed the save by hacking it upfield. Montano continued to show glimpses of his tremendous skills when he picked up Culina’s header and cheekily tried to chip Jevric from 25 yards, only to see the ball drop onto the roof of the net. Montano was also frightening the Vitesse defence with his sublime dribbling skills and he caused panic when he ran at the heart of the visitor’s defence in the 24th minute. Only a desperate lunge by Vreven stopped Montano breaking into the box. However the ball broke to Sibum and he sent a lovely chip to the far post where Afonso was able to stretch out and toe-poke the ball past Jevric via the post to put us 1-0 up. Such was our dominance that Vitesse hadn’t managed a shot on our goal in the opening 30 minutes. Their manager Edward Sturing was forced into a tactical reshuffle, taking off young midfielder Dors and bringing on left-back Jansen as he changed from a 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 formation. That curbed our dominance a bit and allowed Vitesse to create their first chance in the 42nd minute when Knopper fired in a 20 yard effort which Boschker needed to fist away.

All our efforts still only had us 1-0 up as the second half started and Vitesse seemed to step up a gear as the game resumed. Right-winger Hofs was looking dangerous and he was proving a handful for Heubach. Twice he got to the bye-line and sent over menacing crosses. Firstly Atanasov headed just over the cross bar in the 51st minute and then secondly Rojer made a much better contact in the 56th minute only to see Boschker turn it away with a diving save. We responded well to the pressure and Majstorovic saw his header from Cziommer’s corner cleared off the line in the 67th minute. Cziommer himself then had a great chance as Goncalves drove a low ball across the box in the 73rd minute and the German caught his half-volley with precision, then watched as Jevric somehow got a hand to it to deflect it away. Despite scoring the only goal so far Afonso had not done much else and I decided to bring him off and send on N’Kufo in the 74th minute. It proved to be one of those decisive substitutions that just seem to come off perfectly every now and then. N’Kufo had been on the pitch barely three minutes when he ran onto Cziommer’s flicked header and launched a thumping shot past Jevric from 16 yards to make it 2-0. That knocked the stuffing out of Vitesse’s challenge and we capped off the day with a third goal when N’Kufo scored his second in the 87th minute, firing home the rebound after Jevric could only parry Culina’s low shot. It was a great cameo performance from the Swiss striker and it would give me plenty to think about when it came to the team selection for the next match.

FC Twente 3 Afonso 24, N’Kufo 77, 87
Vitesse 0

As the players celebrated our first win in the bar at the stadium afterwards, I took the chance to slip into the boardroom and turn the television on to see the early summary of today’s matches. Ajax had got a win over NAC, although they’d had to struggle for their 3-2 victory. Zdenek Grygera had opened the scoring before Anaour Diba equalised for NAC. Free transfer signing Michael Mols then made it 2-1 before NAC equalised again through Yuri Cornelisse. Mols had the final word with his second goal in the 87th minute to win the match. It was good to see the champions struggling early in the season. Feyenoord had beaten Groningen 1-0 with the South Korean defender Song Jong-Kook scoring the only goal whilst Heerenveen had a similar 1-0 win over Utrecht thanks to the Swede Stefan Selakovic. Finally Den Bosch were the surprise league leaders after they won 4-2 at NEC. Frank Demouge and Jaromir Simr scored for NEC whilst Brayton Biekman, Jorge Bajana and a late double by Dennis Schulp were the replies by Den Bosch.

retired_jgirl87

Monday 20th August 2001:

I took the first team squad for a light training session today, mainly just to run the kinks and knocks out after our good 3-0 win over Vitesse yesterday. I was quite noticeable that the general morale was high after our win. The players joked and fooled around and I didn’t discourage it as I feel that it is generally good to have things relaxed and easy where possible. Of course there are times when it is better to have the players all fired up, but that usually occurs in the build-up to a big match.

The physios also had some good news for me when the allowed defender Karim Touzani to join in the training session as he recovered from his shoulder injury. Touzani definitely won’t be fit to play at Groningen next Sunday, but with a week’s break coming up for international fixtures he should be fine to return to the first team against RBC on Sunday 9th September.

Wednesday 22nd August 2001:

The past few days had been relatively quiet in terms of domestic football news. The team was already starting to fall into place and Jeffrey and I were getting a good feel for the quality of the talent that we had at our disposal. However there was European football tonight as PSV completed their Champions Cup group stage qualification as they won 2-0 in Cyprus against APOEL Nicosia. Gerald Sibon had scored twice for the Eindhoven side and they recorded a 5-0 aggregate win. That would put them into the Phase 1 group draw alongside Ajax who had been seeded in the competition.

Thursday 23rd August 2001:

The draw for the Champions Cup Phase 1 groups was made in Zurich today. PSV got a tough draw when they were paired with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Panathinaikos whilst Ajax got a slightly more favourable draw when they were placed with Inter Milan, Lyon and PAOK Salonika.

