Soccer in the Netherlands

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Football in the Netherlands is considered a national sport. The forerunner of the football association KNVB was founded in 1889.

The Dutch national soccer team , or Nederlands elftal for short (not called "Elftal" as it is often read in Germany) or "Oranje", is a national team in international soccer. Ronald Koeman , who made 78 international matches as a footballer , has been the national coach since February 6, 2018 .

The Netherlands have participated in the European Football Championships nine times since 1976 and won the title in 1988 . They have been represented ten times at the World Cup since 1934 and came second in 1974 , 1978 and 2010 .

The Dutch soccer champion is since the season 1956/57 in the Eredivisie in League mode played.

The football association and its history

Logo of the KNVB

The football association affiliated with FIFA and UEFA is called Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bond (German: Royal Dutch Football Association, abbreviated: KNVB). It is based in Zeist .

When the sports pioneer Pim Mulier from Haarlem, who was also a track and field athlete and long-distance ice skater, established the first association in 1889, it was still a combined football and athletics association. Six years later the football association NVB broke away. In 1929 he was awarded the title Royal.

Similar to Germany at the same time, Dutch football began as a sport for high school students and students. The first football clubs emerged from school teams, such as B. HBS Den Haag, the club of the Hogere Burger School or VV Quick from Haarlem. Other clubs also come from the student milieu, which - as in Germany - can be recognized by the Latin, Greek or English club names (Ajax Amsterdam, Sparta Rotterdam, Concordia Rotterdam, Go Ahead Deventer). It was only later that football became a sport that workers also played, e.g. B. Shipyard workers (Feyenoord Rotterdam) or miners (Limburgia Brunssum, Roda Kerkrade).

In the 1950s the level of play decreased more and more compared to England, Italy and other countries where professional footballers were already active. Dutch stars such as striker Faas Wilkes played abroad. After many discussions, including ethical ones, paid football was introduced in 1954. For a relatively small country like the Netherlands, the move to professional football meant high financial efforts by the individual clubs. Some clubs split up or formed anew to participate in professional football. Therefore, many clubs in the two professional leagues were founded in 1954, while the forerunner clubs continue to exist in the amateur field.

From 1970 onwards, Dutch football reached the generally fairly high level that it still has to this day (with some highs and lows in between).

Indoor soccer or "futsal" was introduced in 1969 and women's soccer in 1971.

The professional clubs

Logo of the Eredivisie

The top division in Dutch football is the Eredivisie (German: Ehrendivision), founded in 1956 , in which 18 teams play. In the second highest division, the Eerste Divisie (German: 1st Division), another 20 teams play (up to 2013: 18 teams). 34 and 38 match days are played. The master of the Eerste Divisie is automatically promoted, the last of the Eredivisie is automatically relegated. The remaining promotion places will be played in several relegation rounds, in which eight other teams from the Eerste Divisie and the 16th and 17th of the Eredivisie participate. The top class has been the third highest football league in the Dutch league system since the 2010/11 season. It forms the link between the two professional leagues as well as the hitherto highest amateur league, the Hoofd class .

The record champions in the Eredivisie are Ajax Amsterdam with 25 titles (most recently in the 2013/14 season ).

The following 18 teams are represented in the Eredivisie in the 2017/18 season: AZ Alkmaar , Heracles Almelo , Ajax Amsterdam , Vitesse Arnheim , NAC Breda , ADO Den Haag , PSV Eindhoven , Twente Enschede , FC Groningen , SC Heerenveen , Roda JC Kerkrade , Excelsior Rotterdam , Feyenoord Rotterdam , Sparta Rotterdam , VVV-Venlo , Willem II Tilburg , FC Utrecht and PEC Zwolle .

The following 20 teams will play in the Eerste Divisie in 2017/18: Almere City FC , Jong AZ Alkmaar , Jong Ajax Amsterdam , FC Den Bosch , Go Ahead Eagles Deventer , BV De Graafschap , FC Dordrecht , FC Eindhoven , Jong PSV Eindhoven , FC Emmen , Helmond Sport , Telstar Ijmuiden , SC Cambuur , MVV Maastricht , NEC Nijmegen , FC Oss , Fortuna Sittard , Jong FC Utrecht , FC Volendam and RKC Waalwijk .

