Is Zlatan still active, or do we have any other Dutch members?

[Sir Didier Drogba]

I September of this year it is looking likely that I will be moving to Maastricht, Netherlands for at least three years. I don't know much about Dutch football and I need help choosing a football team to support. Once I have made my choice I will need some basic background information and pointers to assist my fandom.

My priorities are:

A) proximity to Maastricht. I want to be able to just go on a Saturday afternoon without any pre planning. For this reason Amsterdam is definitely out.

quality of football team, which considering that is limited in Holland anyway means I may really need to be looking at only top division teams.

C) ease of access - I don't want a team that sells out the stadium, even for when the big opponents come to town, or charges high ticket prices. Like I said, I want to just be able to buy a ticket at the ground on the day.

So, the choices are MVV Maastricht, which is obviously by far the most convenient and easy but are second division. How bad actually are they?

Then there is Roda - they look close enough though I don't know exactly how far and are top division - but do they sell out that small stadium when Ajax comes to town?

And then there is PSV - they don't look too far on the map and are obviously a big team - but how close actually is it and are there ever problems getting tickets and are they expensive?


Or are there any other teams I am missing? Please advise....

 

[yoyo913]

I vote MVV Maastricht for town loyalty purposes.

My reasoning says they won't be that much worse than Roda but the con is you won't see division 1 level quality throughout the games from the opponents that roll in.

PSV would be fun because you could be a fan of a 'big' team. Maybe you can catch some European soccer too.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Yeah the problem with Maastricht is that unless there's a cup tie or something I won't get to see Ajax or PSV or whatever and it will just be teams I don't know - but it looks like Roda could well be relegation candidates anyway and it may be that them and Maastricht switch places after my first year - hence why I need Dutch guidance.

I would feel a little bit funny about supporting psv and they could feasibly come up against Chelsea one day. So far in countries I lived in other than England I supported a top division team but a crap one (see signature) and I think it's a fair compromise.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Absolutely but Arnhein is more than 2 hours away.

If MVV have a promotion chance then following them could be fun....

 

[Back Door Skip]

I vote MVV Maastricht for town loyalty purposes.

My reasoning says they won't be that much worse than Roda but the con is you won't see division 1 level quality throughout the games from the opponents that roll in.

PSV would be fun because you could be a fan of a 'big' team. Maybe you can catch some European soccer too.

PSV also has Mexican players, so that's always a plus.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

It probably has to be Roda so I can go to watch vitesse when they come to town and asses the Chelsea kids....

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Roda have a Mexican and they also have a player called Christian Kum (what the pope ejaculates)

 

[Back Door Skip]

Roda have a Mexican and they also have a player called Christian Kum (what the pope ejaculates)

Yeah, Santi Palacios, but he hasn't played a single game for them because he immediately got loaned to a Jupiler league team.

 

[Arnau]

Just look for the team with the bigger fanbase in your town, no matter in what division is it. Football low divisions are hard drugs.

 

[Pogba4Now]

Just PM Zelatan.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I'm under the impression that PSV is kind of a plastic club, so they might not sell out the stadium often.

BTW, the best option, assuming your passport still lets you move across European borders, is Genk.

 

[Arnau]

PSV is a huge team in Holland, i dont think their supporters are as passionate as Feyenoord but still not a plastic club...

Try to catch a game at Rotterdam, De Kuip seems awesome.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

I'm under the impression that PSV is kind of a plastic club, so they might not sell out the stadium often.

BTW, the best option, assuming your passport still lets you move across European borders, is Genk.

That Genk spot is excellent, apparantly it's only 30 mins by car or 50 by public transport. That would actually be my first choice except it may not be good for Dutch bonding. I'll also be only 2 and a half hours from Dortmund so I will hope to check out a Borussia game.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Also Maastricht to Eindhoven is only 1 hour so I could easily become a PSV fan, but again if I support Roda I can go there for away games

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

I looked at last years attendance figures, feyenord sold out every game (as did Twente, impressively) and Ajax and psv both had some sell outs and never less than 85% attendance but the highest Roda attendance is less than 75% capacity.... Looks like I've found my team

 

[Zlatan]

Hi! Not really active, but still reading here from time to time

Maastricht, nice! What you going to do over there? My girlfriend's family is from just over the Belgian border there, and she studied medicine herself at Maastricht University. So I know that city pretty well, we go there quite often... It's a nice place to live, pretty different from the rest of the country both in landscape and in people.

As far as your question goes: obviously I won't go recommend you support PSV. Also, I think because it's one of the top teams it's more difficult to just casually see a game in the stadium (at least that's how it is here at Ajax mostly). MVV is fun, cute little stadium and a loyal somewhat aging crowd. They did almost go bankrupt a couple of years ago, and they play shitty lower league football. If you want higher level Roda would be better, they're the best team in the region. It's just that they're kind of a grey boring midtable team most of the time. I would go for MVV, just because they play in the same city you're going to live and it still has some of that old school football romantics in them. Most people I know in Maastricht support one of the big three (Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV) as their main team and MVV on the side.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Thanks Zlats, I do like the sound of MVV Maastricht and I like lower league (and cheap) football, however the pull of the top division is strong as I would like to see Ajax, PSV etc and particularly Vitesse. I will check out both I am sure but I need to chose one to be an offical supporter of. I had a look at the Roda website and whilst there is no English it appeared that I could get a season ticket for only 200 euros.

Do you think there is any chance of MVV being promoted in the next three years? That would be amazing, to support then during a promotion campaign and then for survival.

I'll be in maastricht for the same reason as your girlfriend, for study, but I will be doing economics rather than medicine because I am an egoist rather than an altruist

 

[Zlatan]

Thanks Zlats, I do like the sound of MVV Maastricht and I like lower league (and cheap) football, however the pull of the top division is strong as I would like to see Ajax, PSV etc and particularly Vitesse. I will check out both I am sure but I need to chose one to be an offical supporter of. I had a look at the Roda website and whilst there is no English it appeared that I could get a season ticket for only 200 euros.

Do you think there is any chance of MVV being promoted in the next three years? That would be amazing, to support then during a promotion campaign and then for survival.

Well I wouldn't say so... but you never know. The promotional system from Jupiler League to Eredivisie is so weird and confusing that they might still make it to the playoffs and get lucky. The last few years they were midtable.

If you want a team from the top division Roda obviously is the closest. Still I wouldn't say they play very entertaining decent level of football. For that you would have to go for one of the big teams, but they aren't exactly close to where you are going to be so... Depends on how much and how often you'd wanna travel for that. I know a guy who makes the 2,5 hour trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam every two weeks to watch Ajax play. It's all about dedication.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

I can see the Amsterdam ArenA from the window of my train it looks great!

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

So went to my first Eredivise match to see my new favourite team Roda Kerkrade play and this team is an absolute disaster. Two red cards by half time lead to a 0-3 at home stomping against highly mediocre opposition - the PA system announces that the referee should be killed (something I have not experienced before) which unsurprisingly leads him to give more decisions to the away team, though near the end he sent one of them off too for good measure. For second Roda red, a player shouted at the referee for not awarding a corner which earned him a yellow card, he complained about the yellow card and that earned him a second yellow card. You're probably thinking why didnt the captain intervene - he was the captain. It was insane.

Anyway, I like this team

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