Ajax’s fixtures required that two league matches be shifted and we were one of the teams affected when our home match in Enschede on Wednesday 12th September was moved to Wednesday 12th December to accommodate a Champions Cup tie.

Friday 24th August 2001:

The draw for the First Round of the UEFA Cup was made in Zurich today. Holland has four teams – AZ, Feyenoord, Heerenveen and Utrecht – in the competition and they have all been seeded for the opening rounds.

Again the European fixtures necessitated that one of our games be shifted and our away game with Feyenoord in Rotterdam which was to have been played on Wednesday 26th September has now been pushed back to Wednesday 31st October instead.

Harry Drost had further good news for me today as Dmitri Shoukov began light training following his calf strain. Just like Touzani he should be fit to resume after the international break. It was just these two players who were making use of the treatment room at the moment and I hoped that I’d be able to have a clean bill of health in the first team squad when they had fully recovered from their injuries.

Having got the first team squad into some sort of shape, it was time to look at the remainder of the club’s resources. I asked Jeffrey Kooistra to go over all the players in the reserve and youth teams. He was to sort out who should stay and who should go and to then set up a solid nucleus of players in the reserve team. Hopefully several of these players would go on to become future first team stars. With 23 players currently in my first team squad, I would need to do some trimming myself. Only 18 players could be selected in a match day squad and I didn’t want anyone losing any more match time than was possible. A couple of the current first team squad would have to drop down to the reserves on a more regular basis and await their chance for a run in the senior team

I order to see just what Jeffrey had to do I accompanied him to the reserves home match with Groningen tonight. I must say that if I had been an independent observer, then I would have found the match very entertaining. The reserves beat Groningen 4-3 and I was pleased to see the solid performances of Greg Sharland, Marc Geerts and Jordy Koster, all of whom I had already used in the first team this season. 17 year old forward Peter van Putten caught my eye with his good technique and fine crossing, then he impressed me even more with a brave diving header to score a goal right on half-time. Wim de Wit, a 16 year old right-sided wing-back, seemed to have some potential as did another 16 year old in forward Gerald Postma who came on for the final 30 minutes of the game. There seemed to be a bit of talent for Jeffrey to work with and mull over and I left him after the match as he was still chatting to the youngsters in the team.

retired_jgirl87

Saturday 25th August 2001:

There were two games in the Premier Division today. Surprise leaders Den Bosch kept up their fine form with a very good 3-1 over AZ. After Koen van der Laak opened the scoring for Den Bosch, it was Robin Nelisse who equalised almost straight away for AZ. In the second half the impressive young Ecuadorian forward Jorge Bajana scored twice to seal Den Bosch’s victory. PSV were held 0-0 at home by NEC, a result made all the more admirable by the fact that NEC played with ten men from the 50th minute. The sending-off occurred when NEC’s Polish striker Andrzej Niedzielan retaliated to a foul committed by PSV’s Andre Ooijer and lashed out with his boot at the defender who was lying on the ground at the time.

Sunday 26th August 2001:

Today’s opponents Groningen had lost both of their opening matches in the Premier Division. A high-scoring 5-3 home defeat by AZ had been followed up with a 1-0 loss at Feyenoord. Already things weren’t looking good for manager Ron Jans and his team. Ron was a bread-and-butter 4-4-2 man and I didn’t expect to get anything else but that when the team he selected made its way out onto the park. Our defence would need to keep an eye on the South African striker Glenn Salmon who had just joined Groningen this year after several prolific seasons with NAC. Another player who would be pumped up to play us was the former FC Twente forward Chris De Witte who had left us in the off-season.

I had no reason to change our winning side from last weekend’s 3-0 victory over Vitesse. Two changes were considered, but ultimately rejected. Resit Schuurman was available after his one match suspension for his red card, but Rahim had performed very well in the right-back spot against Vitesse, so I felt that he deserved to hold his place. Schuurman was not pleased when I told him that he would only be on the bench, but previous reputations carried nothing with me. It was what a player did from day one under my control. Schuurman had stupidly got himself sent off in the Amstel Cup and now he was paying the price for it. The other possible change was the re-introduction of Blaise N’Kufo to forward line after his goalscoring double as a substitute in the previous match. However as much as I would have liked to fit him in, the question was who to take out if I did so. Afonso was scoring freely, so he couldn’t be dropped. Montano had one goal to his name so far, but he was improving every week and his dribbling and off-the-ball movement created havoc with opposing defences. In the end, as much as I wanted to find a place for N’Kufo, I just couldn’t. He would have to remain on the bench again this week.

Premier Division:
Groningen (A)

Boschker, Rahim, Majstorovic, Zomer, Heubach, Cziommer, Sibum, Goncalves, Culina, Afonso, Montano.

