Bad night for Dutch clubs in UEFA Cup

Thursday 23 October 2008

The exhilaration of the first round was followed by quite a dramatic night for the Dutch clubs in the UEFA Cup group stages.

Four of the five contestants lost their first tonight and only Steve McClaren's FC Twente managed to gain three points.

Especially Feyenoord's 3-0 defeat at the hands of modest French club Nancy was sobering.

It meant the team's fourth defeat in a row and the third game in which Feyenoord did not manage to score.

In the first half Feyenoord seemed to have some chance of getting a result, but after the break the Rotterdammers just crumbled and had to see how Zerka (48'), Feret (54') and Hélder (85') made it 3-0.

Heerenveen had a promising start against AC Milan, but when Inzaghi scored out of the blue Heerenveen's hopes for a shock result faded.

The goal was double harsh as Inzaghi should no longer have been on the field.

Minutes before he netted Milan's first the All Time European Top Scorer slapped Heerenveen defender Jong-A-Pin and should have seen a red card.

Four minutes later Gattuso doubled the score after a great Kaka run and decided the game.

In the second half Heerenveen still seemed willing to get back in the game, but simply lacked the quality to really threaten the Italians.

Inzaghi's second and Pranjic' penalty did change the score but not the verdict: 1-3.

A goal in the first half hour of Romano Denneboom helped FC Twente see off Racing Santander.

The goal was at that stage fully deserved and should have been accompanied by a few more, as Twente completely dominated their Spanish opponents.

After that great first half hour things were more even, but despite the guests being the better team in the second half Twente hung on and got the start they had wished for.

For NEC Nijmegen the grapes were sore away to Dynamo Zagreb.

With a score of 1-1 on the scoreboard in a very entertaining match the team of coach Mario Been seemed to grab the points when Janssen gave them the lead in the 79th minute.

However NEC's party was shot-lived.

Two minutes after Janssen's goal Balaban equalized and three minutes later Vrdoljak even scored the winning goal for the home team.

Ajax went to Villa Park hoping that their positional play would give them the edge over Aston Villa, but despite good intentions they were 1-0 down after only eight minutes.

Vermaelen managed to equalize some 15 minutes later but before the break the home team went ahead again through Gareth Barry.

The lead was fully deserved for the home team who remained the better team in the second half as well.

Only after Vermaelen's goal did Ajax control the game to a certain extend.