A club could only be relegated from the Eersten Divisie until 2010 by withdrawing to the amateur leagues, for example for financial reasons, or when the association KNVB forced the club to do so. The KNVB could order this if the association could not show a balanced budget and it also had no sponsors who could have covered the deficit. This has been the case, for example, in recent years at HFC Haarlem (2010), RBC Roosendaal (2011) and at SC Veendam and AGOVV Apeldoorn (2013). Rich amateur clubs from the top two leagues could apply to the KNVB for promotion to the Eerste Divisie. This was only rarely granted, namely at the clubs AGOVV Apeldoorn (2002), FC Omniworld (today Almere City FC) (2005) and Achilles '29 (2013). Since then, the bottom of the table has been relegated, unless both finalists of the top class renounce promotion. In addition, from the 2013/14 season, the three youth teams from PSV Eindhoven ( Jong PSV ), Ajax Amsterdam ( Jong Ajax ) and FC Twente Enschede ( Jong FC Twente ) were also allowed to participate in the Eersten Divisie. For the current season, the Enscheder withdrew their team from the league for financial reasons. In the meantime, the second teams of AZ Alkmaar ( Jong AZ Alkmaar ) and FC Utrecht ( Jong FC Utrecht ) also joined the league.

The Dutch cup competition has been held since 1899. The record winner is Ajax Amsterdam.

As in other countries, many clubs have difficulties finding good sponsors and attracting or keeping such good players. In the Netherlands, therefore, young talents from Africa, Asia and South America are increasingly being brought in because they are satisfied with a lower salary. However, this development makes it difficult for the young players from the Netherlands to make their breakthrough into top-class football themselves. It is noticeable that many young talents in the Netherlands come from the lower social classes and from " allochthonous " (German: foreign) population groups. That does a lot to ensure that, especially if these players get Dutch citizenship and then play in the national team, these population groups are better accepted by the “autochthons”, the locals. A good example of this are Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard , who are originally from Suriname .

The amateurs

Before the introduction of paid football, the master of amateurs was also the national champion. There are still two amateur championships in the Netherlands: that of the Sunday amateurs, the bigger one: the A teams play on Sunday afternoon, and that of the Saturday amateurs, which are mostly not on Lord's Day for religious reasons play. The master of Saturday amateurs and Sunday amateurs determine the national master of amateurs in two games. The highest classes of both groups consist of three groups of 14 teams each, making a total of 84 clubs.

One problem in the Netherlands is that amateurs often have to cancel games (Dutch: “afgelast”) because of the often bad weather. Many amateur clubs rent a playground from the local authorities, who have too little money to provide the pitches with new grass every time. That is why many amateur teams have now had artificial turf laid. The KNVB allows the A teams (Dutch: “eerste elftallen”) to do this, provided that the artificial turf has previously passed a suitability test.

Women's soccer

Women's football in the Netherlands has not yet outgrown the amateur stage. Some talents play in Germany and elsewhere as semi-professionals (NL: semi-prof), which means they have a part-time job in addition to football. This roughly corresponds to the situation of men's football in the Netherlands around 1952. The women's national team qualified for the European Championship for the first time in 2009 and advanced to the semi-finals there. When applying to host the EM 2013, they lost to Sweden. The team was able to qualify for a world championship for the first time in 2015. The Dutch women won the title at the 2017 European Championships.

At the 2019 World Cup, the Dutch women's national team came in second behind the USA team.

The top division is the Eredivisie with seven teams. In 2006, SV Saestum became the first Dutch team to reach the quarter-finals of the UEFA Women's Cup .

literature

  • Jurryt van de Vooren: De Bosatlas van het Nederlandse voetbal. Groningen: Noordhoff Uitgevers, 2017, ISBN 978-90-01-12304-8
  • Annemarie Postma: seeds sterk. The secret of Oranje Leeuwinnen. Amsterdam / Antwerp: Uitgeverij Atlas Contact, 2019, ISBN 978-90-450-3813-1
  • Martine Prange, Martijn Oosterbaan (ed.): Vrouwenvoetbal in Nederland. Mirror en katalysator van maatschappelijke verandering. 2017, ISBN 978-90-8687-202-2
  • Matty Verkamman: Oranje toen en nu. 11 volumes. Kats: De Buitenspelers, 2002–2016.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FIFA.com: The FIFA / Coca-Cola World Ranking - News - USA way ahead, Netherlands and Sweden on the up - FIFA.com. Retrieved on May 11, 2020 (German).