Subs: 73-N’Kufo.

It was a pleasing start to the match for the team as we got on top of Groningen early in the vital midfield department. Sibum, Cziommer and Culina were all prominent in the first 15 minutes and the Groningen keeper Roorda was already starting to earn his wages. Montano had the first clear chance after 5 minutes as he headed Rahim’s free-kick towards the top corner, only to see Roorda claw it away. A few minutes later and it was Culina who was frustrated as his header was tipped over for a corner. Groningen’s best chance was a free-kick by Hugo, but our defensive wall did its job perfectly and blocked the shot. The first goal of the match was deservedly ours and it arrived in the 18th minute. Goncalves again showed his eye for a precision pass as he sent Afonso galloping away. Elshot managed to track back with him and got in a tackle just as Afonso was about to shoot, but the ball ricocheted across the edge of the box. With the defence all at sea, it was Cziommer who picked up the loose ball and fired a rising shot past Roorda from 14 yards out. To give credit to Groningen at this point, they responded with several attacks that put us under strong pressure. Boschker was now the busiest keeper as he denied Salmon by holding his powerful header and then foiled Krstev by diving to his left to parry the Macedonian’s scorching 20 yarder. By the time that the first half came to an end, the possession had been evenly shared, but we had the only goal of the match so far.

The second half was a tighter, closer affair as Groningen started to get more into the match in the middle of the park. We still conjured up a couple of decent chances which Roorda resolutely denied us from finishing. Firstly he tipped over Culina’s curling free-kick in the 57th minute and then he made an ever better diving save as Sibum marauded through the middle and rifled in a dipping 20 yard effort in the 72nd minute. It was at this point that I decided to make the same substitution as last week. Afonso was called off and his fellow Swiss striker N’Kufo was sent on in his place. N’Kufo immediately set about finding a goal for himself, firstly shooting wide from Cziommer’s pass, then heading Heubach’s cross inches over the cross bar. Although we only had a 1-0 lead I just felt that we were going to have no trouble holding on for the victory. It just seemed that Groningen weren’t doing enough to notch a goal for themselves. Bizimana had their final chance in the 84th minute when the ball fell kindly to him for a volley at goal, but Majstorovic bravely lunged at him, making him strike it early and it flew over the cross bar. There was still time for Goncalves to come close to doubling our lead in injury-time when he rifled in a half-volley from 18 yards, but Roorda tipped it over with a nonchalant flick of his right hand.

Groningen 0
FC Twente 1 Cziommer 18

In the remaining fixtures of this weekend’s round of matches De Haag maintained their 100% record and second place behind Den Bosch with a 2-0 win against NAC. Roy Stroeve and Spira Grujic had scored the goals. Jochem Janssen and Alfred Schreuder (2) had found the net for RKC as they beat Heerenveen 3-2 with Victor Sikora and Yuri Rose replying for the visitors. Utrecht and Roda had shared four goals in a 2-2 draw with Jean-Paul de Jong and Richal Leitoe scoring for Utrecht and Gregor van Dijk and Edrissa Sonko scoring for Roda. Another British player who was doing well in the Dutch league was Northern Ireland’s James Quinn and he scored a 70th minute winner for Willem II against Feyenoord in a 2-1 victory. Earlier Frank van Mosselveld had opened the scoring for Willem II, but that had been equalised by Feyenoord’s Danko Lazovic. Ajax continued to win as they took all three points in a 3-0 win at de Graafschap. Michael Mols, Yannis Anastasiou and Rafael van der Vaart scored for the Amsterdam club whilst Dick Kooijman‘s early penalty miss for de Graafschap didn’t help their cause at all. The game of the round was at the Gelredome in Arnhem where the home side got their first win of the season in a high scoring encounter against RBC. There were seven first half goals as Vitesse lead 4-3 at the break and went on the record a 6-3 victory. Sammy Youssouf’s first half hat-trick for RBC was matched by Theo Janssen and Matthew Amoah (2) before an Igor Gluscevic penalty put Vitesse in front. Ruud Knol and Peter van den Berg then extended the lead in the second half in this nine-goal thriller.

retired_jgirl87

Monday 27th August 2001:

In the post Rini Coolen era it seems that all of the previous staff were fair game as far as the other clubs were concerned. Managing Director Freek van Beusekom told me today that there had been an offer for another of the scouts that Coolen had employed in his time at FC Twente. Bennie Brinkman was man who was wanted by FC Utrecht. It was no use fighting a move like this. If the guy didn’t want to stay with us, then the quality of his work just dropped and he became useless. I told Freek to sort out the same kind of deal as he had done with ten Donkelaar and Feyenoord a couple of weeks ago.

