With the Eredivisie Vrouwen kicking off tonight I thought why not do a preview of the upcoming campaign given I’m now living there. This season sees the second season of the relaunched top flight women’s league in the Netherlands having previously been part of a joint league with Belgium sides for 3 years. Twente are the current champions having won the league last year and have won it for the past 4 years if you include the 3 years the Dutch and Belgian sides were in a joint league (BeNe league). The only other teams to have won the Eredivisie are ADO Den Haag who won it in 11-12 and AZ Alkmaar who won the league for 3 consecutive years in 2007-08, 08-09 & 09-10, however AZ Alkmaar are no longer active on the women’s team front. For the 2016/17 campaign the league will have eight teams with the addition of Achilles 29’, while like the previous year there will be no relegation. Twente, as mentioned above are the defending champions and judging from how the previous season finished will face competition for the title from Ajax and PSV/FC Eindhoven. I also expect ADO Den Haag to be up there, although I feel they will not be close enough to challenge for the title. Below 4th place I would expect see either Telstar or Heerenveen, the latter who produced Netherlands international Vivianne Miedema, who left the club in 2014 to sign for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. Making up the bottom two will be new side Achilles 29’ and PEC Zwolle, with both hoping to avoid picking up the so called wooden spoon. I fancy Achilles 29’ to edge it. Achilles 29’ Achilles are the newest members of the Eredivisie launched this July and will act as the women’s part of the men’s club who themselves play in the second tier in the Dutch football ladder. The aim of Achilles is to give a pathway to girls from the region to play professionally as well as signing international established players who they can learn from. The club’s marquee signing has to be Dutch international defender Kika Van Es from PSV/FC Eindhoven who will bring plenty of experience to the table. Achilles have also brought in former youth goalkeeper Renate Verhoeven from Liege in Belgium. This season will all be about gelling for the team from Berg en Dal. ADO Den Haag Den Haag are one the oldest teams currently playing in the top flight having launched in 2007 when the league itself launched. After winning the league for their only time back in 2011/12, ADO have since finished around the mid-table position in their last few seasons. Last year the team from the Hague finished 4th behind Twente, Ajax and Eindhoven by 22 and 11 points respectively and finished ahead of Telstar by 14 points. This campaign I would expect Den Haag to achieve at least a 4th place finish and may challenge Eindhoven in 3rd. Dutch U-19 international Lineth Beerensteyn will be the teams main scoring outlet and will hope her goals will lead to a call up to the senior side. Ajax Last season’s runners-up will need a good showing like last year if they are to knock Twente off their perch. ‘De Godendochters’ will be able to take comfort from last season’s defensive record with the team only conceding 11 goals in the league, which is 10 less than champions Twente. However Ajax will have to challenge without last season’s top scorer Eshly Bakker who joined the champions in the summer. Despite the loss, Ajax will still hope to win the title with Chantal De Ridder and Marlous Pieete chipping in with the goals along with new midfield signing Betsy Hassett who has a goal or two in her locker. Heerenveen Throughout their history in the league they have mainly finished bottom or towards the bottom except in the 10/11 season when they achieved a 4th place finish as well as finishing runners-up in the national cup. This season I would expect Heerenveen to finish around the mid-table bottom half area with my belief that the team lacks the fire power to break into the top 4 and a lack of goals along with a weak defence may result in a much lower place finish. The worry is Heerenveen do have a similar defence to last so the trend may continue, although this may work to their advantage given they have built up a solid partnership. Tiny Hoekstra will be the teams main goal threat this year. PSV/FC Eindhoven The joint venture representing Eindhoven finished in 3rd place last season finishing 11 point off the top two and 11 points ahead of Den Haag in 4th. The Eindhoven club will be looking to emulate their goals from last season having scored a total of 57 in Eredivisie (2nd highest) but will need to tighten up their defence, which conceded 14 and 24 goals respectively more than Twente and Ajax. PSV have managed to keep hold of Vanity Lewerissa who netted 11 last season, but if they are to challenge other colleagues will need to chip in with goals as well. PEC Zwolle Zwolle were last season’s bottom team, ending the campaign on 11 points. This seems to be a reoccurring theme for Zwolle which isn’t at all surprising given they have one of the leagues smallest budgets. Since forming in 2010 Zwolle finished their first year bottom following that up with a slight improvement before recording their best place finish so far in 12/13 when they recorded a 10th place finish in the dual-national league with Belgium where 16 teams participated. Zwolle will be keen to avoid another season finishing rock-bottom again and will want to score more goals than the 28 they did last. To help them achieve this they will need to rely on Esmee De Graaf who will be one for the opponents to watch after making her professional debut last season. Telstar The team from Velsen finished 9 points clear of bottom placed Zwolle last season with a total of 20 points. Since former in 2011 the club has had reasonable success achieving a 3rd place finish in 11/12 before comfortable mid-table finishes in the three seasons the club participated in the dual-national league with Belgium. If Telstar are to reach those levels again they will need to tighten up their defence which shipped 79 goals, the worst in the league and score more than 33 goals they managed to muster in 15/16. The players to look out for this season are striker Priscilla De Vos, who scored 16 in their 11/12 season and Dutch international attacking midfielder Babiche Roof who will be instrumental if Telstar are to be successful this season. Twente
Like last season the team from Enschede will be challenging for the title and will be strong favourites to retain it again this time around. The ‘strong women’ as they are nicknamed clinched the league last year on goal difference, finishing ahead of Ajax thanks to their plethora of attacking options with Jill Roord, Ellen Jansen and Renate Jansen getting a total of 50 goals between them. I would expect a similar showing this season but they need to be warry of Ajax in particular.
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