PSV Eindhoven won its 25th Dutch league title on Sunday at the end of a season marked by crises of unprecedented scale which shook its traditional rival, Ajax Amsterdam.
PSV Eindhoven validated their triumph by winning 4-2 against Sparta Rotterdam. The men of Peter Bosz – ex-Lyon coach in 2021-2022 -, who have conceded only one defeat in the Eredivisie this season, only needed one point to be crowned.
With two matches remaining in the competition, they have 87 points, 12 better than their runner-up Feyenoord who still have to play this Sunday evening against PEC Zwolle.
This season has been historic for the Rood-witten (the Reds and Whites) who have conceded only one defeat (against the modest NEC Nijmegen in March), while scoring 107 goals, an average of 3.3 goals per game. They had finished second in the previous three seasons.
With 27 goals and 15 assists, striker Luuk de Jong was one of the great architects of this crowning achievement in the same way as Belgian winger Johan Bakayoko or Frenchman Olivier Boscagli, the Niçois having established himself as a sure bet of the defense of the Boeren (peasants).
At the start of the season, PSV had scored seventeen consecutive victories, equaling the record for the number of victories in a row for the team then lined up by Guus Hiddink in 1987-88.
The Dutch club also came out of the group stage of the Champions League brilliantly (in a tough group with Arsenal, Sevilla and Lens) before being narrowly dismissed in the round of 16 by Borussia Dortmund.
Arriving at the start of the season, Peter Bosz won, at the age of 60, the first national championship title of his coaching career which notably saw him manage Ajax Amsterdam, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen and Lyon.
– Feyenoord and Arne Slot confirm –
Feyenoord also had an exemplary season, conceding only two defeats in the Eredivisie. The Rotterdamois, who constantly offered a shimmering game, may be frustrated to have come up against a euphoric Eindhoven team.
Because after six years of struggling in the shadow of the two other Batavian titans, Feyenoord has indeed confirmed this season its return to the forefront. A year after being crowned champions (a first since 2017), the men led by Arne Slot won the Dutch Cup last week.
His work at Feyenoord has led to Slot being considered as the likely successor to German Jürgen Klopp at the helm of the Liverpool Reds in the Premier League. An agreement between Liverpool and Feyenoord has already been concluded to this effect.
– Unprecedented chaos at Ajax –
Ajax observed this duel between their two historic rivals from afar. The Amsterdam club has experienced a season in hell, shaken by multiple crises, on and off the field.
At the start of the season, the four-time winner of the C1 had signed its longest series of matches without a victory since the professionalization of Dutch football in 1954, to the point of occupying the place of red lantern for several weeks.
On the verge of chaos, Ajax had to manage as best they could the violence of certain supporters (matches even had to be stopped). And if the sporting situation has gradually improved, with the replacement of coach Maurice Steijn by John Van’t Schip – the club is currently 5th, 45 points behind PSV -, it is behind the scenes that the chaos was even more painful with the forced resignation of the highest executives, suspected of serious financial offenses.
This 2023-2024 season on the flat country will therefore have been unusual with, in addition, the relegation of Vitesse Arnhem punished with 18 penalty points following financial problems, after 35 consecutive years in the first division.