Wednesday 29th August 2001:

Now we have a bidding war for a scout. Apparently Bennie Brinkman’s services are that well respected that an offer from AZ Alkmaar had been lodged as well. Freek indicated that he would play the two bidding clubs off against each other and let Brinkman go to the one that offered the best compensation package. I think that Freek was actually enjoying this sort of stuff, but to a hard-nosed businessman like him, it was also all in a day’s work.

Of more enjoyment to someone in the position of being a football manager was the news that one of his key defenders was fit again after injury. Karim Touzani was allowed to resume full training today and he should be back in peak condition by the time that our next league match is due in eleven days time.

Thursday 30th August 2001:

I knew that it was too good to be true. Just as we got a clean bill of health on all the players from the medical staff, we go and pick up a new injury. The unfortunate recipient was centre-half Jordy Koster who received a nasty gash in his head at training today. Koster didn’t seem too concerned with the problem and wanted to continue training, but the blood just poured from wound no matter how much he tried to staunch it. Eventually Harry Drost got him into the rooms and cleared it up, then announced it would need a visit to the hospital and at least ten stitches to close it up. Harry reckoned that Koster would miss around ten days, but at least it happened when we don’t have another match for roughly the same period of time.

Another ten match ban was handed out by the disciplinary tribunal tonight as NEC’s Polish striker Andrzej Niedzielan was suspended for his nasty foul on PSV’s Andre Ooijer in last weekend’s round of matches. The powers-that-be are obviously looking to stamp out all traces of serious foul play in the Dutch game and they must feel that a series of harsh suspensions will show the way.

Friday 31st August 2001:

There was an official club function on this evening and Jeffrey and I, plus all of the players, were required to attend. The chairman was hosting a dinner for all of the club’s sponsors. It was a chance for the people who put their names on the cheques that helped keep this club running to rub shoulders with the players and mingle with management and coaching staff.

I’d been to many of these types of events over my playing career and I found that there tended to be two types of people who were in attendance. The first sort was those who were genuinely interested in football and the club and these people were generally quite pleasant to talk to. The second sort was the people who were involved purely for the publicity and glamour of associating with the “football stars”. These people tended to annoy the hell out of me. I had been stuck talking to one of the second types for five minutes – a young advertising company executive – who was keen to tell me how FC Twente needed to have several more players with a higher media identity to raise the profile of the club. I was rapidly losing my temper with him and I suddenly snapped, What about the standard of the player’s skills? This is a football club, not a ****ing modelling agency! I turned and walked away, leaving the idiot standing there with his jaw dropped to the floor. I headed out the back of the function room, suddenly having time to think about what had happened and hoping I hadn’t caused a problem with one of the club’s major sponsors.

I walked into the boardroom to have a break and saw that the television was on and there was a figure sitting in front of it. It was the chairman Herman Wessels and he was watching the football round-up. He looked around when he heard me come in and motioned me over with a wave of his hand. I can’t stand too many of these functions myself, he told me. I nodded in agreement, then he said I’m just catching up on the Under-21 internationals; I wanted to see how young Zomer went in his first match. We watched for a couple of minutes and then the highlights of Holland’s Under-21 match in Rotterdam against Spain came on. Ramon Zomer had been named on the bench, but he had come on in the 55th minute to play in the centre of defence. However it appears that his team had gone down 1-0 to Spain courtesy of a 39th minute penalty by Marques. The post match review gave Zomer 7 out of 10 for his performance. We then watched as the other match highlights were shown. We caught a glimpse of Peter Niemeyer as he played in Germany’s 2-1 win over England in Manchester. Niemeyer was also rated 7 out of 10 for his performance in the post match review.

Later on that night I sat at home and took stock of things after the first month of matches. We were sitting in 6th place on the Premier Division table and we had progressed through to the First Round of the Amstel Cup. The only blight on proceedings had been the 3-2 loss at de Graafschap on the opening day of the season. With the international break on this weekend I planned to give the players a bit more of a physical workout to compensate for the lack of a game. There were several players who were still nowhere near the top of their fitness and I didn’t want us getting caught out by fitter teams in the upcoming weeks.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">********************************************* ************************************************** * Dutch Premier Division - Friday 31st August 2001********************************************** ************************************************** ================================================== ============================================== 2001/2 Table============================================= ================================================== =Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag Won Drn Lst For Ag Pts--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1st Den Bosch 3 2 0 0 6 1 1 0 0 4 2 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2nd Den Haag 3 1 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 5 1 9 3rd PSV 3 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 0 1 0 7 4th Ajax 3 1 0 0 3 2 1 0 1 4 2 6 5th Twente 3 1 0 0 3 0 1 0 1 3 3 6 6th Feyenoord 3 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 4 2 6 7th RBC 3 2 0 0 5 1 0 0 1 3 6 6 8th RKC 3 2 0 0 6 4 0 0 1 1 2 6 9th Willem II 2 1 1 0 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 10th AZ 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 6 6 3 11th Heerenveen 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 5 3 12th Vitesse 3 1 0 1 6 6 0 0 1 0 3 3 13th de Graafschap 3 1 0 1 3 5 0 0 1 0 3 3 14th NEC 3 0 0 1 2 4 0 2 0 3 3 2 15th Utrecht 3 0 1 1 3 5 0 0 1 0 1 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16th Roda 3 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 2 5 1 17th NAC 3 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 4 6 0 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18th Groningen 3 0 0 2 3 6 0 0 1 0 1 0 </pre>

