Feyenoord squander last chance to save season
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Feyenoord's misery has increased
a bit tonight. The ailing club were hoping to save the
season by progressing to the last 8 in the KNVB Cup,
but a clinical Heerenveen shattered all hope by beating
the Rotterdammers 0-3 in their own De Kuip Stadium.
With two goals Viktor Elm was the
main man for the Friesians.
All or nothing, death or glory,
next round or burst: all clichés were applicable
to Feyenoord's cup tie against Heerenveen - a team who
beat them 3-1 only last Friday.
Because after the elimination from
the UEFA Cup and the dramatic results in the league,
the Cup was the only opportunity to add some color to
the disastrous season.
Losing would mean a big red cross
over this season.
The fans seemed to realise as well,
because contrary to last Friday tonight the fans stood
behind their team.
Possibly because of that Feyenoord
had a decent start to the match, with small chances
for Van Bronckhorst and Biseswar.
Heerenveen sat back and awaited
their chances to rock the shaky Feyenoord defense.
That chance came in the 37th minute
and it was a hole-in-one.
Breuer sent Viktor Elm down the
channel and the newly arrived Swede did what he did
for his former club Kalmar a
few months ago: give his team a 1-0 lead over Feyenoord
in De Kuip.
The goal left Feyenoord with few
options in the second half and indeed the home team
went looking for a goal even more vehemently.
And it was a small miracle Heerenveen
held on as Feyenoord created one chance after the other,
but great chances were wasted on Georginio Wijnaldum
(an absolute sitter), Bruins and Makaay.
And as the old football wisdom
says Heerenveen of course did score from the first real
opportunity they got in the first half.
Some 15 minutes from the end Pranjic
crossed to Elm who beat Henk Timmer a second time with
a humorless low drive.
That Beerens made it 3-0 towards
the end was of no importance although it kept referee
Vink from adding any time to the 90 minutes and any
more useless pain to Feyenoord's misery.
Feyenoord can now officially call
the season a disaster and their only hope is that they
might get up in time to qualify for the playoffs for
a UEFA Cup ticket.
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