PSV hiding in steaming Tel Aviv
Thursday 20 August 2009
General Director Jan Reker takes
a look at Jerusalem, but the squad of PSV limit their
outdoor activities to a one hour stroll down the boulevard
in steaming hot Tel Aviv.
In a city full of contrast PSV
hope to illustrate the difference between a Dutch top
club and a modest club from Israel.
Tonight at 17h30 GMT PSV will have
to lay the foundation for a place in the Europa League
against Bnei Yehuda.
Tel Aviv is a city that never sleeps.
Founded a century ago it is now
home to 400,000 people and even in the middle of the
week night the boulevard is swarming with people.
Bars and restaurants are open
24/7.
A couple of hundred meters down
the road, also on the boards of the Mediterranean, there
is the quarter of Jaffa.
Once the oldest port in the world
it has now been swallowed by the growing tourist attraction.
There on the border between the
old world and the 21st century lies the Bloomfield Stadium.
The players of PSV are not interested
in these contrasts.
In the morning they left the Hilton
Hotel briefly for a stroll at temperatures of 36°C.
After that there was lunch, rest
and stay in the shade.
At the moment that the players
started their walk, 50 miles away General Director Jan
Reker enjoyed the view of the old city of Jerusalem
from Olive Mountain.
Half an hour later he stood at
the wailing wall between orthodox Jews and was even
offered to have his children and grandchildren blessed
for some money.
He kindly refused.
After twelve years in the Champions
League PSV have to settle for financially less interesting
Europa League, but it's no less of an adventure as Jan
Reker had the idea to decorate the board room with a
map showing all the places where PSV have played.
Reker, normally a torrent of words,
fell silent when he visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust
museum just outside Jerusalem.
From that spot to the Bloomfield
Stadium was a giant leap and it's not for nothing that
the players have limited their range to the hotel and
the training pitch.
The only thing PSV-coach Fred Rutten
has studied of Israel are DVD's of opponents Bnei Yehuda
(Sons of Juda).
After the laborers club (Hapoel)
and that of the right wing Zionists (Maccabi) it's the
third club of Tel Aviv, founded in the quarter of Ha
Tikva ('quarter of hope').
It's hot and muggy when PSV train
besides the stadium at 19h30 local time.
In the darkness the Bloomfield
Stadium, with room for 18,700 spectators, looks cozy
against the skyline of Tel Aviv.
The pitch is excellent, the greenest
grass in the desert, according to PSV-scout Klaas van
Baalen, who saw Bnei Yehuda on Saturday.
"When the players hit a ball
wrong it's really their own mistake," Van Baalen
says.
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