There was always something new popping up to keep a football manager on his toes. It was never as easy as those armchair critics would have you believe. So far I had had a fairly trouble-free ride at FC Twente. There’d been no fights in nightclubs, no newspaper exposés on any of the players and their private lives and there had been no in-fighting at the club that I knew of. I was hopeful that it would stay that way, but you could never tell what was just around the corner in this game of football.

retired_amyslack

A very good start Spav - detailed and well-written :thup:

retired_jgirl87

Thanks Bob. I'm trying to make this my main story for 2005 and I want to get into the day-to-day world of the manager, not just the team results. I just have to make sure that I don't make it too boring or repetitive.

retired_jgirl87

Saturday 1st September 2001:

As a former international I was always keen to see how the fortunes of the national team fared. Holland had a friendly against Spain at the Amsterdam Arena today and it marked the first match in charge for new manager Marco van Basten. Unfortunately for the former Ajax and AC Milan great it was not a winning start as his team fell 3-2 to the Spaniards. van Basten played a 3-5-2 formation and the contest was closely fought in the first half as Holland slightly shaded the Spaniards in terms of possession and shots on goal. The first half ended tied at 0-0 at the break. Both sides made four changes at half-time and Holland struck first in the 52nd minute when Davids long range shot flew past a leaden-footed Canizares in the Spanish goal. But then the Dutch defence backed off the hard-running Salva and he advanced to fire past Westerveld to make it 1-1 in the 61st minute. Holland retook the lead in the 67th minute when Melchiot headed in van Bronckhorst’s free-kick, but again the advantage was short-lived as Raul equalised at 2-2 when he tapped home the rebound after Westerveld could only parry Salva’s header. A draw may have been a fair result at this stage, but Salva had other ideas and his speculative long range effort in the 81st minute deflected off de Zeeuw to wrong-foot Westerveld and give Spain a 3-2 win.

Holland 2 Davids 52, Melchiot 67
Spain 3 Salva 61, 81, Raul 73

van der Sar, Melchiot, Paauwe, Hofland, Oude Kamphuis, Boateng, Davids, van Bronckhorst, Seedorf, van Nistelrooy, Robben.

Subs: 46-Westerveld, 46-Boulahrouz, 46-De Zeeuw, 46-Hasselbaink, 90-Makaay.

In other international action, both our Swiss stars Blaise N’Kufo and Guilherme Afonso played in Switzerland’s 3-2 loss in Hungary. N’Kufo started the match but was substituted in the 51st minute, whilst Afonso made his international debut as a 73rd minute substitute. Neither player was able to get on the scoresheet.

Monday 3rd September 2001:

The injured players list shrunk down to one today after midfielder Dmitri Shoukov and reserves forward Tim Velten were both declared fit to resume full training.

Another deal has been done by Managing Director Freek van Beusekom as he completed a deal that saw FC Twente receive £45K in a compensation package from AZ Alkmaar in return for the services of scout Bennie Brinkman. I’m using a couple of contacts in a non-contracted scouting role at the moment, but I think that I may have to tie up a few official deals regarding scouts in the next few weeks.

Thursday 6th September 2001:

Jeffrey Kooistra’s review of the reserve and youth ranks had its first official results today. It was decided that 17 year old forward Peter van Putten should be awarded a senior contract and the youngster signed a three year deal with the club. van Putten was very pleased to sign his new contract under the watchful eye of his proud father who was a lifelong FC Twente fan. A player who will be heading the other way soon is central midfielder Johan Plageman. Jeffrey feels that the 20 year old will not make the grade and he has been placed on the transfer list. If no offers are received by the winter break then we will most likely release him from his contract.

Friday 7th September 2001:

In the traditional Friday night Premier Division fixture Willem II won 1-0 at Roda to leave the Kerkrade side winless with only one point from their four matches. Skipper Michel Kreek scored the only goal for Willem II in the 67th minute after Roda went down to ten men with the 25th minute dismissal of Edrissa Sonko for pushing Kreek over during a first half melee.

