FC Utrecht coach Ron Jans fulminates about the wrong footwear of his players in Velsen and returns Iraqi international Zidane Iqbal to his promises

After the hard-fought 1-1 draw (Can Bozdogan’s equalizer only came in extra time), Jans complained about his players’ footwear. FC Utrecht put on a bad match and all the slides did not help. “I don’t understand that at all,” said a visibly irritated Jans. “We were able to capitalize on so many chances and we didn’t really capitalize on any of them. And when they did have a scoring opportunity, they slipped because they had the wrong studs. That is a huge annoyance, I must say.”

When asked how it is possible for professionals to make a mistake with something as basic as footwear, Jans replied: “You have to ask the players that. I don’t understand that at all. I can’t explain it. We also had it at Servette. And it’s almost always the wingers. Miguel Rodriguez had a very good shooting opportunity, his supporting leg slipped and no shot was made. Adrian Blake had a good chance just before the end, but his supporting leg slipped and there was only a shot. Rodriguez slipped several times. I don’t know what Souffian El Karouani had, but he slipped a few times too. I find it incomprehensible. That is not the reason that we have not created much here, but you could perhaps have scored one or two more times. It’s just a wrong assessment. I realized that the field was quite good, but also boggy. Because it was raining. Then you simply wear longer studs. It’s that simple.”

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Jans responded sharply to the suggestion that the studs could also have been checked in advance. “Please ask those players why they are wearing these studs. I’m not going to check that. That is the responsibility of the players themselves. Rodriguez then said that those shoes don’t fit well. Well, very good.”

Rodriguez expressed guilt over ‘studgate’. “It is part of the competition that you have to choose the best footwear. I guess I didn’t choose the best option. It is normal that the coach was irritated about that. You have to make the best choice of footwear based on the field. I preferred not to change footwear after the warm-up, but it would have been better if I had.”

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Zidane Iqbal returned to Jong FC Utrecht

Besides the footwear, Jans was not happy with the way Zidane Iqbal has behaved recently. The Iraqi international has been returned to Jong FC Utrecht for the time being. “It has to do with the week before he went to Iraq. Then he had a bad training week. Had little dedication. And after the games he was actually not part of the team. He was in the disappointment and we can’t have that. You can have that for one or two days, but not that long. It needs to be reset and will not be taken to Spain.”

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After a poor series, FC Utrecht seemed to have recovered from the leak with good victories over NEC and Ajax and a creditable draw against FC Porto in the Europa League in between, but was unable to continue that trend against last-place Telstar. “We can be very happy with a point. We didn’t show anything in possession of the ball all game. Telstar is a difficult team to play, but we come away very well with a 1-1. We had far too little pace, we couldn’t get past them in one-on-ones. It is such a shame, because we could have taken a nice step with the other results, but we ourselves share in the malaise by not winning here.”