Why watch the Eredivisie [era-divi-Z]?
Well, there are a LOT of interesting stories to miss out on. Like a small club named after a communications satellite playing their first Eredivisie season in 50 years—and somehow playing the most entertaining soccer (seriously) that you’ll come across.
Maybe you heard about the complete capitulation that happened a little over a year ago: Ajax [Ah-yahks] Amsterdam lost an all-but-assured title in the final 5 games. Shirts were already being sold by Ajax fan clubs that celebrated the championship-in-waiting. The second half of their season had gone WWWWWWWWDWWW. Until the last 5 games. Which went DLLDW.
The Eredivisie just oozes stories. Drama. And with the number of high-profile names who use the Netherlands as a stepping stone (current Arsenal star Martin Ødegaard, legendary striker Luis Suárez, or this year’s World Cup breakout star, Ismael Saibari), along with the increasing number of Americans who spend time there (e.g. Sergiño Dest, Malik Tillman, Ricardo Pepi), there’s a lot of reason for you, a burgeoning American soccer fan, to follow this league. Oh, and the Eredivisie is one of the most fast-paced and exciting leagues in Europe. Nearly every team plays fluid, attacking soccer—it’s the Dutch way. Because like modern-day-Dutch-soccer-founder-and-deity Johan Cruijff [Yo-hahn Krau-ff] once said: “I’d rather win 5-4 than 1-0.”1
Most of all, it’s fun. Personally, I follow this league because it’s just fun. It’s not the English Premier League, sure, but you also don’t have to listen to the commentator preface the stoppage time announcement with a sponsor.
To that point: I think the Eredivisie is authentic. Other leagues have sold their souls: the PL is essentially an American league at this point. Spain’s La Liga has their “Super Cup” played in Saudi Arabia.
The Dutch will never do that, I can assure you. The motto for the league is “ons voetbal,” or “our soccer.” They finally gave in to having a sponsor last year, which other leagues have been doing for years—and it’s the VriendenLoterij [Vreenden-Low-ter-rye], a national lottery that funds cultural causes in the Netherlands. Safe to say you can contrast that with France’s Ligue 1 recently being called “Ligue 1 Uber Eats”—fortunately for the French, the league has since moved on to a new sponsor, and is now named the (far superior) “Ligue 1 McDonald’s.”
The Eredivisie doesn’t do that.
There is, actually, a pretty good American metaphor for the Eredivisie: college football.
The Eredivisie is essentially to soccer what college football is to football. You’re not watching the best players in the world, but you’re watching an authentic version of the sport—and you are watching players who will be among the best players in the world in 2-3 years. As I’m typing this, I have the Norway-England World Cup game on in the background.2 And who was the most recent substitute for Norway? Former Eredivisie player, and current Premier League player, Jørgen Strand Larsen.
The top, top levels of the game of soccer are rooted in the Netherlands. Just like college football.
And, if you happen to be a Premier League fan, following the Eredivisie gives you a leg up—e.g. you would’ve known about Brian Brobbey before he knocked socks off at Sunderland last year. You would’ve known who Strand Larsen was.3 You would’ve known who Alexander Isak was long before he took the PL by storm. The list goes on.
This blog is going to make following the Eredivisie easier than ever. And that’s not just because consistent American-centric coverage of the league simply doesn’t exist. But because I want to do things differently with this blog: I want to make it accessible to everyone. I want it to be legible to both the seasoned soccer fan and to someone who’s watching this game for the first time. So we’re going to lay things out clearly, we’re going to tell you how to pronounce names and link to further information (American sources when available), and we’re not going to use gatekeeping soccer language that makes you feel like you should know more than you do.
I look forward to proving to you the premise of this post every single week. :-)
Case in point: in this writer’s opinion, the most exciting team to watch last year was the aforementioned communications satellite club, SC Telstar. They were full of players who were only borderline professional, coached by a man who spent his entire 15-year playing career with Telstar. It was a minor miracle that they not only weren’t bottom of the league last year, not only avoided relegation, but ended 14th out of 18 teams, only 3 points away from 11th place. I cannot emphasize enough how mediocre Telstar’s players were compared to the rest of the league. But their coach, Anthony Correia [Corray-ah], is a one-of-a-kind manager. He was rewarded with an offer to become the coach of FC Utrecht [Oot-trekt], a club with far superior resources compared to tiny Telstar (whose likely last-place finish in this coming season will be proof of Correia’s talents). Following Correia’s Utrecht this season is just one of the many storylines that we’ll see unfold in the Eredivisie this year.
This particular paragraph was written earlier this summer, when this blog existed primarily only in my head.
I still remember FC Groningen announcing his arrival with a video about how they were looking for a new striker [“spits” in Dutch], and at the end, the Danish international says “Ik ben de nieuwe spits” [I am the new striker] in broken Dutch.