Dutch Football - UEFA Cup

"The intellectualisation
of football has
always foundered
on a simple problem-
-the players. Doing
all your most
rewarding thinking
with your feet seems
to dull the philo-
sophical impulse.
Unless, of course,
you are Dutch.
According to legend,
Europeans played
a moronic, muscular
version of the world's
game, until Holland
proclaimed its vision
of total football in the
1974 World Cup,
and enlightenment
dawned."

From:
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football

All Dutch teams have chances of progressing in UEFA Cup

Friday 29 August 2008

The Dutch teams competing in this year's UEFA Cup all have chances of progressing to the next round.

Especially Ajax and SC Heerenveen have a good chance of moving on to the group stages.

Feyenoord, FC Twente and NEC should reckon with more resistance.

For Ajax Amsterdam the task does not seem to difficult.

Marco van Basten's team will have to travel to Serbia for an encounter with unfashionable FK Borac .

Borac last season finished fourth in the Serbian league and beat Rumanian Dacia Chisinau (1-1 and 3-1) and Bulgarian Lokomotiv Sofia (1-0 and 1-1). At the moment they are ranked 7th with 2 points from 2 matches.

Feyenoord Rotterdam must prepare for a double confrontation with Swedish Kalmar FF . The club from Sweden's southeast won the Swedish Cup 3 times.

Their best achievement in the league was a second spot in 1985 and 2007.

At the moment Kalmar are first in the Swedish first division, the Allsvenskan.

In the last round of the qualifications Kalmar did away with Belgian AA Gent (2-1 and 0-4).

Most important player with the Swedes is Viktor Elm, an offensive midfielder who plays for the national team and who will join SC Heerenveen after the Swedish league finishes in December.

His new club have to deal with Portuguese Vitoria Setubal .

Trond Sollied's men were paired with Vitoria Setubal, last year's third of the league.

The Friesians met Setubal in the UEFA Cup two seasons ago.

FC Twente Enschede - eliminated by Arsenal on Wednesday - will fight it out with Stade Rennais .

The French, led by Guy Lacombe host big names such as Sylvain Wiltord and Asamoah Gyan.

Ex-Heerenveen defender Petter Hansson also plays for Rennes.

Rennes reached the UEFA Cup by beating Norwegian Stabaek in the Intertoto Cup to get into the UEFA Cup qualifications.

The dreams of NEC Nijmegen , trained by former Feyenoord and Pisa player Mario Been, will still be alive after they fortunately avoided big names such as Benfica, Everton and Galatasaray and ended up with Rumanian Dynamo Bucharest .

Dynamo are a big club in Rumania.

The team of former Ajax-keeper Bogdan Lobont has 18 league titles to their name, but last year they didn't make it to the second round.

In the 2006/2007 edition they surprisingly reached the third round.

All results:

2008/09 UEFA Cup first round
Team named first at home first (reversals tbc)
1st leg: 18 September
2nd leg: 2 October

AC Milan (ITA) v FC Zürich (SUI)

FC Timisoara (ROU) v FK Partizan (SRB)

Hertha BSC Berlin (GER) v Saint Patrick's Athletic FC (IRL)

FC Baník Ostrava (CZE) v FC Spartak Moskva (RUS)

FC Metalist Kharkiv (UKR) v Besiktas JK (TUR)

Portsmouth FC (ENG) v Vitória SC (POR)

Kayserispor (TUR) v Paris Saint-Germain FC (FRA)