Saturday 8th September 2001:

It appears that if you want to see goals, then go and watch AZ play. There was yet another high-scoring Premier Division match involving the team from Alkmaar during today’s round of matches. AZ beat Vitesse 4-3 after finding themselves 0-3 down at half-time. Igor Gluscevic (2) and Ruud Knol had Vitesse in front, but AZ roared back in the second half through Tarik Sektioui, Robin Nelisse (2) and a winner from captain Denny Landzaat. Den Haag took over the league leadership with an excellent 2-1 win over PSV with all goals coming in a 12 minute spell midway through the second half. Cedric van der Gun, on loan from Ajax, opened the scoring for Den Haag before Wilfried Bouma equalised for PSV. Geert den Ouden then headed a winner for the team from the capital. Former league leaders Den Bosch dropped to second place after being held 2-2 at Heerenveen. Brayton Biekman had opened the scoring for Den Bosch, but Mika Vayrynan levelled things and Arnold Bruggink scored his first for Heerenveen after his return from Spain. It looked as if Heerenveen would take the win until substitute Berry Powel fired in a superb 88th minute equaliser for Den Bosch. In the final of the day’s matches NAC and Utrecht also fought out a 2-2 draw. NAC picked up their first point of the season with goals from Anthony Lurling and Pieter Collen, but they should have had all three points as Utrecht left it late to score twice in the final ten minutes through young striker Prince Rajcomar.

retired_jgirl87

Sunday 9th September 2001:

Today’s opponents were RBC from Roosendaal and their manager Jan van Dijk had them playing an attacking 3-5-2 formation. It had given them two wins and a loss in their three matches and fans at those matches had witnessed an 8-7 goal tally in favour of RBC. It was two Danish players that were leading the way for RBC so far this season and they would need close attention during the match. Striker Sammy Youssouf had already found the net five times in three matches, including a hat-trick in the 3-6 loss to Vitesse last week. Attacking midfielder Jesper Hakansson was on loan from Heerenveen, but he had made a dominating start to the season in the RBC midfield. He was also capable of finding the net on a regular basis.

I had decided on two changes for this week’s match. Karim Touzani returned to the centre-half position and Ramon Zomer dropped down to the bench. Up front Johnnier Montano had been afflicted with a slight chest cold and I decided to move him to the bench and give Blaise N’Kufo the start that he had earned. It was a luxury to have Montano available if I needed to use him later in the match. The fit-again Dmitri Shoukov found himself on the bench now that Goncalves had taken possession of the left midfield spot with his recent fine performances.

Premier Division:
RBC (H)

Boschker, Rahim, Majstorovic, Touzani, Heubach, Cziommer, Sibum, Goncalves, Culina, Afonso, N’Kufo.

Subs: 72-Montano, 72-Shoukov.

Within minutes of the start Sibum was the dominant figure. He seemed to be everywhere in the opening quarter of an hour. One moment he was putting in a saving tackle in defence, the next he was threatening the RBC goal. It was Sibum who created the clearest opening for the first goal in the 11th minute as he found some room on the right and chipped a pass to Cziommer on the edge of the penalty area. Cziommer volleyed it first time and it rattled against the cross bar with RBC keeper Aerts well beaten. In the 17th minute Heubach made a good run from deep on the left. He beat his opposing full-back de Graaf and sent over an enticing cross which Afonso met with a powerful header to give us a 1-0 lead. N’Kufo wasn’t as accurate with a similar chance that he received in the 23rd minute, then Afonso saw Aerts save his half-volley from 15 yards out in the 27th minute. It was one-way football and only desperate defending by Hesp stopped us going 2-0 up in the 30th minute. N’Kufo did brilliantly on the right wing, beating Van de Ven and Hellemons and then chipping the ball over the advancing keeper Aerts. It was directed straight at Culina, but the height of the cross meant that he had to stand and wait for it to arrive before heading it home and in that time Hesp bravely raced back to dive and just deflect it away before Culina could score. With all the pressure that we were exerting, a second goal had to come soon. Sibum was the instigator, powering through from the midfield to fire in a 20 yard effort which Aerts could only block and leaving Cziommer with a simple tap-in from six yards. At half-time we lead 2-0 and Boschker had not had a serious save to make.

A slow start to the second half by our team didn’t impress me, but at least RBC was also kept quiet. RBC fashioned their first serious chance in the 60th minute when the Danish attacking midfielder Hakansson, scorer of three goals in three games so far this season, ran onto Oliseh’s pass and volleyed just wide from the edge of the box. As RBC prepared to take a free-kick I decided that my team needed pepping up and so I sent on Montano for Afonso and Shoukov for Goncalves. I had forgotten the old adage not to make a substitution on a defensive free-kick or before defending a corner. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the marking, but Youssouf leapt well to head in Smolders free-kick and it was 2-1 in the 72nd minute. Sibum was still dictating play in the middle of the park and in the 80th minute he sent over a cross which Montano headed well, only to see Aerts push it away for a corner. Cziommer took the corner and N’Kufo out-jumped Oliseh to head home and restore our two-goal lead at 3-1. There was time in the last ten minutes for RBC to win their first corner of the match when Boschker tipped over de Graaf’s 20 yard effort, but Cziommer almost gave us a bigger winning margin when his close range volley hit the outside of the post in injury time. It was another excellent win and Sibum was a deserving MOM.

FC Twente 3 Afonso 17, Cziommer 38, N’Kufo 80
RBC 1 Youssouf 72

In the other matches Ajax skipper Rafael van der Vaart scored twice as his side beat RKC 2-0. Fellow giants Feyenoord also won 2-0 as Dirk Kujit and Shinji Ono netted against de Graafschap. NEC beat Groningen 3-1 in Nijmegen, but not before Glenn Salmon gave the visitors the lead. The prolific Frank Demouge scored twice and Romano Denneboom added a third as NEC completed their comeback.

retired_jgirl87

Tuesday 11th September 2001:

I spent the afternoon with Jeffrey as he worked with some of the young players at the club. He had been sifting through the youth team and the reserves for nearly three weeks now and he had a fairly good idea of what sort of talent we had on our books. We watched together as the players went through some five-a-side games, working on their close control and first touch skills. I pointed out a young blonde lad, who despite his boyish face, was already quite well-built in the upper body and thighs. That’s Rene Lord, Jeffrey told me. He’s not on our books, but we’ve got him here on trial. He’s very impressive. He plays in the midfield and if he can keep his weight under control, then there’s a good chance that he would make an excellent midfield enforcer or holding player. I nodded in agreement at Jeffrey’s appraisal. The youngster certainly stood out from the other 16 year olds that he was training with. We’ve got another young lad on trial that’s even better than Lord, Jeffrey continued. He’s only 15, but coming up to his 16th birthday. He plays left midfield or up front and has magical ball skills, but he’s not here today. I’d certainly like you to take a look at him, Peter. Do you think you could make it for Thursday afternoon’s session when the lad is here? Jeffrey sounded very keen on this youngster, so I agreed to come to the next youth team training session in two days time.

There was an evening match in the Premier Division tonight as the surprise league leaders Den Haag visited second placed Den Bosch. Centre-half Joost Volmer opened the scoring for Den Bosch midway through the first half, but Roy Stroeve equalised early in the second half for Den Haag. The tight contest was finally broken in Den Bosch’s favour with an 80th minute strike by Belgian substitute Vincent Euvrard which registered a 2-1 and sent Den Bosch to the top of the table.

The Phase 1 Group stage of the Champions Cup also started tonight and PSV had a poor start as they crashed 2-0 at home to Bayern Munich who scored through Ballack and Ze Roberto in the second half.

Wednesday 12th September 2001:

With the first team sitting in 4th place and morale amongst the senior players at a high level, it made for an easy training session with the players this morning. In my mind I had already settled on around six players who were my first choice, although I hadn’t communicated those thoughts to the team. Boschker in goal, Majstorovic and Touzani at centre-half, Sibum and Cziommer in the midfield and Culina in the advanced midfielder/forward role were all fairly certain of being on the team-sheet for each match if their form continued and they steered clear of injury. However there was still quite a deal of competition for the other places between the players that suited each of those positions. To keep things at an upbeat pitch I told the players that I would use the upcoming Amstel Cup match against Scheveningen in ten days time as a trial match. This would give some of those players who hadn’t seen much activity so far a chance to show me what they were capable of. In particular Wellenberg, El Ahmadi, Bouchiba, Fafiani and Christensen would all be hoping to get the chance to show me that they were deserving of a run in the first team.

In the afternoon I made myself available in the boardroom as a further two youngsters signed their first senior contracts with FC Twente. Gerald Postma was the first to sign and the 16 year old forward joined for the next three years. The second player was 16 year old Wim de Wit, a right-sided wing-back and he also signed a three year deal. Both lads would move from the youth academy and take up a permanent role in the reserves as we worked on their skills to see whether they had what it took to be a professional footballer.

Two games were contested in the Premier Division tonight. Vitesse had a 4th minute strike from Igor Gluscevic to thank for their 1-0 win over NEC. The game in Groningen between the home side and visitors Roda got of to an explosive start with a two goals and a sending off in the opening 20 minutes. Jeremy Overbeek-Bloem started off proceedings with the open for Roda, but Groningen hit back almost immediately with an equaliser by Chris De Witte. Roda’s Brazilian forward Christiano then lost the plot and punched Groningen’s Glenn Salmon, earning himself an instant red card. Ten man Roda held out until the final minute of the match when Hungarian defender Boldizsar Bodor was adjudged to have fouled Brazilian midfielder Hugo in the box. Groningen’s Macedonian midfielder Mile Krstev then scored from the penalty spot to give his team a 2-1 victory.

Holland’s other representative in the Champions Cup was Ajax and they began their Phase 1 Group stage with a 2-2 home draw against POAK Salonika. Michael Mols scored twice in the first half, but those goals were cancelled out by Egomitis and Salpiggidis for the Greeks in the second half.


Thursday 13th September 2001:

I quietly wandered over to the reserve team training session that Jeffrey was conducting in combination with the youth team and their coach. They had a full-scale match in progress at the moment and the reserve and youth players had been evenly spread about between the two teams. I watched for around ten minutes and there was one boy who was quite obviously technically superior to all the other players on the pitch. He was dark-skinned, possibly of Surinamese extract originally. He was playing in an advanced left-sided role and his ball-skills and eye for a pass were of a high quality. If this lad was currently unattached, then FC Twente should certainly snap him up straight away. I’d make sure of it by handling the negotiations personally if necessary. The more I watched the lad play, the more he began to remind me of someone. An image nagged at my memory, but I couldn’t place who it was that the lad was similar to.

Jeffrey had been over on the far side of the pitch talking to the youth team coach, but he had finally spotted me and he made his way around to where I was. Don’t worry, I can already tell who your little prodigy is, I said as he wandered over. Jeffrey nodded at my comment and then said Yes, he’s a quality youngster alright. He tells me that we won’t have any competition from any other clubs for his signature as he doesn’t want to play for anyone else except FC Twente. I laughed softly. A right little Tukker, is he? What’s his name? Jeffrey smiled at my comment and answered Martin Hofstede. My heart jumped a beat when I heard that surname. Jeffrey continued He tells me that he wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Apparently his brother played for FC Twente about 14 years ago. The image that I had been trying to remember earlier was coming back to me now. Did he tell you what was his brother’s name was? I asked Jeffrey. He scratched his head for a moment as he thought. Jordy, yes that’s right, Jordy Hofstede.

My mind suddenly swirled back into the past. My God, Jordy Hofstede.

retired_jgirl87

Thursday 13th September 2001:

It was taking me an inordinate amount of time to make my way through the undergrowth. It didn’t help that it was a dark, moonless night and my vision was limited to just a few feet in front of me. The branches of the small bushes and low trees seemed to clutch at my legs and slow me down. The long grass that I was walking though felt like it was wrapping itself around my feet and ankles, further slowing my progress. I knew that I needed to be at home, but I just couldn’t seem to get there with any speed.

Finally the forest thinned and I could see an embankment ahead. There was about a ten foot drop down on the railway tracks that made their way through the cutting which the embankment was part of. I sat on the edge of the embankment and slowly slithered down on the wet grass that lined its wall. I reached the bottom and stood up. All I had to do now was cross the tracks and make my way across the park on the other side and I would be at home.

As soon as I stepped on the first rail with my right foot, it was as if I was frozen. A momentary panic flickered through my system, but I willed my left leg to step forward and follow my right leg. Slowly I managed to make the next step. It was as though I was wading through quicksand. I took another slow motion step and now I was fully between the two rails. My ability to move forward slowed even more. Now I really was panicking. That panic level shot up even higher when I suddenly heard the shrill blast of a train’s whistle. I looked to my right and I could see a headlight starting to sweep around the bend in the tracks about 200 yards from me.

Move. Move you stupid bastard, my mind told me. I surged forward, pulling at my right leg. It slowly lifted and came down on the second rail. Sweat was pouring down my face with the strain that I was making. I looked to my right and the train that was approaching was now 100 yards away. This was ****ing stupid, I thought. I should just be able to step off these tracks easily, but something was holding me back. With mounting panic and fright I struggled to lift my left leg. Slowly it swung forward and came down on the other side of the second rail. I now had only to lift my right foot off the second rail and move forward a couple of feet and the approaching freight train would not strike me. The noise of the train was now extremely loud and another blast on the whistle sounded through the night. I took the chance to look to my right again. The train was only 30 yards away and closing on me fast. I just couldn’t seem to move at all – I was frozen on the second rail and I was going to die.

I turned to face the train as it bore down on me. I prepared myself for the impact of the metal monster on my flimsy body. The train closed in and I screamed in terror. Jordy………

I flung myself to the side and came crashing down on the floor as I fell out of bed. Slowly I sat up and leant back against the side of my bed. My body was covered in sweat. I ran my right hand across my forehead, wiping away some of the film of sweat that covered my face. Gradually I got control of my breathing. The effects of the nightmare were slowly letting go of my nervous system, but the memory of it still remained fresh in my mind. As the train had hit me I had screamed for Jordy. That particular Jordy was Jordy Hofstede, the dead brother of the young lad that I had watched at training today.

I shook my head to clear the last of the effects of the dream. It had been several years since I had been afflicted by that particular nightmare.